CHAPTER 267

**WINTER**

I didn’t notice him at first.

Not the scrape of the chair.

Not the shift of weight across from me.

Not the shadow sliding over my notes like a warning I completely missed.

Not until a voice—low, sleazy, crawling with the kind of smile you feel instead of see—slid right into my ear.

“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be sitting here all alone…”

My pen slipped from my fingers.

It clattered across the page, loud enough to echo in my bones.

My hands trembled—small, traitorous quivers I couldn’t hide—so I pressed them flat to my notebook, trying to pin the shaking down.

I didn’t look up.

I couldn’t.

I stared at the words in my lap until they blurred into black smudges, my heartbeat drowning out everything except the ringing in my ears.

I forced myself to breathe—small, shallow breaths—and flicked my eyes sideways.

The couple who’d been sitting beside me were gone.

Just… gone.

Leaving me alone at a table
with a man whose voice felt like oil running down the back of my neck.

A cold, crawling sensation wrapped around my spine.

What was wrong with me?

How had I not noticed him walk up?

How had I not noticed him sit down?

I wasn’t careless.

I wasn’t oblivious.

I was careful.

I was.

Situational awareness was basically survival 101 for women.

I always checked behind me in parking lots.

Always made sure no one lingered by my car.

Keys ready, eyes alert, bag zipped.

No stupid mistakes.

But here?

Now?

I hadn’t noticed anything.

The realisation hollowed out my stomach.

Against every instinct screaming 'Don’t move,' I peeked up—barely, just enough to catch fragments.

A beat-up black hoodie hung loose on his frame, sleeves bunched thick around his wrists, the zipper half-down like he’d been too lazy (or too confident) to finish pulling it closed.

Fingers tapping too close to my side of the table.

Not his face.

I didn’t want to see his face.

“Hey,” he murmured, leaning forward, cologne thick and too sharp. 

“Why don’t you come sit somewhere quieter with me? I could… buy you whatever you want...”

“Why don’t you come sit with me somewhere… quieter?” he murmured, voice sliding under my skin like something oily and wrong.

His tone dipped lower.

I didn’t want to know what "quieter" meant.

My stomach twisted so violently I almost gagged.

Where was Zion?

Why wasn’t he back yet?

I shut my book too quietly, too carefully. 

My fingers interlaced to hide the shaking. It didn’t help.

What if it was Him?

What if he followed me here?

What if he’d been watching?

What if this—me alone, him close—was what he’d been waiting for?

My breath stuttered.

Then—

A shadow fell over the table.

Bigger.

Darker.

Wrong in a way that made the tiny hairs on my arms stand up.

I looked up—slowly, like my body already knew who it belonged to before my eyes confirmed it.

Zion.

He didn’t walk in like some boyfriend casually returning from a phone call.

No.

He looked like a hunter who’d finally found what he’d been tracking.
Like he’d stepped out of a storm and brought the thunder with him.

Every line of him was sharp, coiled, ready.
Eyes locked not on me—
but on the guy sitting in front of me,
like he’d already decided what part of him to break first.

Storm-grey irises turned flat, lethal, stripped of anything human.

The kind of stare that made grown men piss themselves in back alleys and never speak of it again.

The temperature in the library dropped five degrees.

Conversations died. 

Heads turned, then snapped back down. Phones lowered. 

Even the girl three tables over stopped chewing her pen.

No one breathed loudly.

No one dared.

Relief flooded me so hard my vision blurred. 

The stranger didn’t see him yet. 

He was still leaning in, lips curled in that greasy little smile, voice sliding lower, filthier.

“There’s a café downstairs,” he murmured. 

“I’ll buy you whatever you want. Coffee… dessert… something sweet on your tongue.  Something you can lick off your fingers. Or…"

He didn’t get to finish.

“Or,” Zion said, the single word rolling out like the safety clicking off a loaded gun, 

“I drag you out back right now, put you on your knees, and let you pick which bones I shatter first.”

The library went corpse-quiet.

Zion didn’t raise his voice. 

He dropped it. 

Low, intimate, the kind of tone you use when you’re already picturing the blood.

“I’ll start with the ribs,” he continued, calm as confession. 

“One by one. Slow enough you feel every snap. Then your jaw, so the only sound you ever make again is a wet fucking gurgle when you try to scream.”

Zion bent at the waist, unhurried.

One hand settled on the back of the stranger’s chair (casual, almost polite) until the wood creaked under the pressure of his grip.

He brought his mouth to the shell of the man’s ear, close enough that every syllable scraped like a razor.

“Either way,” he breathed, voice barely louder than a heartbeat, 

“You leave here on your belly, dragging what’s left of your face across the floor. And every breath you steal after tonight will rattle through broken teeth and taste like the exact moment you decided she was yours to speak to.”

The stranger went rigid.

Like someone had hit pause on his entire nervous system.

Slowly—too slowly—he turned.

Zion stood right behind him, close enough that the man had to crane his neck.

The hand that had been splintering the chair back a heartbeat ago now slid into his pocket, lazy, almost bored.

The other hanging at his side, fingers flexing once… twice… like he was already deciding what part of this man he wanted to break first.

The man swallowed so loudly I heard it.

His shoulders jerked—barely—but enough to show the panic slicing through him.

Then his eyes lifted fully and—

Recognition hit.

Hard.

His whole expression cracked.

