Page 44 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

Well, at least that confirms that I’m not already dead.

“This is gonna hurt,” he warns, placing a mouthguard in between my teeth. “Bite on this if you need.”

Great.With a giant piece of rubber in my mouth rendering me mute, I feel this dude slice into my shoulder. I roar around the mouthguard, the pain white-hot, and then I pass the fuck out.

The pain is still there as I slip under a shallow sort of unconsciousness, but it’s slightly dulled. A self-protective coping mechanism the body provides, I suppose. I dream while the bullet is dug out of my body.

I dream of Avery Capulet.

* * *

She was leaning against the back wall of horse stables at the spot where our properties met the first time I saw her smoking. Alone, her dark wavy hair stacked on top of her head in a messy topknot, dressed in cutoff denim shorts and an old Metallica t-shirt. Clothes too plain for a rich girl like her, but they suited her perfectly. Made her look less prissy bitch and more ordinary fifteen-year-old girl. Though, there was nothing ordinary about Avery Capulet. Even dressed in rags, she’d be more beautiful than any girl in Verona, and beyond.

I was standing in my kitchen; or, what used to be a kitchen, when I noticed her. I hadn’t been back to the house in a long time, not in the years since the place had burned down, my brother perishing in the fire before my mother could get him out. Now, I was here to meet a bank assessor, part of the conditions of my trust fund that controlled the property. The single crown in the destroyed Montague crown that had been left unsold. Because the house and its surrounding property, much to the ire of Avery’s father, was mine, and I wasn’t letting it go without a fight. The house itself had been long since condemned; the Town of Verona kept insisting it was a danger that needed to be sold off and razed to the ground.

There was only one way the Capulets were taking the last thing my family had to their name — from my cold, dead hands. And I didn’t intend on dying any time soon.

I was almost eighteen. Almost an adult. And the moment the house left the security of my trust fund and became mine to do with as I saw fit, I knew they’d circle like vultures, looking to dismantle the property and force a sale. To them.

I’d never sell it to them. I’d sooner burn down their house than let them have what was left of mine.

Avery Capulet. I saw her, alright, without the protection of a thick woolen skirt and long-sleeved cotton to cover her up. All the blood in my body rushed to my dick when I saw her like that, one knee bent so her foot rested on the wall. She saw me, too, across the overgrown orchards and waist-high grass that flanked my giant, fire-damaged eyesore that loomed from the earth like an open wound. The bank assessor in my kitchen kept talking away, but I stopped hearing his words. All I saw was Avery Capulet, looking exactly as I’d imagined her dressed in something other than the navy tartan knee-length skirts and pressed white shirts that formed the girls uniform at our school.

She looked like a lamb to a lion like me. And I’ll admit: my mouth watered at the thought of biting into her pale flesh and leaving a mark.

I cut off the bank assessor abruptly, signed the forms he needed to keep my house in trust until the new set of obligations had been fulfilled, and ushered him out of my house as quickly as possible. The moment he exited the rusted gates that led to the street, I made a beeline for the boundary fence that separated the Capulet property from mine. The wall was impressive, except for the fact that there were holes in it, probably cut by Avery and her sister to sneak out without Daddy knowing.

If Avery saw me approaching, she didn't react. She just kept her shiny brown eyes leveled at the empty pool behind my house, the spot where snakes liked to explore and mosquitoes laid their eggs. I pulled a hole in the wire fencing apart wide enough to step through, and then I was right in front of this strange girl I'd once been supposed to marry.

“Those things’ll kill you,” I said, puncturing the silence. Avery just smiled, a secret smile that I would eventually learn was only for me. She took a drag of the cigarette, taking a step closer to the invisible line that ran between us. She tilted her head up, a foot shorter than me, and breathed out a cloud of smoke that made my eyes water. Slender fingers offered me the half-smoked Marlboro with a smirk. “You wanna die with me?”

Her words were a dare. Maybe, even then, they were a premonition of our future. But to my ears, they were just smartass words from a pretty girl’s mouth. A girl I had no business being near, much less trespassing on her property.

I looked at her mouth as she waited for my response, glossy lips in a perfect rosebud shape. I imagined what it might be like to kiss a girl like Avery Capulet, and the thought made my mind go to dark places, to flashes of pink nipples and insistent tongues.

I took the cigarette and put it between my lips, sucking the toxic shit into my lungs. The burn wasn’t entirely unpleasant. That was my first mistake.

I tasted her cherry lipgloss on the stub of the cigarette, and I was a fucking goner.

“Selling?” Avery asked, gesturing to the bank assessor who was still at the front of my property, talking on his cellphone. The edge of my mouth curled up in a smirk.

“I bet your father would like that.”

Avery shrugged, taking another drag of her cigarette. “Of course he would. He has to look at it every day. I’m sure he’d prefer it bulldozed.”

“Mmm,” I replied, raking my eyes up and down her legs. Fuck, she wasn’t that tall, but somehow, her fawn-like legs went forever. I licked my lips again, tasting that cherry gloss, laughing inwardly at the irony.

“What’s so funny?” Avery asked.

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of what old Augie’s going to say when he realizes he can’t buy my house. Ever. Not unless I get married, that is. Until then, that piece of shit is untouchable.”

She tilted her head to the side, looking me up and down the same way I’d appraised her. I thought of what she must see: a piece of Montague trash, in torn-up black jeans, a t-shirt, tattoos peeking out from the bottom of my sleeves.

“Maybe I should marry you,” she said dryly. “If that’s what it’ll take to stop my horses getting spooked by the snakes living in your garden.”

I tipped my head back and laughed. “Should I get down on one knee?” I deadpanned.

I had expected a comeback. What I hadn’t expected was for her to motion with a curled finger for me to lean in to her, so she could whisper something in my ear. My skin got hot in the places where my body brushed against hers, and I caught that smell of her shampoo for the first time, oranges and honey.

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