Page 150 of Depraved Boys

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my coat and stormed down the treehouse’s wooden staircase. Leopold offered to ‘warm me up,’ but the fury blazing through my veins thawed any cold clinging to my bones. How dare that woman act like a warrior against bullies while conducting her murder plans on the side?

I stomped across the snowy clearing toward Sebastian’s jeep. She did this all for an obsession with a boy who had seduced her as part of a stupid, cruel game.

The boys were already waiting for me. Sebastian, who I wanted to kick in the balls, sat inside, but Prakash stood by the front passenger door, looking at me as though I might explode. Perhaps he also felt a bit awkward for harboring his own secret about Corrine.

Moonlight cast silvery reflections on his glossy, black hair. “Willow—”

“I can’t.” Both palms came up. “Give me a few minutes to process everything.”

He inclined his head and took the front seat. A relieved breath slid from my nostrils. Intellectually, I understood that they were both young when they had hurt their victims, but my feelings about the game were still a bit raw in light of what happened to Ashley.

After we settled in the jeep, Sebastian drove in silence out of the woods and back into the road. His green gaze flickered to the rear-view mirror, but I stared straight ahead, not wanting to meet his eyes.

Leopold threaded his fingers through mine, offering me silent support.

I bit down on my bottom lip. Was I the irrational bitch? Giving my head a tiny shake, I shoved those thoughts away. My ire wasn’t about the pull-a-pig game. Sebastian knew someone was trying to kill me. Knew someone wanted me out of the academy by any means necessary, yet he hadn’t divulged Miss Claymore’s obsession.

“Are you alright?” asked Sebastian.

“I still don’t understand why you waited so long.” My insides cringed at the needy tone in my voice.

After a moment of contemplative silence, Sebastian said, “She isn’t the sort of person who would lash out at an innocent party. Her grievance was with me, not with you.”

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,” said Leopold.

“Thank you, for the rousing poetry,” muttered Prakash. “But Leo does have a point. That game can twist a person’s affection into an obsession.”

My head pounded like a bass drum. A new memory pushed its way out of the recesses of my mind. Prakash was getting drunk and confirming something Cormac had once told me. Corrine had become mad with obsession, but I couldn’t remember what Prakash had said she had done.

Squinting hard, I rubbed my temples. I needed to focus on our murderous deputy head, not a girl who was long dead.

As the jeep drove through the academy’s gates, my insides twisted into several painful knots. Although everything made sense—Miss Claymore’s motives, her ability to move around the academy without being questioned, and her knowledge of my whereabouts on the day of the last attack—the thought of confronting her lined my stomach with dread.

Sebastian parked the jeep in the courtyard. “Don’t let her touch you. Miss Claymore has a man’s strength.”

My throat dried at the thought of the deputy headmistress throwing me like a rag doll against the wall.

Leopold wrinkled his nose. “That’s an understatement. I’d describe her more like a she-rannosaurus. But she’s not without her appeal.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can you be serious for a minute?”

“PC muscles are no laughing matter,” he murmured into my ear.

“What?”

“Pubo. Coccy. Geus,” he whispered the Latin term like it was a prayer. “It’s the muscle that hugs a man’s cock during sex and contracts during orgasm.”

I slid my gaze to his sparkling, blue-green eyes and mumbled, “So?”

“According to Seb, Claymore can milk a man dry with those muscles. It’s like a fist of fury that squeezes so hard, it creates a vacuum that drains out his balls.”

“Leo!” Sebastian hissed.

Prakash tutted and shook his head.

I rolled my eyes. No such thing existed.