Page 62 of The Kings
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Eliza, I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I fucked up, lost sight of you for a second and?—“
“Tarquin.” Her voice slices through my rambling, cool and steady as ever. She extends a hand, not to help me up, but in a gesture that tells me she’s heard enough. “Stop. You’re being an idiot.”
I grasp her hand but don’t rise, not yet. Not until I make this right. “You could’ve been hurt because of me. I took my eyes off you.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tarquin.” She crouches now, levelling her gaze with mine. “There’s nothing to forgive. You think I’d be standing here if I didn’t know how to handle myself?”
Her touch is firm on my shoulder. I nod, swallowing the lump of fear in my throat. This woman, fierce and tough as nails, doesn’t need my protection; she never does. But my need to keep her safe, to shield her from the world’s ugliness, claws at me relentlessly.
“We all need to be together to fight whatever this is, and by the looks of it, they’re not just targeting us. It’s everyone.”
I let her pull me to my feet, her strength surprising no one. “It won’t happen again.”
“Doesn’t matter if it does.” She shrugs.
“If it does, one of us will be there anyway,” Raph says, but he doesn’t mean it in a shitty way. I can tell by his tone and the way he gives me a don’t-give-a-fuck shrug. “You didn’t screw up, Tarq. You were targeted because you were next to Eliza. She raced forward without a word, leaving us to catch up. It’s a simple lack of communication. End of story.”
“See,” Eliza says with a big grin. “It’s my fault.”
Raph snorts. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying we need to work on anticipating each other’s moves better.”
“We can do that,” I murmur.
“Totally,” she agrees. “Now, let’s get back to it. Something tells me this day is about to get a whole lot worse.”
“Yeah, but not here,” Oliver says, reappearing like a ghost. “Word is something is going down at the bar across campus.”
“Like what?” I ask, shaking off my guilt and gearing back up as we listen.
“Not entirely sure. There are reports of people getting sick and drunken fights; it’s all a bit messy, as rumours tend to be. I say we go and check it out ourselves.”
“What about campus? These idiots are blaming each other for the shit that’s going down.”
“Split up?” Eliza suggests.
“No, we do not divide and conquer. That is the quickest way to take us out. We are either all here or all there. Take your pick,” Raphael states.
“There,” Eliza says without hesitation. “Shit is going down here, but the staff and security are here if anything seriously dangerous goes down. The bar is a wildcard.”
“Agreed,” James murmurs.
“Let’s go then,” I say and manage to stick close enough to Eliza to piss her off royally; we head towards the off-campus bar, a short walk away.
We’ve barely walked through the doors when Eliza murmurs. “Trouble at the bar.”
I follow her gaze. There’s a guy leaning too close to a girl, his hand on her lower back. She’s trying to squirm away, her discomfort clear as day.
“Son of a bitch,” I growl under my breath. Our world might be dark, but we’ve got our own twisted code, and preying on the unsuspecting isn’t part of it.
“Have my back,” Eliza mutters as if that weren’t already a given. With the grace of a panther, she moves through the crowd unnoticed until she wants to be.
She confronts the guy with a smile that sends a chill into my soul.
I’m ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble because I’ll always be there whether she needs it or not, ready to tear apart anything that dares to touch what’s ours. I won’t fail her again.
“Hands off her, now,” Eliza’s voice slices through the bar noise.
