We all start up our driveway, Mrs. Darling’s pink-clad ass twitching with every step as she marches in front. Curious to see if Devlin’s following, I glance back over my shoulder. I can’t help myself.
He watches us go with cool detachment, as if he’s above it all. Standing alone in the road, his shoulders straight and broad, his head held high, he looks every inch royalty. More than royalty. The sun lights him up like a golden god.
He doesn’t take a single step in our direction, but he doesn’t walk away, either. Something inside me pulls tight when I see him standing there alone. I wonder if under that chiseled stone exterior, he aches to join us. He knows he can’t fraternize with the enemy, though. I remember what it’s like to be on top, to know you can’t join others because it means vacating your throne. If you do that for even a minute, someone else might take it. My brothers are lined up to take Devlin’s right now.
As I tear my eyes from Devlin, I can’t help thinking, I’m more like him than he knows—more than I’ll ever let him know. I know the fear, how it eats you up. It’s lonely at the top, even for an unsmiling, cruel god.
ten
I walk into my room an hour later and nearly scream with shock.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I whisper, shoving the door closed quickly, instinctively. I don’t know why I’m hiding Devlin, or why he’s here, or why I know my brothers can’t see this, except that I don’t want them to go to prison for murder.
“About time,” Devlin says, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of my bed, where he was reclining on the pillows like a king. “I’ve been waiting for an hour.”
“Why are you in my room?” I whisper-shout, gesturing to the door. “My brothers are going to straight murder you.”
He looks less than concerned. “How many pillows does one bed need?” he asks, tossing one of my pillows into the air and catching it. “I mean, even if you want to sleep upright, you’ve got more than enough. What do you use all these for?”
“Give me that,” I hiss, snatching for the lavender silk accent pillow.
He tucks it under his arm and leans over on his elbow, trapping it under him and grinning up at me. “And aren’t you supposedly in the mafia? You should be used to finding strange things in your bed, right? It’s better than a horse’s head.”
“How did you even get in here?” I demand.
“You should really think about locking your window,” he says, gesturing lazily to my window, where the curtains sway gently in the breeze. He removed the screen, leaving the window open onto the balcony. He must have climbed the outside staircase while we were all inside, which is pretty goddamn ballsy of him.
“You need to leave,” I say, my heart hammering in my ears. It takes everything I’ve got not to shrink back against the door. He came into my room and waited an hour for me, maybe went through my things. What kind of psycho does that?
“First, tell me what they’re talking about,” he says.
“Who?”
“Our parents,” he says, as if I should know.
“I don’t know,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Nothing. Boring shit.”
“Like what?” Devlin asks, his eyes hardening.
I sigh. “They’re reminiscing about high school.”
“I thought I told you to keep your dad away from my mom,” he says through clenched teeth. “In fact, keep your whole family away from mine. I don’t know who you think you are coming in here and fucking with us, but if you don’t stop, you’re going to regret it.”
“She’s the one in our house,” I pointed out. “You’re the one who climbed in my window. I thinkyou’rethe family that needs to stay away from ours.”
“Your dad tried this shit before,” Devlin says. “It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Keep him away from us.”
“What are you talking about?”
He stares at me for a long minute, as if he doesn’t believe I don’t know this. His shades are pushed up on top of his head, and suddenly, I wish they weren’t. I don’t want to see his eyes, don’t want to see the way they see right through me, through all my defenses. I’ve never been alone with him, and I suddenly, it feels terribly dangerous.
Devlin’s lips curl into a cruel smirk, and I know for sure that he saw into me.
“Are you afraid of me, Crystalline?” he asks, springing up from the bed and crossing my room in three strides.
“No,” I say, backing up a step.
He fills the space. His presence fills my whole room, sucks up all the air and leaves me breathless. He backs me against the door, his neck arching to look down at me, his fingers curling around my throat in a hold that’s just barely more than a caress, just barely less than a threat.