“You—” he croaked, shrinking back without meaning to. 

“You’re… Royal.”

His voice dropped to a terrified whisper.

“Zion R-Royal…”

The steadiness he’d carried—the sleazy bravado, the smirk, the confidence—vanished.

Instantly.

Like someone had ripped it out of him.

His eyes blew wide, darting from Zion’s face to the way Zion’s fingers flexed—slow, deliberate, promising violence.

Zion wasn’t just known—

He owned the school.

Everyone on campus fits into one of two categories:
terrified of him…
or obsessed with him.

There was no middle ground.

No in-between.

No one was neutral when it came to Zion Royal.

And his crew—the Royals—

Four silhouettes that moved like extensions of his will.

Together, they weren’t a clique.

They were a warning label written in bruises and whispered rumours.

Nobody challenged.

Nobody even accidentally bumped into them without apologising, like their life depended on it.

He didn’t need a crown. 

Didn’t need a title. 

Didn’t need to raise his voice.

He didn’t need to prove a damn thing.

He existed…and the world rearranged itself around him.

His silence said more than threats ever could.

And right now?

The man standing in front of me finally understood—too late—
exactly which kind of monster he’d just stumbled into.

Exactly which nightmare he’d invited by sitting at my table.

“I—I didn’t know she was with you,” the man blurted, stumbling over the words. 

“I swear, man, I swear. I wasn’t—I didn’t mean— I didn’t know—”

Zion didn’t blink.

The stranger’s voice cracked. 

“I’ll— I’ll be leaving.”

He tried stepping away, but Zion shifted just enough—one slow step—that the guy froze again.

Didn’t even realise I was holding my breath until the guy tried to edge past him.

“Leaving?” Zion echoed, tone flat. 

“You think you’re done?”

My lungs seized.

The guy was practically pissing himself now, voice cracking like a twelve-year-old’s. 

“Please, man—I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know, I never would’ve—”

Zion’s jaw did that thing—one hard flex, the muscle jumping under the skin like it was chewing glass.

Then he lifted his hands, slow, lazy almost, palms up like he was just stretching after a nap.

That was all.

No lunge. No grab. Nothing.

But the dude still flinched so hard his chair screeched back two inches. Arms shot up in front of his face, wrists loose, fingers shaking like leaves in a storm.

“Fuck..Don't hit me man—I-I didn’t mean anything by it—

Please. I’m sorry, man. I’m going. I swear I’m going.”

Zion moved—one step, fluid and lethal—and it was like the air shifted with him. 

Suddenly the aisle didn’t exist. 

Just six-foot-three of don’t-fucking-move blocking the only way out.

I felt my stomach twist. 

God. 

He was in that mode again.

And he looked fucking sexy..

The stranger’s mouth opened, closed. 

A wet, panicked sound escaped him.

“Why her?” he asked, voice low. 

Too calm. 

Too curious. 

The kind of tone that meant something very, very bad was coming. 

“Hundreds of tables in here. Why’d you pick this one?”

The guy’s throat bobbed. 

“I—I wasn’t—I didn’t—”

“Why my girl?” Zion pressed, softer now. 

“You see something you liked? Thought you’d take a taste?”

My pulse stuttered. 

My girl. 

He said it like a claim, like a promise, like a warning. 

And God help me—my body reacted before my brain could argue with it.

“Bro, I’m not here for trouble, I swear to God—”

Zion’s gaze dropped to the guy’s left forearm. 

Slow. 

Deliberate. 

Predatory. 

Zion tilted his head.

“Take off your jacket.”

The words landed like a blade laid on a table—flat, cold, final.

The guy blinked, sweat beading at his hairline. 

“What? No—look, man, I didn’t know she was with anyone. She’s just… she’s gorgeous, okay? Anyone would—”

I stiffened. 

Heat prickled at my neck. 

I didn’t like that.

Zion didn’t like it either.

He didn’t move. 

Didn’t speak. 

Just stared at the guy like he was peeling back layers of skin with his eyes, looking for the rot underneath.

The silence went thick. 

Suffocating. 

My chest felt too tight, like the room had shrunk around us.

The guy’s hands started shaking.

“Jacket,” Zion said again, quieter this time.

Not a request.

A countdown.

“The last warning,” Zion hissed, the words barely louder than a breath, yet they sliced through the silence like a straight razor, 

"Before I have you screaming so loud they’ll hear you in the next county.”

The guy’s hands shot up, palms out, trembling hard enough to blur the air between them.

“Okay… okay… fuck, okay…”

His fingers scrabbled at the zipper, metal teeth rattling like bones in a box. 

The jacket slid off his shoulders and hit the floor with a pathetic thud.

Zion didn’t blink.

Didn’t move.

Just watched, Predator-still.

“Shirt too.”

The guy choked on nothing, eyes wide and glassy. 

“W-wait—what? Why? I didn’t do anything—this is fucking crazy—”

Zion took one slow step forward.

The temperature around the table dropped another five degrees.

“Shirt,” he repeated, voice so low it vibrated in the guy’s chest. 

“Or I peel it off you with your skin still in it.”

The threat hung there, soft and inevitable.

The guy’s hands flew to the hem, yanking the fabric up and over his head so fast he nearly took an ear with it. 

He stood there shirtless, shivering, arms crossed over his chest like that could protect him.

I could hear how scared he was from the way he sucked in every breath like it was his last.