Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112449 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112449 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Just a minute.
“Yo, guys!” A dude stuck his head out the porch door. “Dante’s about to announce the Ruckus Kings.”
The backyard emptied out, everyone piling inside. Amy and Zara helped me up and tugged me in after them. They were not concerned that I mentally excluded myself from their gang.
As they led me through the house, I took a proper look around. Did Cairo and his friends live here, or did they take over a frat house? Passing by on the street, I noticed the black Greek letters hanging over the doors. Walking through the hall, instinct nudged me toward believing this was their domain.
A regular frat house—going by years of movies and television—was filled with cheap, worn furniture and decorated with vomit stains. This place boasted gleaming hardwood floors and an expensive runner rug to cover them. Fully outfitted gamer chairs tucked between the leather couches. I recalled the kitchen gleamed like it had been torn out and replaced with the high-end finishes. Gram certainly couldn’t afford a fridge with an interactive screen.
It’s not a surprise they have money to throw around. Legend St. James of St. James Whiskey had to be flush.
Our group pushed through the crush of people to get in the living room. The music cut off with a screech that jolted us. We broke free of the crowd in time to see Suspenders Guy, Alfie, disconnect the speaker cords and hooked them into a laptop. He set them on the coffee table before Cairo.
“Here you are, Cairo.”
He waved him off by way of thank you.
Seeing him sitting there, taking up an entire five-person couch while everyone else pushed and huddled around him, it was hard not to picture Cairo the King.
He opted for ripped jeans, but left his shirt wherever he dropped it. Gleaming, sticky trails of honey spiderwebbed his chest, similar to the network of ink covering his body. My feet carried me of their own accord, bringing me closer for a look.
There was a collection of tattoos stamped across his pecs in Sanskrit. Tucked between the V leading down to his impressive length was a variation of the yin-yang symbol remade in the image of snarling black and white wolves—forever at war.
My view was blocked by a new addition to his lap. A drop-dead gorgeous, stepped-out-of-the-pages-of-a-magazine girl straddled him and attacked Cairo’s lips to suck the breath of life from him.
Long, black locks swayed above her lower back tattoo—also something written in Sanskrit. The brief glimpse of her face revealed an upturned nose, full pouty lips, and a dusting of glitter blush on her cheeks. Cairo stuck his hand up her skirt in plain view of us watching.
“You know about Ruckus Royale, right?” Paris asked.
I tore away like I’d be punished for staring. “Yes, but I’ve never joined. Gram practically barricaded the doors when the Royale blew through town. She’d have killed us if we went out on Ruckus night.”
“Sensible woman.”
I nodded. All Gram ever wanted to do was keep us safe, and when our parents died, that’s what she did. Protected us from what existed beneath the shiny image of Bedlam. It was only after she was gone did I see the truth of the hell I lived in.
“Ruckus is fun.” Presley stuck her head between us. “A town-wide booze-fest in the streets. Music, drinking, and of course, the sacrifices. As long as you’re not one of them, you’ll be having fun, and getting some dick. Or pussy,” she added, smacking my ass. “Whatever you’re into.”
My nails pierced my palm. As long as you’re not one of them. A sacrifice.
A bee to honey, my eyes found Cairo. “And your brother is going to be a King this year.”
“That’s what he thinks,” Paris said. “Don’t know why since no one knows who Dante will pick until he announces them.”
Cairo broke away from the girl and snapped to me. I bit off a gasp.
I couldn’t help it. Something in those bright, glinting eyes unsettled me. The most brilliant, beautiful green should invoke images of raindrops clinging to delicate leaves. Fields of rolling grass. A soft, mossy riverbed beneath rushing water. Scenes of life.
Cairo’s held no such things. In his eyes were icy winters that withered the leaves on their branches. Dark, crushing depths where even the sun couldn’t reach. An endless abyss dragging me down, down, down.
He was wrong. Fuck it to hell, there was something inside Cairo Sharpe that was very, very wrong. If his model girlfriend could see it, the last place she’d be was within ten feet of him.
As it was, she was tugging and nipping on his chin, trying to draw him back into the kiss.
“You.” Cairo snapped his fingers at Alfie. “And you, you, and whatever the fuck your name is.” Three more guys were pointed out of the crowd, then his finger turned on us. “Escort my sister and her friends out of here. They’re crashing.”