RubyWe all turn to look at who just spoke.“Earl?!” Donna practically shrieks. “Why would you invite this hillbilly?”“Donna, I don’t appreciate you treating newcomers like this,” Earl says, striding up to me. He smiles and holds his hand out for me to take. When I take his hand, he pulls me up to my feet easily as though I weigh nothing.“Here,” he says, pulling two invitations out of the inside pocket of his blazer. He hands one to me and one to Nancy, whose face is blushed a deep scarlet red.“Hmph!” Donna mutters, turning on her heel and storming off. Ethan grimaces at me and then follows her like a lost puppy.Earl ignores Donna and Ethan, continuing to smile at me. “Don’t worry about them,” he says. “They’re like this with all of the transfers. Pretty soon they’ll get bored of you and move onto someone else.”“I hope so,” I respond, looking down at the ticket in my hand.“I hope to see both of you at the party tonight.” With a smile, Earl walks away. I can feel the eyes of the
RubyThe weekend passes quickly.Far too quickly, because although it’s sunny and beautiful outside, Atwood won’t let me leave the castle. He has Alice follow my every move, even going so far as to have her stand outside the bathroom whenever I have to pee.It’s humiliating for me, but I can tell that Alice enjoys it, because now she has plenty of time to insult my every move.It feels like every five seconds she’s saying things to me like “Stand up straighter, don’t slouch,” or “We’ll have to work on your table manners, you pig,” or “Your slovenly appearance is no fit for a future princess.” With each snide comment, with each pinch of my belly to exclaim how fat I am, and with each comparison to the stranger named “Luna” I can feel myself beginning to break.I think that Alice wants me to break. She wants me to lose my temper and go on a rampage that will finally get me kicked out of the castle. In a way, I want that to happen so that Tamara and I can just go back to our old life. Bu
RubyAlthough the growing number of comments is horrible and traumatizing, I just can’t bring myself to tear my eyes away from my phone screen. My surroundings fade into the distance, and it feels as though I’m nothing but a floating pair of eyeballs in a void staring at a screen.“Is this really Ruby Jones? The new girl?”“omg, these pics are so slutty!!”“who goes 2 a buffet and steals the food like that?”“LOL, look at her stuffing her face! she’s such a pig”“there’s no way this pariah is an aristocrat. #expelrubyjones”“Hahahah, it’s her third day here and someone already hates her enough to post these! I think that might be a world record.”“should i retweet this? i think i should retweet this. lol #whorethief”I can feel a pounding headache suddenly coming on as the bile rises in my throat. Is no one going to say anything about this slander? It’s nothing but cruelty. I was clearly drugged and taken advantage of, although I don’t remember much more than flashes of dark figures l
RubyStudents watch and whisper as the professor ushers me down the hallway and up the massive staircase leading to the headmaster’s office.“No, please,” I beg, but she won’t listen. I just know that I’m going to be expelled, or worse if what Nancy said about the headmaster was true.The professor climbs the stairway, not caring for the fact that I’m stumbling and tripping behind her. Once we reach the top, she pushes me ahead of her toward a large wooden door at the end of a long corridor.“It wasn’t me!” I cry. “Donna started it!”“You can tell that to the headmaster,” the professor says with a grimace. “See if he’ll believe your lies.”The professor presses a button next to the large door. Inside, I can hear a doorbell chime followed by the sound of a man cursing and crashing about.The headmaster swings the door open.His hair is a bit disheveled and his jacket has been removed to show a white button down and a red vest that looks somewhat comical stretched over his round belly.
AtwoodWatching my mate cry makes it feel as though my heart is being ripped from my chest. I never wanted to hurt her, never wanted to make her cry. I never wanted to make her feel so unheard that she would need to resort to this to get me to listen.The power of the mate bond feels stronger now than ever.“Ruby,” I mutter, stepping toward her and wrapping my arms around her. She feels tiny and fragile. Her body shivers with a mixture of anger and distress, but I only hug her more tightly until she relaxes into my arms.I pick her up now and carry her over to my chair, sitting down with her on my lap. She leans heavily against my shoulder as she continues to sob. I say nothing, simply stroking her hair until she calms.“Just breathe,” I murmur into her ear repeatedly.When Ruby has calmed, she sits up and rubs her red eyes. I reach up with my handkerchief to wipe away the tears and snot from her sobbing.I look into her eyes when I’m done cleaning her face and cup her round little ch
Atwood“Sir?” Kayne asks, puzzled at my request.Wordlessly, I motion for my beta to follow as I make my way toward the garage, which is located on the lower level of the castle. Much to my neurotic mother’s dismay, I’ve collected quite a few vehicles over the years. My father always had a love of foreign sports cars; when he died just before my nineteenth birthday, all of them were passed on to me, and I’ve added even more to that collection since then so that I now have fifteen entirely unique cars.On my twentieth birthday, I bought myself a motorcycle. My mother was furious at this purchase, stating over and over again until she was practically blue in the face that I was going to kill myself on that thing, but I never listened.She wasn’t entirely wrong, however.Not even six months after I bought my motorcycle, I was in an accident. It was all my fault, really. I was going too fast around the winding roads near the castle, when I overshot a tight turn and wound up flying off the
RubyAfter my fight with Donna on Monday, I’m suspended from school for three days. It doesn’t feel much like a punishment, since I would rather be anywhere than inside that school after those photos were posted of me. The only thing that particularly burns about not being in school is that I have to wait to try and talk to Nancy.I wake on Wednesday morning to Alice’s lovely voice.“Rise and shine, princess,” Alice says annoyedly. It seems as though I’m not moving fast enough for her, because she stomps over to my side of the bed and yanks the covers down, then tosses a bundle of plain clothes into my lap: a pair of black jeans and a gray wool cardigan with toggle buttons and a hood.I must look confused, because Alice rolls her eyes and tosses the clothes down onto the bed.“Despite your misbehavior in school and your three-day suspension, the King has decided to take you on a da-” she stops herself mid-sentence, then continues: “an outing.” It’s clear that she meant to call it a da
RubyAt the end of my last class for the day, I run to my locker to get ready. Nancy shows up a few minutes later as I’m hurriedly fixing my hair and primping my uniform.“Wow, got a hot date or something?” she says. She’s wearing her cheer uniform and opens her locker to braid her long red hair in the mirror.“I’m… I’m auditioning for the school play,” I say. I can’t explain why, but I’m both excited and nervous at the same time.Nancy spins around to look at me and bounces excitedly on the balls of her feet, clapping her hands together.“Oh my gosh, really?!” she says, loud enough for the surrounding students to look at us.“Shh,” I mutter, feeling my face flush with embarrassment.“I have to come with you to your audition. Are you going right now?” Nancy says, this time much more quietly.I look at my watch. “It’s in fifteen minutes.”“Okay,” she says, grabbing her bag and slamming her locker shut. “I’ll meet you there. I have to, um, meet with someone really quick.”Smirking, I lo