S id’s fingers wrap securely around mine as she leads us through the undulating crush of gyrating bodies, occasionally shooting me a grin over one toned shoulder. My stomach flutters with nervous excitement and illicit thrill at the forbidden indulgences unfolding all around.

Glancing over her bare shoulder, kohl-rimmed eyes glint with impish mirth as Sid tugs me toward the liquor-laden island. As we near the makeshift bar setup, Sid releases my hand and sashays to the array of bottles with a sway to those sinuous hips. She snatches up a plastic cup and grabs blindly for one of the dozens of bottles littering the marble surface, seemingly unconcerned with its contents.

“You a lightweight then, luv?” She tosses the teasing query over the slope of one shoulder as she upends a generous pour of amber liquid into her cup.

Though couched in playful banter, my rusty laugh rasps past my lips with a bitter edge. Drinking has never been high on my list of priorities, a futile indulgence when merely surviving from one day to the next often consumes every scrap of my energy.

Still, what’s a little mindless inebriation between… well, whatever the fuck Sid and I actually are to each other? Friends? Never really had friends. With an imperceptible shrug, I snag my own flimsy vessel and begin perusing the dizzying array of spirits splayed in kaleidoscopic disarray.

My brow furrows as I squint at each unfamiliar label, the decision suddenly daunting for someone whose experience barely scratches the surface of cocktail etiquette. A muffled peal of laughter drags my gaze to Sid who’s idly swirling her murky beverage and watching my mounting indecision with wry amusement.

“Something wrong, pet? Having a crisis trying to select your poison?” she teases, free hand propped against a canted hip as she nods to the glimmering array. “Relax, the rules are simple enough—just make sure you don’t mix light alcohol with dark mixers, or light mixers with dark alcohol. Get those sugar contents crossed and the morning-after punishments could get biblical in scope.”

Barking out a startled laugh, I shoot her a bemused glance as my fingers hover over a squat, clear bottle of what I assume is vodka. “That some ancient Russian proverb? Sounds utterly daft if I’m being honest.”

“Not at all, luv,” Sid chuckles, deftly plucking the vodka from my hand and depositing it back amongst its transparent brethren. “Look it up sometime. There’s actual science behind it—real metabolic and gastrointestinal processes involved in what you put in and how it gets digested. But hey,” she shrugs with an impish wink, “no skin off my back if you want to learn that lesson the hard way and worship the porcelain throne in the morning.”

Scoffing, I roll my eyes and reach for the vodka again only to have my wrist stayed by a warm hand clamping around it with surprising strength. My head whips around, a terse reprimand forming on my lips until I meet the implacable slate-grey regard that pins me more thoroughly than any restraint.

“You’d do better nursing the Glenfiddich,” a rich baritone rumbles, the sound skittering down my nerve endings as his thumb grazes the thin skin along my inner wrist. “Fewer chances of a cruel morning after than that paint-stripper the Russians try passing off as a civilised beverage.”

My pulse thrums an uneven cadence as Arius leans over me to address Sid, the crisp, masculine scent of his cologne flooding my senses in a dizzying wave. Christ, it’s as if the alpha prick radiates some primal aura, disturbing every finely-tuned instinct and rendering me flustered. “Care to introduce me to your charming friend?”

Jerking my wrist free from that featherlight caress, I scowl up through my lashes and snatch up the offending bottle of vodka with a brusque motion, determined to get the liquid into my fucking cup despite their warnings. “No, and whatever the fuck I choose to drink isn’t any of your goddamn business,” I growl, punctuating the sentiment by upending a generous glug of that clear, acrid spirit into my cup.

Rather than bristling at my barbed tone, Arius simply smirks and arches one eloquent brow as he leans in closer—close enough for me to count each individual sooty fringe if I were of a mind to lose myself in those depthless pools. Which I most decidedly am fucking not.

“Merely trying to spare the lady any undue suffering on the morrow,” he rumbles, rich and sinfully indulgent as the finest chocolate. “Though I suspect that defiant fire burning behind those gorgeous eyes means she’s well accustomed to powering through… discomforts most would find unbearable.”

Sid’s lilting giggle rings out as I huff and knock back a quick sip—only to instantly recoil with a strangled cough as the harsh, searing liquid blazes a trail down my gullet. Christ, how do people willingly imbibe this rotgut swill and not dissolve from the inside out?

“Something wrong, dura?ka?” Arius lilts with a lascivious curl of sinful lips as I sputter and gulp down air. My glare could strip varnish as I glower up at that smug, gorgeous visage hovering far too close.

Another throaty giggle erupts from my right, shattering the fraught tension as Sid steps up beside me with her cup raised in a playful toast. “Well if you two lovebirds don’t mind indulging my morbid curiosity, I’m simply dying to know more about tall, dark, and bristling over here.”

Her mischievous gaze darts between us as she offers Arius a wolfish smile that doesn’t quite reach those heavily lined eyes. Something about Sid feels oddly shuttered in that moment, her nonchalant poise slipping a fraction as she sizes up the imposing figure radiating threat from every chiselled angle.

