The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 197

“I didn’t consider the time of month when I invited her out here,” he chuckled.

Chuckled.

Had I ever even fucking heard him laugh before?

The guards just stared at us for another long moment. It felt like an eternity, and the whole time, I feared they could hear my heart pounding wildly, or that the blood that was currently filling my pocket would begin to drip onto the grass.

But finally, to my utter relief, the leader sighed. “Well, so long as no one’s hurt…” He scanned the nearby treeline with his flashlight. “You’re sure you didn’t see any rogues? We received a report of some noise going on in the woods.”

“No, Sir,” Callum said firmly. “We were too… preoccupied to notice any noise.”

Gods damn him.

The guard scratched his head, then looked at us. “Well, Callum, given your clean record, I won’t punish you tonight. But if either of you break the rules of the lockdown again, you’ll be reported to the principal. Mr. Alder is very serious about this lockdown, you know. You could even be expelled. Especially her.”

The guard bobbed his head toward me, and I clenched my jaw. Of course Mr. Alder would jump at the opportunity to expel me. If he knew the truth about what really happened tonight, he would probably be giddy with excitement.

“We understand,” Callum said. “It won’t happen again.”

The guard nodded. “Now get back to your dorms. Both of you. And quickly. We don’t need any more disappearances this semester.”

Callum and I didn’t need to be told twice. We hurried back toward the dorms, although my feet barely touched the ground with the way Callum was dragging me along beside him with his arm around my waist. It was a good thing, too, because the pain was shooting up my arm now and making it hard to even see the ground ahead of me.

When we slipped back into the main entryway, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Everything was quiet.

Halfway down the hall, my knees buckled. I stopped walking and swayed, pressing my uninjured hand to the wall.

“I can’t…”

Callum didn’t speak. He just turned, jaw tight, and swept me up into his arms with ease.

If I hadn’t been so weak, I might have resisted. I might have insisted that he put me down, that I could walk on my own.

But we both knew I couldn’t. So all I could do was blush furiously, wondering how I had even gotten myself into this situation, as Callum carried me into his room and shut the door behind him with his foot.

“Sit here,” he said, lowering me onto his bed with a gentleness that took me by surprise and reminded me all too well of that night in the library. “Let’s see what we can do about that cut.”