Page 14 of Ravaged Devotion

“I’m not going.”

“You are.”

“Four hours is too far. What if Ryder—”

Rhys slammed a fist against the top of the table, hard enough to send silverware and plates clattering. A hush fell over the room, the servants by the walls tensing, both Eulalie and Rue dropping their gazes to their laps like the pathetic little cock suckers they both were.

In contrast, Ryker seethed, eyes flashing with the violence he’d so clearly inherited from his father. One hand curled around the steak knife he’d been using to cut his sausage, and Rhys noticed.

His father cleared his throat and smoothed his palm across the polished wooden surface, but he didn’t back down. “Invite friends along. Both of you. I don’t care how many, I’ve already rented the entire resort. Be packed and ready by five am sharp on Saturday, and plan to be gone for a week.”

“You want us to skip classes for an entire week?” Ryker hated him. “I have a match—”

“Oh please. We all know you only play that sport as an excuse to get physical. There will be game hunting at the lodge. You can purge yourself of those violent desires there.”

He almost rolled his eyes. “Is it a resort or a lodge?”

“Avan,” Rhys called to the butler, who quickly made his way over. “Ryker is finished with breakfast. See him to his car or he’ll be late for class.”

Avan gave Ryker an apologetic look while the staff behind him moved forward to collect his mostly untouched plate.

Ryker stood, practically knocking into them in the process. “That’s rich coming from the guy who just told me to skip an entire week so I can go rough it in the mountains with his egotistical work buddies.”

“That is enough!”

He did roll his eyes this time, knowing his father would find a way to make him pay for the slight later. Grabbing his leather backpack, he stormed out, painfully aware of the fact that nobody followed.

Rue had a morning class as well, but did he need to rush to campus?

No.

He hated the lot of them.

Let this whole house burn for all he cared.

Chapter 3:

It was a warm summer day, the sky was bright and blue, the clouds white and puffy. Students laid out blankets in the grass, chatted and studied and laughed.

Rue was miserable.

Not because he was watching groups of them from the fourth-floor window of the science building, or because they were getting their grades for a major project back today and he already knew the professor hated his guts.

No, Rue was feeling anxious and sick to his stomach because of breakfast.

Because of how he’d woken up itchy and covered in release again.

He’d experienced wet dreams in the past, of course, back when he’d been a teenager going through the starts of puberty. But he was twenty-one now, and while the occasional come stain was probably to be expected, he highly doubted it should be happening this frequently.

Or this well timed.

Rue only seemed to have to change the sheets when his body was aware that Ryker was sleeping just down the hall.

“A whole week?” Lenore hummed in thought in the seat directly in front of him. She was twirling a stylus and looking to Bowie, silently asking his thoughts on the matter.

They’d just been told about the retreat and invited along. Rue was prepared to beg them even. The thought of being alone, on a mountain in the middle of a dense forest, with Ryker of all people made Rue want to throw up.

If only things could be like they used to.