Page 96 of Corrupt Princess

“Hey, that’s my hometown. I take offence to that.”

“It’s no lie, though, is it?”

A wicked grin spreads across Emmie’s face. “Nope. Far from it. And I can say with absolute certainty that you’ve barely experienced just how brain-dead some of them are. You should be thanking your lucky stars that you didn’t have to teach there.”

“You mean none of the students would have screwed me in the library?”

Emmie sprays Stella with one of the potent shots at my words and the two of them fall about laughing like lunatics.

“Would have probably been more like a gang bang.”

“Huh. Maybe I underestimated the amount of fun I might have had there,” I quip.

“It’s the pits of hell. I wouldn’t even send Sloane there.”

“Fuck that bitch,” Stella shouts. “Nothing matters but us enjoying ourselves right now. Everything’s been too fucking stressful recently. We deserve this.”

Unable to argue with her, I quickly down another shot of poison and climb up onto the coffee table.

After all, if you can’t beat them, join them.

“Come on, baby C. Let’s see those moves that bring Daemon to his knees.” Reaching my hand out, I haul her up onto the table with me as the music that’s already bouncing off the walls only gets louder.

“Who the hell is that?” Stella shouts a little while later when a pounding on the front door sounds out as a song comes to an end.

“Sorry, I left my magic glasses at home, so I can’t see through wood,” Emmie quips as Jodie stumbles toward the door.

“Check the peephole,” Calli shouts, the tone of her voice sending a chill through my entire body.

Stella pulls her phone from her bra and turns the volume down when the next song starts up, suddenly looking a lot more sober and alert than she was only a few minutes ago.

“It’s okay,” Jodie calls. “Just a gatecrasher.”

Calli breathes a sigh of relief as I picture Isla joining us.

I’ve only met her a few times, but she seems cool. I mean, anyone who’s managed to break down some of Daemon’s walls must be pretty awesome.

But as Jodie returns, I quickly discover that it isn’t Isla.

“Rhea?” I blurt, finding her standing there looking more than a little excited by what she’s found while still wearing her Knight’s Ridge uniform.

“I thought Daemon sent you home,” Calli says.

“Pfft, as if I was going to go that easily,” Rhea says with a defiant eye roll. “What are we drinking?” she asks hopefully, her gaze landing on the empty shot glasses. “You guys know it’s still the afternoon, right?”

“One,” Calli—the only sober and sensible one of us left—starts, “you’re not drinking anything. You’re fifteen, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Unlikely,” she scoffs. “And two?”

“It’s actually early evening, and we deserve to let go a bit, so stop judging.”

“Who said anything about judging? I want to join. Life has been hella stressful recently.”

All of us stare at her in shock.

“Why are you here?” I ask rather bluntly and rudely.

“Well,” she says, dropping her school bag and kicking off her shoes, “I was hanging out with my cousin at the shopping centre, but I got dumped back here to hang out with Daemon when my father summoned all his minions.”

---