Page 27 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

Royal Crown Academy

Chapter 10

Sixtine, first and second year

“Hey!”

I startle as I come out of the main building and see Max walking up to me. Clearly, he’s been waiting for me.

He’s a fellow second year student at Royal Crown Academy and an acquaintance of mine. We’ve grown closer over the past couple of months as group projects and after school activities have brought us together, and I’d even say we’re friends now.

He’s cute, other girls would even say he’s attractive and that I’m lucky to have caught his attention. Objectively, I can’t disagree with them.

But he doesn’t make my heart sing.

“Hey, what’s up?” I ask, meeting him at the bottom of the steps.

He gives me a look of unguarded affection that makes my breath catch in my throat. I know the look someone gives you when they like you, even if I’m not used to that look being directed at me.

Phoenix has made damn sure of that since the moment he walked back into my life a little over a year ago.

I still remember that day like it was yesterday.

I’d been so excited to finally be at RCA, to walk the same halls that my dad and a number of my ancestors had, and I was even more thrilled to be doing it with Nera.

I’d met her in Hong Kong, and we’d been inseparable since. That friendship had saved me, helping to heal the wounds that Phoenix had left behind when he’d cast me aside.

Being fourteen and sharing a suite with my best friend with no parents and no rules? Saying I was excited was an understatement.

And then, as I walked down the hall to class on my first day, a lethal voice had come from behind me, slithered over my skin and down my spine.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

My reaction to him is catastrophic, the blow of his voice enough to cause a traumatic injury to my brain and heart, and that’s before I’ve even turned and looked at him.

When I do and lay eyes on him for the first time in four years, the first thing that hits me is that the boy is gone.

He’s only fifteen but the person that stands in front of me is more man than child. His hair is longer on top and shorter on the sides and my fingers itch to run through it. To see if it still feels the way I remember it when I used to playfully ruffle his hair while he rested his head on my lap and smirked up at me.

His features are serious and vicious and mean, his gaze trained so intently on my face that he looks like he’s trying to incinerate me with the power of his mind alone.

He’s tall, at least six feet already, and even though he’s fully clothed I can tell that his lean body hides brutal strength and power.

The second thing that hits me is my physical reaction to him. Arousal tears through me at a frightening speed, careless of the fact that I’ve never felt this before. It leaves my senses in shambles. I swallow a gasp at the intensity of my desire, trying to hide the way he affects me as I stand before him.

He’s beautiful and my body wants him even as my brain begs me to protect myself. It’s maddening how quickly I’m ready to forget that the last time he spoke to me he told me he wished I was dead.

“P-Phoenix?” I question, as if I don’t categorically know it’s him.

His gaze blackens even further – something I didn’t know was even possible – and he slams his jaw shut so savagely that I can hear it even over the noise of the crowded hall.

“Tell me, did you forget Astor as quickly as you forgot me?” He asks, taking a step towards me, “Or does knowing he’s rotting in the ground while you’re living your worthless, pathetic existence make it impossible to forget?”

I recoil at his words, shock rendering me momentarily speechless as my stomach sinks in terror.

I never got over him, never got over the way he spoke to me the last time I saw him. I can replay the exact words he spat at me with frightening accuracy. I’m reeling at crossing paths with him again after so many years, the surprise ladening my reaction, and I’m in no way ready to process his anger or answer it.

Part of me thought that I’d never see him again, that I’d moved to the other end of the world and that’s where our paths had diverged for good, never to meet again.

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