Page 94 of Wild Fury (Fallen Royals 6)

The bad feeling intensifies.

Up the stairs to Lux’s room, and I pause outside the door. It’ll be locked, I reason, and it’ll wake her up. I touch the wood, and it swings open under the lightest touch. The room is empty. I step inside. One of the lamps in the corner was left on, and I hit the switch for the brighter overhead light.

Ruby’s bed is made, the fabric tight and tucked in. Lux’s side is more chaotic, her portfolio laid out on the crumbled comforter. Her pillow is still dented, like she was sleeping… and now she’s not.

Something crunches under my shoe. I hop back, glancing down. I don’t know what I expect—a hair clip or something girly—but it isn’t a phone case. It’s bent, at an angle. The phone itself is gone, but I locate it a moment later, halfway under Lux’s dresser. The screen has been smashed. Thoroughly demolished.

I pick it up carefully and set it on her desk. She wouldn’t have done this. She was fine when she left… okay, maybe less than fine. Maybe more like devastated.

There’s more evidence of a quick evacuation: half her clothes are missing, but the hamper is still full. The sweatshirt she wore to the game, damp to my touch, buried under her shirt and jeans. A fresh towel. Water still dots the shower walls, the smell of her bodywash in my nose.

Missing Lux.

Absent roommate.

The door creaks, and I whirl around. Felicity, Lux’s resident assistant, stands in the doorway. She gapes at me, then at the crushed phone in front of me.

“What the fuck?”

I cross my arms. “I should be asking you the same thing.”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t—”

“Felicity,” I growl, stalking forward.

She’s already in the room, but she tries to scuttle backward. Her back hits the wall beside the door, and I close it. Lock us in. My hand stays on the door, keeping her where she stands. I’m careful not to touch her. I don’t want to touch her, but I will if I have to. My anger is a low flame right now, but what happens next is on her. What she chooses to say.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly.

“I don’t want any trouble,” she says. Still panicked.

I can’t figure out why. I can’t be just me. We’ve barely spoken in the two years I’ve known her. Definitely not enough to leave this much of an impression. So it’s something else—something she’s done.

“Talk,” I order.

She pales, and for a moment, I think she might resist.

“She took photos of me,” she blurts out. “I scrolled through her camera and saw them. It’s an invasion of privacy, you know? Stuff that I don’t want getting out there.”

I wait. There’s more coming. Felicity’s tension is too high for her to be upset about Lux spying on her. Hell, Lux spies on everyone. It’s in her DNA—a troublemaker through and through. It’s not even mildly surprising, given Lux’s past. Stick a camera in her hand and she’s guaranteed to snoop on someone.

She lets out a strangled sigh. “The guy was waiting outside the dorm when we got back from the game.” Her eyes are wide. “He asked if the bag I was holding was Lucy’s, and it was. Her camera bag, she left it at her seat after she bolted onto the field… He wanted to see her, to surprise her. I let him in.”

My ears are hot. I seem to be able to control everything except how red they get. She, a resident assistant, let a stranger into one of her girl’s rooms. A firing offense, most likely. Especially since the phone is evidence that Lux didn’t go by choice.

Or if he gave her a choice, it was a bad one.

Felicity cranes her neck to the side. “I-I left her camera bag on her bed. I was pissed at her. He just walked in and, I don’t know. Dismissed me, really. But the camera is gone now.”

I whip around. She’s right, it’s missing. Just the portfolio on her bed, something I’m sure she wouldn’t have left out on purpose.

Felicity tries to open the door, but I lean more weight into it.

“Describe him,” I say.

“Please,” she whispers. Her gaze drops to her feet. “I can’t lose my job over this. I thought he might’ve been a boyfriend or something. How else would he know her camera bag on sight?”

If he was watching her…

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