All Chapters of Royalty College : Chapter 61 - Chapter 65

Aaliah couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night.Her bed felt like a cage—sheets tangled, pillows damp, ceiling mocking her with its silence. She would toss until dawn, her mind clawing at every memory of laughter, of humiliation, of Collins’s absence.By morning, she was always exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that no coffee, no makeup, no pep talk could hide.Her eyes had grown darker each day, hollow shadows under them. Her posture had slumped, her smile had vanished.And still, she forced herself to move. To go to class. To hold a pencil. To pretend.But the whispers followed.Always.In the cafeteria, her hands trembled as she carried her tray. She picked a corner table, hoping for peace.It never came.“She looks worse every day.”“Can you believe she even tried out?”“Vanessa was right—she’s out of her depth.”Her fork scraped against the plate too loudly. Heads turned.Laughter followed.Her throat tightened. She lowered her gaze, pushing food around with

The bus hummed like a restless beast, rattling down the empty highway under a sky full of tired stars. Collins sat by the window, his forehead pressed against the cool glass, eyes locked on the blur of dark fields rolling past.His duffel bag sat at his feet, heavy but not nearly as heavy as the thoughts crashing inside him.He was going back.Finally.Weeks of pain and drills and humiliation at camp had stripped him bare. He’d come out scarred, bruised, tougher than he’d ever been. But beneath the hardness, one thing had carried him every single day.Aaliah.Her laugh — soft, surprised, unguarded.Her brow furrowed in focus, pencil dancing across her sketchbook.The way she’d look at him when she thought no one else noticed.Every image was fuel. Every memory was the reason he kept standing when the trainer wanted him on his knees.But guilt gnawed at him, sharp and relentless.He hadn’t called. He hadn’t written. He’d left her to fight her battles alone while he disappeared into the

The courtyard was electric.Students whispered from the edges, eyes wide, phones half-raised as if this moment deserved to be immortalized. The weight of it pressed down on Aaliah until she could barely breathe.Jeffrey’s grip on her wrist was iron. Collins’s stance was rigid, fists flexing, every muscle alive with warning.And Aaliah stood in the middle—heart hammering, lungs burning, pulled apart like she was the rope in a war neither man wanted to lose.“Let her go,” Collins said again, his voice sharper this time.Jeffrey’s jaw clenched. “You disappear for weeks, leave her here to drown, and suddenly you think you get to order me around? No. Not happening.”His words sliced deeper than Aaliah wanted to admit. Collins flinched, almost imperceptibly, but his eyes stayed locked on Jeffrey.“You don’t get to talk about her like she’s yours,” Collins said, his tone low, steady, dangerous.Jeffrey’s lips curled into a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “And you do? You vanished. You