Page 68 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

My spine stiffens for a moment, but I play it off. Did Phoenix tell them about our engagement?

“I don’t know where you got it confused, but I’m happy to clarify this for you.” I say, “What I do with my life has nothing to do with Phoenix.”

“He’ll come for you.” He promises darkly, “And when he does, he’ll kill that guy for touching you.”

A violent shudder rocks my bones at the promise and warning in his words.

“No, he won’t.”

He tilts his head, looking at me curiously. “You have no idea, do you?”

“You’re the one who has no idea. He hates me and he’s promised to keep hating me for all of eternity. He doesn’t get to be possessive of me. Just leave me alone and let me lead my life in peace.”

I throw back the first shot, then the second, and flip him the bird before heading back to where Spencer is sitting, waiting for me.

I let him wrap his arms back around me and drone on and on in my ear about how his band is so awesome, all the while trying to work up the courage to kiss him.

Truth is, I don’t want to.

He’s perfectly attractive and nice, but I feel nothing. My vag has folded back into herself in her desperation to get away from him before he tells me another story about his new guitar, and I can’t pretend to be interested anymore.

“I’ll give you five seconds to take your hands off her before I snap your bones in half one by fucking one.”

The voice seeps into my pores at the same time as the realization that he’s here. I look up and my gaze clashes with Phoenix’s black eyes.

He speaks to Spencer, but his eyes are trained on me. They communicate the world of hurt he intends to inflict on me once he gets me alone.

My reaction to that look shouldn’t be a shiver of anticipation, but it is.

“One.”

Not this again.

“Phoenix.” I warn.

“Two.”

Spencer turns towards him as awareness flares in his gaze.

“I know who you are.”

“Three.”

“What are you talking about? Sixtine and I are getting to know each other.” He says, before moving his arm from where it’s resting on the couch behind me over to my shoulders.

Or at least, he tries to.

Before he can touch me, Phoenix grabs him by both sides of his collar and rips him off of the couch with a snarled “never mind”.

I watch, mouth agape, as he drags a horizontal and screaming Spencer out of the VIP area and towards the emergency exit.

Shockingly, I watch as peoplelet him.

“Maaate,” Rhys groans, managing to rescue his drink before the table is knocked over as Spencer is hauled away like he weighs nothing. “Not in front of all these witnesses.”

Phoenix looks like the Devil himself dragging an unwilling victim towards the underworld, the entirety of his rage and malice directed at this one person.

The emergency door closes behind them and, surrealistically, everyone in the club goes back to what they were doing like nothing ever happened.

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