Page 67 of Wicked Promises (Fallen Royals 3)

“I do trust you.”

My heart skips. “Oh.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.” He smirks, then leans down and steals a kiss from my lips. “Little wolf doesn’t know what to do with trust?”

“Not in the slightest.” I shake my head, backing away from him.

I’ve seen Caleb possessive. Angry. Hostile. Ruthless. But… trusting? Not since we were kids. Not since we were young and innocent.

Look how far we’ve come.

How far we’ve fallen.

Riley waits for me at the end of the hall. She passes me my jacket, and we quickly make our way to her car.

“I’ve been worried about you,” she says.

“Well, you might still be worried when I tell you…”

She starts the car, then turns to me. Heat pours out of the vents. “Spill.”

I fill her in about Matt and his appearance at Eli’s house last night. How I think the boys interrogated him—without success. And then, keeping my attention on my shoes, I tell her my plan.

“You’re shitting me,” she responds.

I grin. My first true smile in how long?

“Nope.”

16

Margo

I slip into the house. Up the stairs, down the hall, pretending I know where I’m going.

His parents are out of town, and my blood is boiling.

Riley dropped me off around the corner. It was easy enough to go under the gate and avoid the glow of the floodlights. People in these kinds of neighborhoods never bother to lock their back doors.

I find his room on the second try. It’s mostly dark, but there’s a glow from his computer monitors in the corner. I flick my flashlight on, not really caring if it wakes him up. I’m ready for a fight.

The rest of his room is neat. No dirty clothes on the floor, a school bag slung over the back of his chair, textbooks stacked on the edge of the desk. And another thing on the desk: something small and familiar.

A mermaid figurine.

I pick it up, unsurprised to find it plugged into his computer. Yanking the cord out, I stuff it in my pocket. And then I turn my attention to the bed and the sleeping figure under a pile of blankets.

I don’t bother kicked off my shoes and step up onto the bed. It dips under my weight, rolling his sleeping form toward me.

One foot on either side of his thighs.

I drop to my knees, landing on him hard. It would be intimate if I gave a fuck about that, but… I don’t.

He comes alive all at once and gasps when I slap my hand over his mouth.

“Don’t move.” I lean over and turn on the light.

Matt squints in the sudden brightness, and I take a moment to register the bruises on his face. Two black eyes. His nose looks like it was broken and reset. And then he realizes who I am, and he struggles.

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