“Watch where you’re going, Cat,” he hisses into my face.
“Let go of her,” Rakel says.
“Fuck off, Black Death,” Dean snarls at her.
“Eat shit, Zack Morris,” Rakel sneers back at him.
“Rakel!” I gasp, half-choked by Dean’s grip on my collar. “Just . . . go on without me.”
She stares at me like I’m speaking Swahili.
“Please!” I wheeze. “Just go.”
She looks between Dean and me for several seconds. Then she narrows her eyes and says, “Fine. If that’s what you want.” She heads off to the dining hall without me.
Dean releases his grip on my shirt so I can breathe again.
“That’s better,” he says softly.
Actually, I’m sure it’s about to get worse.
Dean looks anything but cheerful. His face is heavily bruised on the left side. He’s got a cut on that cheek and a nasty black eye, the purplish marks especially dire against his fair skin. He looks like an angel stripped of his wings and fallen all the way to earth.
“What happened?” I say without thinking.
Wrong question. Dean’s top lip pulls up in the snarl that I’ve quickly come to recognize as the harbinger of his most intense aggression.
“Never mind that,” he growls. “Where the fuck have you been all day?”
“Breakfast. And class,” I stammer.
“Why weren’t you waiting for me outside the Octagon Tower this morning?”
“I . . . why would I be?”
“Because you’re my slave, Cat,” Dean says, in a tone of stating the obvious. “What good are you to me in the dining hall and at class?”
“But . . . I have to go to class,” I squeak.
“Yes, you do. And you’ll walk from class to class with me. Carrying my books. Every single day.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Dean’s eyes are fixed on mine, steady and unblinking. His pupils are so large that the irises comprise barely more than a thin halo of violet.
“Why do you . . . I mean, okay,” I say, knowing better than to argue.
“You mean, ‘Yes, sir,’ ” Dean corrects me.
My cheeks flame and I feel an intense impulse to tell him to fuck off. But that would be suicidal.
“Yes, sir,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“Good girl,” Dean says softly.
His low purr sends a thrill through my body.
Am I completely fucked in the head that I feel a flush of warmth at his approval? Maybe it’s just relief that he might not have me murdered in the immediate future.
His smile of satisfaction quickly turns to a scowl.
He seizes my chin in a steel grip.
“What the fuck is on your face?” He demands.
“Makeup,” I say, trying to twist my chin out of his grasp.
He pinches it all the harder.
“I hate it,” he hisses. “Wash it off.”
“What? No, I just—”
“Clean that shit off your face,” he barks. “Do it now, then get your ass over to the dining hall.”
He lets go of me so abruptly that I stumble back.
I want to scream with frustration at this fucking maniac and his ridiculous demands. But I can’t do it. I can’t say one damn word to him, and he knows it. All I can do is spin on my heel and march off toward the bathrooms in the Keep, where I wash all Rakel’s expertly applied makeup off my face.
What the fuck is his problem?
Since when does he hate makeup?
Anna Wilk wears a shit-ton of product on her face, and it never seemed to bother him any.
I don’t think he hates makeup at all. He just relishes my misery.
With my face freshly pink and shiny, I walk back to the dining hall, dragging my feet the whole way.
I don’t want to go in there.
I don’t want to experience whatever new humiliation Dean has been dreaming up.
But I’m hungry. So I join the line of students waiting for their portion of pesto chicken pasta, then I carry my tray toward the tables.
I see Leo, Anna, Chay, and Ares already eating, laughing together at some joke. They look so lighthearted and comfortable. God, I wish I could join them.
I can feel Dean’s cold stare fixed on me. When I turn to meet his eyes, he jerks his head toward the empty seat he’s saved right next to his own.
Please God, let the ground swallow me whole.
I feel like the entire hall of students is staring at me as I turn toward Dean’s table.
Anna has spotted me. She calls out, “Cat!” thinking I didn’t see her. I have to give her an awkward shrug before resuming my hateful journey over to Dean.
Bram Van Der Berg, Valon Hoxha, Pasha Tsaplin, and Motya Chornovil watch me approach, silent and unsmiling. I dislike every one of them. They’re a bunch of spiteful bullies who delight in tormenting weaker students. I feel like I’m voluntarily lowering myself into a den of vipers as I drop down into the only empty seat at their table.
If they’re vipers, then Dean is the king cobra. He strikes with lightning speed the moment my ass touches the seat.
“Where’s my milk?” he demands.
“I didn’t know you wanted milk,” I mutter.
“Go get it. Now.”
Biting back the retort I’d like to give him, I stand once more.
Valon Hoxha sniggers.
“Get me a milk, too,” he says.
“You don’t give the orders,” Dean rebukes him, his tone as sharp as a slap. It smacks the smile right off Valon’s face, and he sulks instead.
“She’s getting up anyway,” he grouses.
Dean ignores him. He wants to enjoy watching me cross the dining hall once more so I can retrieve his fucking milk.
I walk as quickly as I can to get this over with, grabbing the first frosty glass bottle of milk I see and carrying it back to him, slamming it down just a little too hard in front of him.
“There you go, your majesty,” I say.
My face is flaming as I sit down once more.
“I want grapes, too,” Dean says.
I turn to stare at him, thoroughly incensed.
“Why didn’t you tell me when I—”
It only takes one look in those crazed eyes to shut my mouth. Dean is fully invested in this game, and that means he’s only too happy to deal out consequences if I disobey. Silently, I stand once more to walk back over to the food.
Dean’s friends watch this parade with avid interest. I’m quite sure that none of them know how Dean acquired his own personal servant, and their curiosity is mixed with envy. For a bunch of power-hungry douchebags, nothing could be more appealing than a girl forced to jump to attention every time they snap their fingers.
I seize a bundle of purple grapes, grown in the vineyards outside the castle grounds, and I ferry them back to Dean like an obedient little waitress. I plop them down next to the milk and resume my seat, praying he doesn’t have any other cravings.
“Feed them to me,” Dean orders.
“. . . You want me to feed you grapes?”
“That’s right,” he smirks.
I hope he chokes on these fucking grapes. I’d like to ram them right down his throat.
Instead, I pluck off one dusky purple orb and hold it out to him. Dean’s full lips part as he opens his mouth.