Page 30 of Gather the Storm

“How was it last night?” Cassie was moving around while she talked, and I recognized the coffee shop — Cassie’s Cuppa — behind her. She was the only twenty-year-old I knew who owned a legit business, and even though her brother Bram had bankrolled it, I knew it was profitable, and that part was all thanks to Cassie.

“Weird,” I said. “They ordered pizza and set up their stuff in the living room. I ate in my room.”

“You can’t avoid them forever,” Cassie said.

“And also, why would you want to?” Sarai asked. She was lying on her bed, probably trying to avoid her parents, who were intent on turning her into a doctor or engineer when all she wanted to do was draw.

Getting them to agree to community college — a stall tactic on her part — had been a heavy lift. Now that we’d finished the two-year program, the pressure was on for her to apply to a four-year university and “get serious about life.”

“It’s just weird,” I said. “I know I can’t avoid them forever, but I need a minute.”

“Understandable,” Cassie said. “Will you be able to juggle the house stuff and the guys with the internship at Cantwell?”

“I think so.” I’d finished my lip gloss and zipped everything back into my makeup bag — I’d need to buy some organizational supplies stat — and headed for the closet. “The internship’s only two days a week, and the extra money will help because I have a feeling the guys are going to eat a lot.”

Sarai grinned suggestively. “Oh, I bet they will.”

“Oh my god, Sarai, stop.” I wasn’t ready to tell her — or anyone — that the thought of fucking one of the Beasts — or all of them — had kept me up half the night, my body in a state of unfamiliar feverish desire.

What a fucking virgin. I was tempted to find some rando to fuck me at the Mill, the bar Cassie, Sarai, and I went to because Morris, the bouncer, let us in with our fake IDs, even though he’d gone to school with Blake and obviously knew how old we were.

The rando wouldn’t be meaningful but at least I could do away with the whole virgin thing. Maybe that would put out the fire that had been burning in my pussy ever since I’d made my offer to Blake’s best friends.

“What are you two up to today?” I asked, opening the closet doors.

I passed over the clothes Jace had bought while Cassie told us about a new hire she was training at the coffee shop. I already knew nothing Jace had picked out would be remotely appropriate for my internship at Cantwell, but when I reached the back of my closet where I’d hung the clothes I’d brought from home, I found it empty.

“What the…?”

“What’s wrong?” Cassie asked.

I looked around, thinking maybe I was losing it and had hung my clothes on another rack, when it dawned on me.

Jace had done this.

I didn’t know when (while I was downstairs getting pizza the night before? when I was taking a shower?), but he’d come into my room and removed all the clothes I’d brought from home.

“That motherfucker.” It came out in a whisper, anger heating my whole body.

“Who’s a motherfucker?” Sarai said. She was sitting up on her bed now, clearly wondering what was going on. “Jace? Wolf? Otis?Who is the motherfucker?”

Clearly Sarai needed more excitement in her life than Blackwell Falls had to offer.

“I have to go,” I said. “I’ll fill you in later.”

I disconnected the call and stared at the clothes hanging in my closet. I had to force myself not to act on the instinct to march downstairs in my robe and demand my clothes back, raise hell for Jace’s invasion of my privacy, not to mention the theft of my clothes.

That would be satisfying but it would be a checkers move, and I needed to play chess. The fact that I’d never been very good at chess — much to my dad’s disappointment — didn’t matter.

I needed to get good at it. And fast.

I took a deep breath, then exhaled as I turned to the clothes lining the closet.

Jace expected me to whine and complain.

To be aprincess.

I would prove him wrong.

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