Broken Empire A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance - Callie Rose Page 0,82

cold turkey.”

“Yeah, I think I could live with that.”

I rested my head against his shoulder, burying my face in the crook of his neck and inhaling the warm, clean smell of his skin. His arms banded around my waist, holding me close against him, and when the song ended, he dipped me dramatically while the other three boys whooped into the silent gymnasium.

When Finn brought me back up to stand, I turned to look over my shoulder at Cole. He leaned back in a seat by the table with his legs spread, watching me intently, and when I crooked a finger at him, he rose from the chair like an apex predator.

“Hey, what song do you want?” Elijah called after him, picking up Mason’s phone.

“I don’t give a fuck.”

With those words, he tugged me from Finn’s hold and wrapped his arms around me. Finn tilted my head, stealing a kiss before punching Cole good-naturedly on the arm and moving to rejoin the others at the table.

A song started playing, but I realized I didn’t really give a fuck what it was either. Cole’s embrace held me tight, and he buried his face in my hair, enveloping me in his essence.

We didn’t talk.

We barely even moved.

We just held each other as the music played and the other Princes watched.

And somehow, it meant everything.

Chapter 21

Finn had been right about us not having to worry about Adena anymore.

Not just because she was too distracted to come after me, but because she was expelled.

As scandalous as the information that’d come out about the Princes had been, it hadn’t directly impacted the school the same way Adena’s revelations had. Even the fact that Finn’s dad had donated money to the school in exchange for better grades for his son was more easily brushed aside as a misunderstanding than the fact that an underage student had slept with a teacher.

Preston and Sable were still around, but without their ringleader, they seemed a little lost. And the rest of Adena’s followers at school didn’t seem all that sad that she was gone. There wasn’t a lot of loyalty when popularity was bought by favors and fear, something the Princes had learned the hard way when the blonde queen of the school had set out to take them down.

But karma was a bitch, and so was Adena, and at the end of the day, that had left her with very few friends.

I heard through the rumor mill that her parents had managed to enroll her in a smaller, less elite school about an hour away from Roseland—probably desperate to have her graduate from somewhere, anywhere. I was sure money or promises of favors owed had been used as bargaining chips.

But hey, at least it wasn’t sex, right?

The next week of school was almost surreal. I hadn’t realized what an annoyingly larger-than-life presence Adena had been until she was no longer there. But it was good timing, because as satisfying as our plan against her had been, it’d taken time and focus away from schoolwork, and we were heading into the final stretch of classes. There would be no time to make up for missed work later.

The Princes’ constant vigilance over me loosened somewhat, but even though Adena was gone, the boys didn’t back away entirely. We never talked about it, but their rotation of staying at my dorm didn’t end, and I never asked them to stop.

I didn’t want them to.

I liked having them around.

The five of us pulled several late night study sessions throughout the week, joined in the Prentice Hall common room by Leah, Maggie, and Dan. Leah jokingly informed the Princes that, whether they’d wanted to or not, they had officially joined the “losers club”.

There was a time when she would’ve meant that as an insult, and a time they would’ve taken it as one—but now, Finn just laughed and Mason rolled his eyes before his gaze landed on me, a flash of warmth sparking in the depths of his green eyes.

We had two more weeks before finals, and Finn pulled me aside one night to tell me he was currently passing all his classes, and that as long as he didn’t blow it in his last exams, he would graduate on time.

He’d barely gotten the words out before his lips were on mine, kissing me with such breathless abandon that my body responded immediately.

“I owe it all to you, Legs. Thank you so fucking much,” he muttered against my skin as he kissed my