Broken Empire A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance - Callie Rose Page 0,24

already promising us our first quiz on Friday. I took notes diligently but kept glancing over at Mason as the hour crept by, finding my gaze inexorably drawn to his face. He leaned back in his desk chair, watching Mrs. Rades lecture with a sort of semi-interested detachment, and even though I knew he must feel me staring at him, he kept his attention focused forward.

After class, he grabbed my bag and gave me back my crutches, clearing the way to the door with his indomitable presence.

He walked me toward my next class, which was on the second floor of Hammond Hall. But before we reached the exit door at the west side of Craydon, Elijah caught up to us. He jerked his chin in a nod to Mason, who handed over my backpack as smoothly as if the two of them were in a relay. Before I could say anything, Mason turned around and headed back down the hall.

“Come on.” Elijah’s full lips spread in a smile, and for a brief second, all I could think about was they had felt like pressed against mine—the tiny fires they had sparked all over my body. “We don’t want to be late.”

I narrowed my eyes as he led me out of the building. “Let me guess. You’re taking second period Trigonometry now?”

“Yup.”

He was in my third period class too, and after lunch, Finn walked me to our American Literature class. As we trudged across campus, I prodded him a little more for details about exactly what made it hard to read, hard to process words, and he scrunched his face up and cast his gaze to the clouds as he tried to describe it to me.

He seemed a little more willing to discuss this when it was just the two of us, which didn’t surprise me all that much. The Princes were like brothers—closer than brothers in some ways—but Finn was still a guy, and I got the feeling talking about this hurt his ego.

But it wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t like he was stupid.

After gathering a little more info from him, I let it drop again. I’d do some research on what he’d told me and see if there were any ways I could help him. His dad might consider all of this “made up hippie bullshit”, but maybe the hippies had found some better solutions than just ignoring the problem.

I sat next to him in class, and now that I knew what to look for, I noticed the expression on his face as Mr. Jacobs wrote on the whiteboard. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and I saw the moment he gave up trying. His shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back in his seat, spreading his legs and crossing his arms over his chest as he settled in to listen to the teacher lecture.

Okay. So maybe part of the problem was just a mental block, a certainty that he wouldn’t be able to understand anyway, so there was no point in trying.

That, at least, I could probably help him with.

In gym, I sat on the bleachers in my uniform, scrolling on my phone as a bunch of students played volleyball. I hadn’t even bothered to dress out for this class, since Doctor Garrett had expressly forbidden me from putting weight on my right leg for six weeks.

Mason had transferred into my seventh period Calculus II class, and Cole was in my final class of the day, just like he had been last semester.

I had figured out by mid-morning what was going on, and by the end of the day, as the five of us reconvened on the front steps of Craydon, I was sure of it.

The Princes had rearranged their class schedules to make sure one of them was with me at all times.

Chapter 8

The beginning of spring semester always felt different than the beginning of fall semester. It wasn’t so much a fresh start as a continuation of what had already started, so things tended to move faster and settle in quicker.

As the first week continued, we all fell into a pattern. The Princes would meet at my dorm in the morning and walk me over to Craydon Hall. Then we’d split up to head to our separate classes, coming together again as a group for lunch and at gym. I was almost never alone, and although a part of me found it constricting, a bigger part of me found it comforting. We sat with Leah, Maggie, and