Chapter 38: Alluring Darkness: Chapter 38

Raina just stands there, watching Shelley as she slowly lowers the knife after drawing it across her throat in a threatening gesture. I’m just about to shoot out of my seat and stalk over there to show Shelley exactly what I do to people who threaten my girl. But before I can, Raina starts towards her table instead. I turn in my seat so that I can see them.

The crowd around us, who had finally gone back to eating, quiets again. Everyone seems to be holding their breaths as Raina walks across the floor and then comes to a halt opposite Shelley. A grin pulsing with challenge spreads across Shelley’s mouth.

“Are you that eager to get your teeth knocked out?” Shelley taunts.

Raina just stands there, her hands in her pockets, and looks back at her with an almost apologetic expression on her face. It makes me frown. Deeply.

“I’m sorry.”

My eyebrows shoot up. As do Shelley’s. And quite a few other people’s too.

Blinking, I stare at Raina. Did she just apologize?

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and lifts her shoulders in an almost bashful shrug. “I overreacted. I shouldn’t have insulted you like that.”

It takes Shelley another couple of seconds to recover. But once she has, she leans back in her seat with a smug, victorious expression on her face. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

Raina leans forward over the table and holds out her hand. “Truce?”

“Truce?” she scoffs. Then the smirk on her lips turns even more vicious. “Oh, you’re worried now, aren’t you? That I really will slit your throat while you sleep.” She shoots a disgusted glance down at Raina’s hand and then jerks her chin. “Get lost.”

Raina stares back at her in silence for another few seconds. Then she slowly pulls her hand back. Turning around, she starts back towards us without another word.

I flex my hand underneath the table.

To be honest, I’m a bit… disappointed.

I didn’t do anything to push Shelley’s hand away from my arm when Raina walked in because I wanted to see what she would do. How she would react.

If I had seen some guy put his hand on Raina’s arm like that, I would have broken the motherfucker’s wrist and every one of his fingers. Raina is mine. And no one touches her but me.

So I had wanted to see what she would do if the roles were reversed. I had kind of hoped that she would be equally territorial. But instead, she… apologized for overreacting?

Confusion and disappointment still swirl around inside me as Raina reaches us. She drops into the empty chair next to Rico instead of the one that Shelley was sitting in. Without a word, she reaches across the table and grabs my tray.

I watch with raised eyebrows as she slides my plate towards her and then promptly starts eating.

All three of my brothers cast me uncertain glances.

“You okay?” I ask.

Around us, the murmur of people talking and the clinking of utensils against plates start back up again.

“Of course,” Raina replies while she continues eating the rice and chicken stew from my plate. She hasn’t looked me in the eye since she returned. “Though I’m a bit confused as to why you were just sitting here like a useless lump of muscle, doing absolutely nothing.”

“I wanted to see what you would do,” I reply truthfully. “I didn’t want her at our table and I didn’t want her hand on my arm, but I didn’t push her off because I wanted to see how you would react.”

Now, she looks up from the plate. I try to decipher the emotions in her intelligent green eyes, but the unreadable mask on her features makes it impossible to know what she’s thinking.

While holding my gaze, she sets down the fork and leans back in her chair. But all she says is, “Huh.”

“I have to admit,” I continue. “I am a little surprised that you apologized to her.”

She says nothing. Only continues watching me with those unreadable eyes. The very air between us feels charged with electricity.

“Help!” The cry splits the air like a gunshot. “Help! She can’t breathe!”

Chairs scrape and clothes rustle as everyone whips towards the sound of the voice. I turn around as well, and my eyes widen as I find Shelley clutching her throat while her face is quickly turning an alarming shade of red.

“We need to get her to medical!” the girl next to Shelley screams.

Two people immediately rush forward to help her lift Shelley up from her chair.

I turn back to Raina and raise my eyebrows.

At last, that unreadable mask cracks and a sly smile blows across her lips.

“This was you,” I say. Half statement, half question.

She nods towards Jace. “Like your brother says, you never know when you might need a good bat. Except…” She lifts her hand and shows us a tiny bottle in her palm before it disappears back into her sleeve. “You never know when you might need a good vial of poison.”

“Ha!” Jace calls, and points at her. “I said that!”

“Yeah, she just said…” Rico begins before heaving a sigh and shaking his head at Jace. “Never mind.”

“You poisoned her?” I say, keeping my eyes on Raina.

With that smirk still playing over her lips, she lifts one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug.

A short distance from us, three people are holding Shelley up and hurrying towards the door.

“How did you even do that without anyone seeing?” Kaden asks.

Raina slides her gaze to him and flashes him a sly smile. “The same way I keep stealing your knives.”

He narrows his eyes at her.

She just grins wider before shrugging again. “I’ve been handling dangerous chemicals since I was ten.” The empty poison bottle appears between her fingers for a second before disappearing again. “I have very steady and very careful fingers.”

“Will she survive?” I ask, nodding towards where Shelley is being hauled across the floor.

“Yes.” Wickedness glitters in Raina’s eyes. “During the next two days, while the poison slowly leaves her body, she’ll just wish she hadn’t.”

An amused breath escapes my lungs, and I slowly shake my head at her. But in my chest, my heart is swelling.

Raina never intended to apologize to Shelley. She never had any plans to back down. Quite the opposite. She went for the kill shot before the war could even start, tricking her enemy into thinking that she had won and then pouring poison into her drink.

The commotion dies down as the small group gets Shelley out the door.

Deafening silence descends on the room instead.

For a few seconds, no one moves.

Then, as one, they all turn to stare straight at Raina.

“You should have waited and poisoned her later instead,” Kaden says in a low voice from my right. His eyes are on Raina as well.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because now, everyone knows that it was you.”

“I know. That was the point.”

We all watch her as she picks up my glass and holds it out in front of her. The entire cafeteria stares at her in silence. A villainous smile curls her lips as she sweeps her gaze over them and raises the glass in a slow salute.

“I wanted them to know that it was me so that they would understand…” She slides her gaze back and locks eyes with me. “That no one touches what belongs to me.”

My heart flips and fire floods my veins.

Fuck, I think I love this girl.