Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy #1) - Rachel Higginson Page 0,118

his world forever. The plastic cover had a slit cut out of the top so you could drop money into it, long enough for coins and wide enough for folded up dollar bills.

I couldn’t do this.

I didn’t want to do this.

I felt my breakfast lurch in my very upset stomach. I lunged for the office door knowing even a second more spent trapped in the same room as that canister was going to send me into another breakdown.

Only this time there would be serious consequences to pay.

I threw the door open without seeing. I mean literally I couldn’t see anything. My mind had slipped into the horrific memories of the past and I was pretty sure I could make a solid plea for temporary insanity at this point.

So when I shoved the door with as much force as I was capable of and met shouting resistance and then found myself tripping, toppling over something on the floor, I was completely taken off guard. The situation was made worse when in the middle of my fall I was drenched with severely hot liquid and landed painfully on my back, soaking wet.

I lay there for several moments sprawled out awkwardly on the hard tile before the clearest, deepest gray eyes I had ever seen hovered over me. His thick brow line and hard edges to his tanned face prove he was male, definitely male. Our gazes locked together and I felt uncomfortably immobilized as the liquid I could now identify as coffee started to cool on my shirt and against my skin.

And then those eyes narrowed on me. My eyes flickered to a face that was completely unreadable, in that I couldn’t identify his expression except that it wasn’t good. Like…. he was mad at me. Like, he was pissed at me.

“Let me up,” I growled, confused by his less than stellar reaction.

“Excuse me?” he asked politely, schooling his expression and realistically sounding polite, like he hadn’t heard me correctly.

“Let me up,” I slowed my speech down, thinking he just hadn’t heard me, probably because he was so disconcerted from staring into my eyes.

I’m not being stuck up here. That’s just usually what happened. I was speaking from experience.

“No problem.” He scooted back from me and I scrambled to my feet. He joined me seconds later with two empty coffee cups in his hand.

We both side-stepped the spilled coffee puddled in the hallway and I thought for a second that I heard him huff an impatient sigh, but I knew that had to be wrong.

The halls were empty now, and we were left to stare each other down in front of the office. I prayed Mrs. Tanner had gone back to hiding in her hole of a break room; otherwise I needed to be concerned with her swooping down at any moment to haul my ass to the principal’s office. If I was lucky she would demand a detention, but more than likely she would be petitioning for a suspension. She would use this or any other thing she could find against me.

Like I assaulted gray eyes with his hot coffee in an attempt to end any promising future he might have. Like this would be related in some way to Sam.

Realizing that could be the case, I looked down at my shirt hoping to have evidence that I was actually the one assaulted. And then hope turned to irritation when I noticed that it was completely ruined, and uncomfortably sticky and cold. Not that it was a designer shirt…. but the tight fitting, scoop neck black long-sleeved tee looked great with my gray bubble skirt and knee high charcoal boots. And the only extra piece of clothing I had with me was my favorite hoodie that I wasn’t supposed to wear.

“What am I going to do now?” I bit out, while mystery man watched me from a few feet away.

“Excuse me?” he asked politely again, only this time I heard the faint tones of aggression and confusion.

Not possible.

“You spilled coffee all over me; I don’t have a change of clothes, what am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?” I asked not at all politely.

“I spilled coffee on you?” he asked slowly, his patience growing thin.

I stopped then, in that moment and lifted my eyes to meet his again. He wasn’t looking at me though, his arms were crossed and he was looking around the hallway as if he couldn’t actually believe what was happening and he needed