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Elijah had always been a little bit of an enigether and looked like he belonged in a suit and tie, but had a messy dor and play guitar like a god, but apparently he hardly ever did it anymore He was quiet and almost withdrawn sometimes, but the ink on his back practically screamed with raw emotion It was almost like he o people trapped inside one body, and I had a feeling that the still waters of his calm, classic features ran very deep

He’d been an asshole to me in the fall, just like the rest of the Princes, but there’d always been a little less bite to his taunts, a little less brutality to his treatment of me Maybe that hy I felt the most comfortable with him out of all the four boys—the safest When they’d dropped the bullying and inductedof the year, Elijah hadn’t had to do such a sharp one-eighty as some of the others had

Cupping the side ofonbreath

“I’m sorry, Talia I never meant for this to happen It’s fucked up”

My gaze was locked on his, drawn in by the tenderness and regret in his hazel irises The boy in front of me was so far removed from the one who used to taunt me and stare me down as I walked by

The boy in front of me cared

“It’s okay, Elijah,” I whispered “It’s not your fault”

He didn’t seeh He just shook his head, his thu to reassure himself that I was real That I was still here, whole and intact

A dozen e his features So under the still waters of his soul, and I could feel it bubbling up inside him

“I’ve never met anyone like you before, Tal,” hewe did, you should hate us all”

“I don’t” I shrugged, becauseentirely fucked up in my own

makeup, but a part of me had been drawn to the Princes even when they’d been cruel to nized them as fellow broken souls “I can’t”

His grip on htly, and he sed hard

Then he leaned in and kissed me

I sucked in a sharp breath at the feel of his lips onof our kiss at the lake house, this was slow and soft, lips just barely brushing, tongues slipping out tentatively to taste each other