Page 14 of Vicious Desire (Fallen Royals 4)

“Eli’s back.”

My whole world screeches to a halt.

Here I was, relieved that Rose Hill felt lighter without Eli Black in it, and he’s been back? What happened to college? What happened to all our talks about escaping this damn town?

It doesn’t matter.

I throw back my shoulders and refuse to let the surprise show on my face. “I don’t know what you want me to do with that.”

He grimaces. “It’s a warning. Be careful, okay?”

My past with Eli is complicated. He was my bully, my friend, my love. He shattered my heart, and I wanted to make sure that bridge could never be crossed again. I burned it to the fucking ground.

“Why are you warning me?”

He’s never liked Eli—it probably has to do with the bully part of the equation—and he’s never had a problem showing that disdain.

“And,” I grab his arm, “how do you even know?”

He scowls. “Because he’s an asshole and let me know he was back. In typical Eli fashion.”

Uh-oh.

“Are you okay?” We round the corner back onto our street. “I mean, he didn’t do anything…”

“He’s just a provoking little shit,” he says under his breath. “I handled it.”

For some reason, that statement worries me more than the fact that my ex-boyfriend is back in town. After all, I managed to avoid him when we were in the same school, even with our best friends dating. Everyone adapted.

Though, that was before.

I don’t know what our after looks like. I avoided him for a year, but it’s only been six months since I put the final nail in our coffin, and even then, he didn’t know until it was too late.

“Riley,” Noah says.

His voice drags me out of my thoughts, and we both grind to a halt on the sidewalk in front of our house.

Noah glances around, and I approach the porch slowly. My eyes are playing tricks on me. They must be.

Yet the closer I get, the more my stomach twists.

My black water bottle sits on the top step. The watercolor Chicago skyline sticker faces us.

I cringe and spin, ready to book it, and Noah catches me with both hands on my arms.

“You said you lost that, right? That’s what we were going to find?”

I meet his gaze. “I dropped it when I fell.”

He nods curtly. “Someone must’ve recognized it. You have regular running buddies, don’t you?”

I shift on my feet. The urge to flee creeps up my spine.

“So it could’ve been one of them. We probably just missed them.” He makes a show of looking up and down the street.

He releases me and grabs the bottle, tossing it to me. It’s weirdly heavy in my hands, and I have another urge: to chuck it into the bushes. I try to latch on to his reasoning, even though he doesn’t know the full story. He wasn’t there.

“It could’ve been Skylar,” I admit. We’re not that close, especially after I abandoned the cheerleading team my sophomore year. She quit soon after and joined the track team.

---