Page 47 of Cruel Academy (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 2)

She tucks a curly lock of hair behind her ear nervously. “Nothing. Just that you show up every week, and it’s obviously important enough to you that you want to keep it secret from the people in your life. If it was just a hobby, I assume you would have told me to fuck off when I tried to blackmail you … but you didn’t.”

“Wanting to keep something private doesn’t mean I’m hiding something.”

“Actually,” she says, eyebrow arching, “that’s exactly what it means.”

“I don’t broadcast it to the world every time I take a shit, but that doesn’t mean I’m hiding something. It just isn’t anyone’s business.” I shrug. “Private.”

Haley wrinkles her nose. “Gross. Fighting is a choice, not a biological requirement. I just wonder what has led you to pick it.”

I tip my head back and sigh. This girl doesn’t know when to keep her nose out of my business.

When I look at her again, she is studying me, her bright blue eyes tracking my every move.

“Just like I wonder why you think you’re entitled to know anything about me.”

“Even without you saying anything, I’ve gathered a lot of information.”

I tip my head to the side and take a slow step towards her. “Like?”

Haley’s plump mouth quirks up on one side in thought. “Well, you’re not nearly as charming as you appear.”

I take another step and press a hand to my chest, face twisted in mock pain. “You wound me.”

“I mean,” she clarifies with a sigh, “that your charm is an act. It’s a way to make people comfortable around you.”

“How do you know it isn’t real?” I ask, still moving towards her, covering the ten-foot distance between us in easy, casual steps.

“Charming people can’t turn it off. You can.” She lowers her head and looks up at me from beneath her brows. “You aren’t at all charming with me.”

“Because I don’t like you.”

“That’s something else I’ve gathered,” she continues, holding up a finger. “You are prideful. Extremely so. You take slights very personally and don’t forgive easily.”

I sway slightly as I walk, giving the appearance that I’m not really thinking about my movements—even though my target is locked in my sights.

“I wouldn’t call you lying about me and then me getting jumped by your biker ex-boyfriend and his friends a ‘slight,’ so much as I would call it a cowardly ambush by pussies who would never dare square up with me like men.”

Haley’s eyes flicker open a bit wider at the venom in my voice.

But she still isn’t ready for what’s coming.

One of her legs is kicked out to the side, her opposite hip popping out with a hand resting on it. She is relaxed and leisurely, even when in the face of a predator.

She clearly didn’t take our first lesson to heart the way she should have.

It’s about to cost her.

“Fair,” she says a bit guiltily. “But if you’re saying—”

Before she can even finish, I take the last step to close the distance.

Then I lunge.

My right foot swipes at the ankle of the leg she has propped out to the side and pulls, forcing her off balance. Haley yelps and leans back on her other leg to save herself, but I grab one of her arms and twist.

Like the move was choreographed, she twirls on one foot, and then her back is against my front, her arm pinned between us.

I wrap my other arm around her middle, trapping her arm at her side, and bring my lips to her ear.

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