Dorian Prinze wasn’t going to break me.
I slammed my locker, then stormed the halls.
I found Dorian at his locker with the rest of the Legacy spawn, laughing with all their women and, in Wells’s case, a guy and a girl. It seemed he was pretty open with his tastes.
He saw me first when I charged up, mentioning something about “Pretty, pretty princess.” Ares shot him a look, and Wells cleared his throat.
“Afternoon, Vapor,” Wells corrected, the latter apparently being my official name, and Dorian barely looked up from his conversation.
A conversation he was having with my brother.
I recognized a Windsor Prep playbook when I saw it. Bru left his own copy around the house enough for me to see.
Currently, he was nose deep in it with the dark prince. I’d heard Dorian was actually the quarterback, the arrogant fuck.
I shoved him. Like legit, lost my mind and shoved Dorian in the middle of the hallway. The colossal man boy barely
moved, a smirk to his ridiculously perfect pouty lips, but all activity in the hallway stopped.
His boys stepped around him immediately. Even Wells who was more or less the laid-back one. He puffed up like I’d actually taken a piece of candy from him this time.
Seeing all this activity obviously blew Bru’s mind. I hadn’t told him about my near assault, so all this was pretty much coming out of left field for him. I had no particular reason not to tell him about everything, but maybe in the back of my mind, I feared if he’d even care. I mean, my brother cared about me. Of course, he’d care but he also had been pretty vocal that I’d been the one bringing all this negative shit into my life.
He believed these guys to be his friends.
Maybe that was me falling on the sword a little bit too. His life hadn’t been ruined by all this shit, and I didn’t want to have to be the killjoy.
It still sucked when my brother growled at me in their defense.
“Sloane. What. The. Fuck?” Bru questioned, but even though I was falling on the sword, I wasn’t not going to stand up for myself. I didn’t care who his little friends were.
I edged around him, sneering right at the dark prince. “This sophomoric shit needs to stop now.”
I admit I was acting braver than I felt in that moment. I’d never been handled this much in school, and Dorian was, well, Dorian. He was all presence, all commanding and beautiful. Where he moved people followed, and I might have found that sexy had I not known about the piece of shit he was.
The one who stomped all over people beneath his designer military boots.
He was the only one who didn’t dress by the school’s code. Even Ares buttoned up and tucked in his shirt by the time first period started. Today, Dorian had on a wool sweater shoved up to his big arms, that chrome Court ring blinging on his hand. His had rubies for the eyes, something I’d never seen on anyone else’s.
Dorian raised a hand, and his boys relaxed. The activity in the hallway also proceeded to move.
God, why do they all listen to this asshole?
Because he was one, completely.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, eyes dancing at me. Without missing a beat, he went right back to talking to Bru. He flipped that playbook right open, even doing a little dramatic dampening of his finger before turning the page.
I admit I didn’t think.
I grabbed him. I literally grabbed his arm, and he must have put up with it because he actually moved his big honking body. I think he found it funny because he started chuckling along the way.
I left a jaw-slacked Bru. Dorian’s buddies even blinked their eyes. Ares growled. No doubt from my audacity. Even still, they all let me go with Dorian, and I didn’t stop dragging their leader until I got him around a corner from all other eyes. I didn’t care about anyone else seeing us, but I wasn’t my brother’s favorite person right now and didn’t want to create a scene.
When I let go, Dorian licked his lips, eyeing me.
“Glad you got that out of your system,” he said. His hands shot out, and then, he was on me. Chest to chest.
Breath to breath.