For his part, Arius doesn’t so much as blink as he matches her assessing stare with one of blatant indifference. “Arius Whitlocke,” he intones in a cadence laced with ancient menace. That smouldering timbre drips sin and seduction, a potent aphrodisiac that makes my cunt clench despite the ominous prickling creeping down my nape. Sid doesn’t even attempt to mask her discomfort as she eases half a step back, tightening her hold around my arm.

Sid shifts in my periphery, that shuttered gaze flicking between Arius and I with growing unease. “On second thought, I’ve half a mind to go make sure the pool area is as nice as everybody hyped it up to be,” she interjects, that flirtatious cadence pitching toward forced brightness as she tugs me bodily away from the liquor-strewn island and Arius’ smouldering presence. “Knowing this lot, it could use a bit of supervising before things get out of hand.”

I barely have a chance to contemplate her odd behaviour before Sid is tugging me away from the kitchen, weaving us through the crush of debauchery like a woman possessed. Only once we’ve managed to put some distance between us and that smirking Adonis does she finally slow our rapid retreat.

“Wait, what the fuck was that about?” I hiss once we’re clear of viewing distance from that arrogantly looming spectre. Sid doesn’t break stride, merely shortening her pace until we come to a halt amongst a knot of students milling near the grand foyer.

Exhaling a sharp breath, she glances furtively over one bare shoulder before shifting to face me. “Look, Bri… there’s just some stuff about this place you wouldn’t understand,” she murmurs, teeth worrying that lush lower lip in a nervous gesture that does nothing to quell the electric thrumming of tension in my shoulders. “Just… steer clear of Arius and his cronies whenever possible, yeah? Trust me on that much at least. They’re… basically campus royalty. It… It’s difficult to explain to someone from the outside.”

From the outside? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Scoffing, I throw back a defiant swig of that fiery vodka, grimacing against the searing trail it leaves scorching its way to my stomach. “That some sort of dire warning, then?” I rasp once the spasms wracking my chest have subsided enough for speech. “I’m not exactly surprised by a group of rich tossers lording over the rest of us peasants. I can handle a helluva lot more than Arius’ smug arsehole routine no matter how tailored the suit it’s wrapped in. They’re all the same when you strip them down to basics, Sid.”

Rather than sharing in my derision, Sid simply shakes her head and shoots me a sober look that extinguishes any further flippancy. “That’s not… they’re not just some ordinary pack of privileged wankers, ,” she sighs, absently tracing the curve of her cup with one fingertip. “You need to steer well clear of Arius Whitlocke. The others may be relatively harmless, all things considered, but Whitlocke… You just don’t want to get involved with him. They call him the ‘Duke.’ He comes from an extremely powerful family.”

I snort derisively and roll my eyes at her apparent fear over an overzealous arsehole who gave himself some ridiculous moniker. “The Duke?” I echo with a scoff. “Bit melodramatic, innit? I’m not exactly quaking in my boots over some prick who decided to crown himself king of the wankers, Sid.”

Her grip tightens around my arm with startling intensity as she gives it a firm shake, eyes boring into mine with a severity that immediately douses my flippant tone. “I’m fucking serious, Bri,” she hisses in a tone edged with urgency. “Whitlocke isn’t just some toffee-nosed prick who’s going to rock your world between the sheets then break your heart. He’s legit dangerous—there are things you don’t understand about him and that whole sodding crowd.”

I blink at her vehemence, momentarily taken aback by the raw intensity simmering behind those eyes peering up at me through a thicket of meticulously applied lashes. Sid struck me as unflappable, that easygoing joie de vivre never wavering no matter how raucous the situation devolves. Something about her naked apprehension lances straight through my blasé exterior, instilling a tendril of doubt to unfurl low in my gut.

“Yeah? Like what exactly?” I challenge, arching one brow in a silent prompt for further information even as my gaze skates over the crowd undulating with drunken students. “You saying the Duke has the means to back up all the swagger, then? Or that the rest of his lads are more than just a gaggle of braying public school rejects with more inherited money than sense?”

Sid hesitates, teeth worrying that lush lower lip in a gesture I’m quickly coming to recognise as one of her tells whenever she’s weighing the ramifications of whatever is about to tumble past her lips. I lean in fractionally, curiosity further piqued by the silent debate flickering across her delicate features.

“C’mon, Sid,” I wheedle in a low murmur meant only for her ears, stroking the inside of her forearm in what I hope comes across as a soothing caress. “You can’t just drop vague allusions like that and not expect me to start sniffing for blood. What’s so bloody dangerous about Arius and his chums, exactly? I’m a big girl—you don’t have to treat me with kid-gloves and pander.”

Rather than prompting the reassuring confessional I’d hoped, Sid simply releases a weary sigh and gives her head a minute shake, fingers twisting in discordant patterns against the plastic cup still gripped in the other hand. “You just… You really don’t want to get mixed up with that lot, luv,” she murmurs, eyes falling away before she brings her drink to her lips, seeming to end the conversation there with still no real answers.