Chapter 8: A Night to Forget

Roxanne was sitting cross-legged on her bed, still turning over everything from the last few days, when Isla burst through the door like she was announcing an emergency.

"There’s a welcome party tonight."

"No."

"You didn’t even hear the details."

"I don’t need to. The answer is no."

Isla dropped onto her own bed, unbothered. "You’re tired. You want to avoid crowds. You don’t want to run into Dorian and Arabella. I already know your excuses, I just don’t accept them."

"I’m minding my business."

"You’ve been minding your business so aggressively that your business is starting to feel lonely."

Roxanne laughed before she could stop herself.

"There it is," Isla said, grinning. "Get up. We’re going."

An hour later, Roxanne stood in front of the mirror while Isla dug through both their closets, tossing options onto the bed.

"I’m not trying to impress anyone," Roxanne said, pulling on something simple and fitted, comfortable enough to move in.

"Never said you were."

"I mean it. No relationships. No mates. No men."

"Duly noted." Isla adjusted Roxanne’s hair, stepping back to admire the result. "So tonight, don’t fall in love. Just have fun."

"I can do that."

The social hall was already loud by the time they arrived, music thumping through the walls, students clustered in laughing groups with drinks in hand. Roxanne hesitated at the entrance for half a second before Isla pulled her inside.

She hadn’t expected to like it. But the energy pulled at something in her, warm and easy, nothing like the tense silence of classrooms or the weight of the training grounds.

They got drinks. They talked. Isla introduced her to a group near the food table, and within minutes someone made a joke about the terrible party punch, and Roxanne fired back something sharper without thinking.

The group laughed. Someone raised their cup to her.

She relaxed after that, sliding into easy conversation, laughing at something Isla said, joining a ridiculous drinking game that made absolutely no sense but was hilarious anyway.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, she wasn’t thinking about Dorian. Or Arabella. Or the rejection. Or the strange voice that had spoken inside her chest.

She was just Roxanne, laughing until her stomach hurt.

Then the room shifted.

Conversations quieted in patches, heads turning toward the entrance. Isla straightened immediately.

"They’re here."

Roxanne didn’t need to ask who. She turned and saw them walking in together, dressed down for once but somehow still impossible to ignore.

"Do they ever go anywhere quietly?" she muttered.

Isla laughed into her cup.

The brothers scanned the room the way they always seemed to, cataloguing everything. Then Liam’s eyes landed on Roxanne, and something in his expression shifted with obvious surprise.

She wasn’t standing stiffly in a corner. She was laughing, relaxed, completely unlike the version of her they’d seen in every class since the supermarket.

He said something to his brothers, low enough that Roxanne couldn’t hear, before making his way toward her.

He reached her side and, without asking, plucked the cup straight from her hand.

Roxanne stared at him. "Are you serious?"

Liam took a sip, unbothered. "You really haven’t learned not to fight me over drinks."

"I thought royalty had better manners."

"I thought you’d learned better manners." He held the cup just out of reach when she went for it. "Ask nicely."

"I’d rather drink water," Roxanne said, and grabbed a fresh cup off the table instead, leaving him holding the one he’d stolen.

Liam burst out laughing.

Roshan wandered over, shaking his head at his brother. "You’re genuinely embarrassing."

Kai said nothing, watching from a step back, his eyes steady on Roxanne in that way that always made her feel oddly exposed.

"Leave her alone," Lucien said flatly to Liam.

"Since when do you care?"

"I don’t."

Roxanne looked between the four of them, unable to help the small laugh that escaped. "You four really are impossible."

"And yet you keep running into us," Liam said.

"Unfortunately."

A new voice cut smoothly into the conversation. "There you all are."

Joanna arrived with the kind of confidence that made her stance with the quadruplets suggestive. She greeted the brothers easily, clearly familiar with them, her attention lingering a beat too long on Liam and then Kai.

Her smile faltered slightly when she noticed who they’d been talking to.

"How long have you known them?" she asked Roxanne, pleasant on the surface.

"Barely a week."

Joanna’s eyebrows lifted, something calculating flickering behind her expression before she smoothed it away.

Someone nearby recognized Roxanne and mentioned the challenge she’d won. Another voice added something about her rejection. The conversation started drifting toward her, uncomfortable attention gathering.

Liam cracked a joke that broke the tension, and Roxanne laughed, grateful. Joanna’s smile grew visibly more strained.

That was when Roxanne spotted them.

Dorian and Arabella, standing near the entrance, Dorian’s expression already darkening as he took in the scene. Roxanne surrounded by students. The Moonstones. Her laughing like she didn’t have a single thing weighing on her.

He didn’t approach. He just watched, remembering how she’d cried the night he rejected her, and something ugly and unwelcome twisted in his chest at the contrast.

Arabella made her way over first, expression arranged into something warm.

"Roxanne," she said. "I’m glad you’re doing better. After everything with Dorian, I wasn’t sure you’d be comfortable around couples."

The words sounded caring. They weren’t.

Roxanne didn’t flinch. "I’m comfortable around people who mind their own business."

A few students laughed. Arabella’s smile tightened at the edges.

Joanna glanced between them, sensing history she didn’t fully understand but filing it away regardless.

Rather than let the night curdle into another confrontation, Roxanne turned to Isla. "I’m getting another drink."

They slipped away from the group toward the drink table.

"You okay?" Isla asked.

"She still knows exactly how to get under my skin," Roxanne admitted. "But I’m not letting her ruin tonight." She looked around the crowded hall, the music, the laughter, the easy warmth she hadn’t expected to find here. "I think I actually like this place."

Isla smiled and bumped her shoulder. "Told you."

They rejoined the crowd, and Roxanne let herself get pulled into the dancing, laughing freely, feeling something loosen in her chest that had been tight since the night she’d walked into Dorian’s bedroom and watched her whole life fall apart.

Maybe it wasn’t over. Maybe she could build something entirely new here, something that belonged only to her.

Across the room, Arabella watched her laughing among strangers who’d already started to like her, watched the Moonstones’ attention linger on her, watched Dorian’s eyes follow her every move he thought no one noticed.

Something curdled in her chest.

She thought of everything Roxanne seemed to be taking, piece by piece, without even trying. The admiration. The attention. Even Dorian’s gaze, still lingering where it shouldn’t be.

"You always have to take everything," she murmured to herself, quiet enough that no one heard.

Later that night, Roxanne and Isla left the party together, tired and warm from laughing too much, the cold night air a welcome relief.

"Tonight was actually worth it," Roxanne said, smiling for real.

Behind them, back inside the hall, Arabella watched her disappear down the corridor, the pleasant mask slipping from her face the second Roxanne was out of sight.

She hadn’t decided exactly what she was going to do yet.

But she’d decided one thing for certain.

If Roxanne wanted to take everything from her, Arabella would make sure she learned exactly what it felt like to lose it all.