SWNOVELS Cruel King: Chapter 8
I didn’t start the war, but I’m fighting to the death.
All the canvases are painted in pitch black.
Every single one of them.
My muscles stiffen as I search around for any possible intruder. But there can’t be one, now can it?
RES isn’t the type of school where anyone can come in and pull a stunt like this. Not to mention that I’m the only soul who’s around in the early mornings.
“Just like a funeral, huh?”
My spine snaps upright at the sinister tone right at my back.
The click of the art studio’s door closing fills the space and sticks to the back of my throat.
I whirl around and come face to face with those hypnotic eyes.
Levi King.
Just what I needed on this epic morning.
“You did this?” I throw my arms in the direction of the canvases.
“Who knows?” A smirk lifts his lips the slightest bit.
There’s this air of nonchalance about him. A fuck you to the entire world surrounding him. In full rebel mood, his tousled hair is all over the place, but still has that supermodel look written all over it. There’s no tie in his uniform and he has the cuffs of his shirt rolled over the sleeves of his jacket.
How can someone so gorgeous be the embodiment of the devil?
I start towards the exit. “I’m telling the principal.”
“Sure thing, princess. While you’re at it, tell him you painted my car’s windshield.”
I come to a screeching halt and fold my arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He pushes off the door and it’s like he gained height. He’s become all broad and stiff and…
Threatening. Intimidating.
All humour vanishes from his face as if I was imagining all the smirks and nonchalant behaviour.
It’s scary how much he masters his emotions, what to show and what to hide, when to stalk and when to attack.
Something undecipherable shines in the depth of his eyes and they turn another completely different shade of blue.
Deadly blue.
The type of blue that’s infested with sharks,
I keep my position, refusing to let him affect me. But that doesn’t stop my limbs from screaming at me to step back.
Levi King isn’t someone I want to play games with.
One more year.
If I stay out of trouble and finish this year peacefully, everything will be over.
Any type of conflict will destroy my invisibility game.
Despite my pride, I step back, matching his wide relentless strides. The air ripples with crackling tension that grips me by the gut. With every step forward, my heart hammers against my ribcage. I feel like the stupid little deer who lost her way from the herd and got herself stuck with a hungry, relentless predator.
My shins hit the easel and I yelp. I grit my teeth at the effect I’m letting him have on me.
“Stop!” I thrust both my palms against his chest and push him.
I might as well be pushing a buffalo.
A very toned one with hard ridges and pectorals and the whole thing.
He doesn’t move back. Not even a step. If anything he leans closer into my personal space. So close that my hands are the only thing stopping his chest from crushing against mine. So close that he becomes tenfold more beautiful. So close that I smell cigarette and chocolate cheesecake on his breath.
Wait. Is that on me from this morning’s breakfast? Because if this bully likes cheesecake, too, then I’m retiring from the food.
“What do you want, Levi?”
“It’s King to you.”
“No, thanks. You have a name, why does everyone call you by your last name?”
“You don’t ask the questions, princess. You only answer mine, understood?”
I can’t believe the arrogance of this bastard. But then again, he’s had the school at the palm of his hands for two years, why wouldn’t he think everyone would bow down to him?
“What do you want, your majesty?”
He tilts his head at the sarcastic note and I jut my chin upwards. He looks down at my palms on his chest as if contemplating something.
Before he can get any wild ideas, I remove my hands with a jerk.
Big mistake.
Levi advances into me like the bull from earlier, and I have no choice but to step over the easel and move back. My back hits the wall and a shiver draws down my core.
Why the hell do I keep getting myself into corners with him?
Levi slams his hand on the wall beside my head with his face mere inches from mine. My air supply comes in and out in short bursts. I can’t even breathe properly, afraid that this time my throbbing chest will surely become one with his.
“I told you what I want.” His voice drops to a dangerous, low range. “But what did you do?”
I fold my arms both to stop his chest from grazing mine and to control the hammering of my crazy heartbeat.
My gaze trails in the opposite direction, refusing to meet his eyes. If I do, I have a feeling they’d swallow me whole and never let go.
“I said.” His thumb and forefinger squeeze my chin, forcing me to face him. “What did you do?”
I gulp against the feel of his skin on mine. The calloused, long fingers bring back memories of that night.
Hit-and-run night.
For the first time in months, the memories aren’t gory and gruesome like in my nightmares.
No.
It’s entirely different.
These memories consume me like a case of drugs gone wrong — or maybe it’s gone right.
Goosebumps form on my skin at the memory of how good it felt to be touched by him.
How he elicited those desperate, foreign sensations in parts I thought didn’t exist.
This same devil made me feel like no one did before.
No. That was Ecstasy. Anyone could’ve touched me and it would’ve felt good.
Only now, I’m under no drug influence and I might as well be. Tingles draw down my spine, and I have no way to fight them off.
All I can do is show him that he can’t get through me.
“I told you I’m not meeting you. It’s not my fault you assumed otherwise.”
He raises one perfect, thick eyebrow. “Is that why you painted my car?”
“That was for humiliating me in front of the entire school.”
“That’s nothing compared to what I can do to you. Be a good little princess and I’ll let everything blow over.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to go there.” Something menacing and sadistic shines in his gaze. It’s like he wants me to defy him so he can take sick pleasure in crushing me.
That’s his type, isn’t it? They’re so rich and entitled and bored. So they make it their job to step on anyone in their path to fend off their boredom.
If he steps on me just because he’s bored, I’ll make his life a living hell.
He releases my chin, and I hate how the place his fingers touched feel empty and tingling at the same time.
“I heard you’re not dropping the accident with the police.” His tone turns dispassionate.
“You know about that?”
Aside from Dan and the odd student here and there, I didn’t think my non-fatal accident meant much to RES, especially not to the point that Levi would know about it.
My invisibility game must be getting too weak.
“Drop it,” he says in that infuriating authoritative tone.
“Huh?”
“Stop going to the police station, stop digging your nose around. Drop. It.”
“Are you out of your mind? You want me to let a criminal who left me to die off the hook?”
“You look fine to me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” A potent fire shoots through my veins. “While you were having fun in your stupid summer camps, I spent my days in physical and mental therapy. Bet none of you thought I’ll come back, but I’m here now and I’ll make anyone who made me suffer pay. So don’t you dare stand there and have the audacity to tell me to drop it. That will never happen, King.”
I pant after my outburst. My ears and face are on fire and my entire body is stiff, but I don’t back down from his demonic stare.
It actually feels super good to give him a piece of my mind. Screw him if he thinks he can make me give up on my justice.
Something undecipherable flashes on his face as he steps back with his head tilted in that assessing, unnerving way.
“I’ll play the game. Think carefully because this is the only time I give up the first move. What will make you give up?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, huh?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Tell me, princess, is your sense of justice more important than everything else?”
I lift my chin. “Of course.”
The unnerving silence returns as he measures me from the top of my head to my shoes. It’s not in a sexual way, though. He’s like some hitman assessing which way will kill me faster and with less hassle.
When he meets my eyes again, they’re darker than a few seconds ago.
Black.
Lethal.
“We’ll see about that.”
Dread tightens my stomach. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means…” He taps my nose twice with an easy smile that would’ve made him appear welcoming if I didn’t already know that a devil lurks inside him.
“Break or I’ll do it for you, princess.”