Broken Wings (Dark Legacy #1)

Conversation slowly started up again as we all ate our lunch, and Eddy started telling me all about some party that was being held on Friday night. I nodded absentmindedly as she begged me to go with her, because my attention was firmly glued to the dark and brooding asshole I’d just noticed standing right outside the dining room. He was speaking with someone on his phone, and whatever they were saying he was not liking it. His hand kept running through his hair then clenching into a fist by his side. His jaw was set in a tight scowl as he responded in what seemed to be one word answers. Tall and scary Dylan leaned on the wall opposite with his hands tucked in his pockets, looking like he had all the patience in the world. Suddenly, Beck looked over and locked eyes with me for a long, tense moment. I couldn’t breathe, and I sure as shit couldn’t look away. I was just... frozen.

“Girl, no,” Eddy groaned, snapping her fingers in front of my face and jolting me out of that weird trance I’d slipped into. “Did you hear nothing I said this morning? Beck would chew you up and spit you out in pieces. Trust me on this, girl. Steer well clear. I wish we didn’t even have to eat lunch at this table but rules are rules.” She rolled her eyes, and I shook my head, totally lost. There were rules over where we ate lunch?

“Don’t worry,” I muttered, embarrassed at having been so obvious in my staring. “It’s just curiosity. Like looking at venomous snakes in the zoo, you know? Just because I’m curious doesn’t mean I want to climb into their enclosure.”

Eddy snickered at the analogy, then quickly sobered and stared up at someone behind me. “Hey, Dylan,” she said. “Beck. What do you want?”

A chill ran down my spine and I turned slightly in my seat to find the two menacing creatures hovering far too close for comfort.

“Butterfly,” Beck snapped. “A word.”

His tone got my back up immediately, and I narrowed my eyes. “Was that a request or a statement, oh mighty king of the chess board?”

A shocked hush echoed down the lunch table, and I swallowed. I guessed when Eddy said to steer clear, she hadn’t actually meant I should publicly mock them?

“A statement,” Beck’s voice got low, and that was when I really started to get scared. “Now.”

As tempted as I was to dig my heels in and tell him to go to hell, I was actually curious. Was this something to do with whoever was on the phone? If so, what the shit did it have to do with me?

“You too.” Beck snapped his fingers at Evan, who unceremoniously dumped the redhead into a vacant chair and came to join his friends. “Where’s Jasper?”

Evan grinned, scratching at the attractive stubble on his chin. He wore the scruffy, just rolled out of bed look well. “Gone to comfort Britt after Eddy said some shit.”

Beck’s jaw tightened for a second, then he glared down at me. “Why are you still sitting, Butterfly? Move.”

Blame it on morbid curiosity, because contrary to what I’d told Eddy, I wanted to see inside the snake enclosure. Casually, so I didn’t look too eager, I pushed back my chair and slung my bag over my shoulder.

“Well?” I prompted, popping a hip and giving what I hoped was a seriously sassy glare. “What do you want, Sebastian?” Didn’t matter that I referred to him as Beck in my head. As long as I pissed him off out loud.

Beck’s gaze trailed over me for a moment, lingering on the bare expanse of skin between my skirt and the tops of my socks.

“After you, Butterfly,” he replied, giving me a smug smile and indicating I should walk ahead of him out of the dining hall. It was a stupid power game, and not one I gave a shit to enter into with him so I just shrugged and strutted my stuff out to the hall.

I was still female, and I could feel more than one set of eyes on my ass as I moved, so I made sure to throw just a little extra swagger into my step. Just ’cause. Luck was on my side, because I didn’t stumble once in the stupid heels.

“Well?” I repeated once we were in the empty hallway. “What is so important that you deigned to speak with a mere useless female like me?”

Beck glared at me, Evan looked intrigued, and Dylan... I couldn’t tell if that was a smirk or a sneer.

“You’re to attend a meeting on Friday after school,” Beck announced, folding his thick, muscled arms across his chest. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and I needed to bite my cheek not to check him out.

“Huh?” I blurted when his words sunk into my brain. “What sort of meeting? Where? About what?”

Beck narrowed his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched in what could have been a smile. Hell could have also frozen over.

“Don’t ask questions, spare,” Evan commented in a bored voice. “If Beck says you’re to attend, then you attend. Simple as that.”

Outraged, I glared at the disinterested playboy. “What did you just call me?”

Evan rolled his eyes. “I called you spare. Because you’re the Deboises’ spare successor. You’re Catherine’s dirty little secret that she tried very hard to keep secret, but of course everyone knew she’d gotten herself knocked up a second time.” He pressed closer to me. “Only, you’re supposed to be dead … so how are you here, mere months after Oscar’s death? Seems convenient.”

I bristled at his thinly veiled accusations. Did these assholes seriously think I was some sort of gold-digger? A fake? That I had deliberately sought out the Deboise family and demanded my inheritance? I guessed that meant I was somehow responsible for my parent’s deaths too?

Bile rose in my throat, and I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.

After sucking in a few breaths and making sure I wasn’t about to cry or vomit, I leveled a death stare at the three of them. Mostly Beck, because he was their king. “You can take your demands and your summons and shove them up your ass, Sebastian Roman Beckett. If anything else will fit in there alongside your fat head. I’m no one’s pawn. Not Catherine’s, and certainly not yours.” I spun on my heel, intending to storm off down the hall but a huge hand clamped down on my plastered arm and yanked me off balance.

I stumbled two steps, then caught my balance against Beck’s rock hard chest. That intoxicating scent of his invaded my senses and made my head spin, but he held me so close I couldn’t look up at his face even if I tried.

“You’ll be there, Butterfly, or Eddy will pay for your disobedience.” His words were low and delivered right into my ear. How fucked up was I, that a shiver of arousal ran through me while he was literally threatening my new friend?

Gritting my teeth, I pulled back just enough to glare up at him. “Let. Go. Of. Me.” I demanded, biting each word off in anger.

For a long moment, we remained locked within each other’s hard stare, but it was Beck who broke first, releasing my cracked plaster wrist—made worse by his tight grip.

“Go and see the nurse, Butterfly. That cast looks like it was done at a walk-in clinic.”

“Bite me,” I snapped back. Probably not the most creative insult I’d ever come up with but he set my nerves on edge like no one I’d ever met before. This time when I spun around and stalked away, he didn’t stop me. He also didn’t let me have the last word.

“Make smart choices, Butterfly. Eddy is awfully attached to that mustang.”

My step faltered, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of arguing further. I just kept walking, and feeling those eyes burning into my backside.





8





The next few days passed surprisingly uneventfully. I had gone to see the school nurse; not because Sebastian had told me to, but because the cracked plaster only got worse, and I knew I was only hindering my own recovery by refusing to fix it. As it turned out, she’d been able to give me a black sort of exoskeleton thing that secured with Velcro straps. It instantly eased the pain, and although I hated to admit it, it looked a shit load better than my old plaster cast.

On Wednesday Dante went back to Jersey to take care of some “business.” He told me I appeared to be “handling my shit okay,” and he promised he’d be back soon. He wasn’t wrong either, I was dealing better than I expected. Eddy drove me to and from school every day, and I’d managed to avoid any major arguments or run ins with Beck and his crew. Best of all, I hadn’t seen Debitch at all.

By the time Friday rocked around, I was actually in an okay mood.

Eddy had been bubbling with excitement all day about the party she was dragging me to and had made me promise to sneak out if I had to. Not that it should really be an issue when Catherine was nowhere to be seen.