His smile is far worse than his scowl. The even white teeth don’t fool me for a second. That’s a grin of pure malice.
Oh my god, I can’t fucking do this.
“What’s he so happy about?” Leo says suspiciously.
“Who knows!” Anna shrugs, careless and unconcerned. “Let’s go find somewhere to sit before the whole ship fills up.”
We make our way toward the bow, where the air is fresher and the sea breeze blows directly into our faces. We’re departing from the port in Dubrovnik, sailing toward the isolated island of Visine Dvorca where Kingmakers’ castle fortress resides.
Once the ship sets out, we won’t return to civilization until the spring.
I’ll be trapped on that island with my tormenter.
Perry peels off from our group to join her Accountant friends. To my pleasure, Rakel actually sticks around. Despite despising me at the beginning of last year, she and I are slowly becoming something like actual friends.
With Zoe gone, I need all the friends I can get.
Perhaps noting a kindred spirit in Anna’s heavy black makeup and torn-up tights, Rakel strikes up a conversation about the concerts she attended over the summer. Anna enthusiastically responds with her own tales of outdoor venues, raging mosh pits, and outrageous prices for shit beer.
“How are you doing?” Leo asks me kindly.
“I’m fine!” I lie instinctively.
Has anyone in the history of the world actually been “fine” when they responded that way?
I’m a people-pleaser. Like Zoe, I’ve never felt free to share my burdens with others. Especially not someone as handsome and intimidating as Leo Gallo.
I sink down on a pile of coiled rope, joined by Ares Cirillo, who sits by me in companionable silence, watching the sailors work. I know he owns a little skiff that he sails around his tiny Greek island. He looks quite at home on the ocean, with his turquoise eyes and streaks of sun in his hair.
As the ship pulls out of the harbor, the breeze picks up and a pleasant salt spray blows in our faces. However, the sun beats down on our heads, and soon students are shedding every possible article of clothing, including academy jackets, stockings, and even shirts.
Dean Yenin leans against the ship’s railing, stripping off his white dress shirt. The skin beneath is barely darker than the shirt, rippled with muscle hard-won through countless hours in our school gym. As he turns to lay his shirt over the railing, I see the Siberian tiger crawling up his back. Dean reminds me of a white tiger himself—pale and vicious, composed of lean, hard muscle and the desire to rip flesh from bone.
Bram Van Der Berg is rubbing tanning oil on his swarthy skin, apparently determined to darken himself another shade before reaching the island.
“Give me that,” Dean mutters, swiping the oil from Bram’s hand.
He strides over to me, a smirk already spreading across his face.
“Cat!” he barks, making me jump. “Rub this on my back.”
Anna laughs derisively.
“Get Bram to do it,” she says. “Cat’s busy.”
Dean ignores her, his pale purplish eyes fixed on my face.
“Now,” he says quietly.
I feel myself jumping up from my position on the pile of ropes, snapping to attention before I’ve even formulated a thought.
“Okay,” I murmur, my face flaming pink.
Anna frowns. “You don’t have to listen to him,” she says to me.
Anna and Dean dated briefly in their first year of school, but I know that’s not why she’s defending me. Anna is the sort of feminist who always protects her sisters, whether she knows the man in question or not.
Dean is watching me, his face darkening as I fail to obey his order.
“I really don’t mind,” I stammer, stumbling over my own feet as I hurry across the pitching deck.
Anna, Leo, Ares, and Rakel watch me with identical expressions of confusion while I take the oil from Dean and squirt it into my hands.
“Rub it on my back,” he says. “Slowly. And don’t spill one fucking drop.”
My hands shake and my face burns as more students watch the bizarre performance of me, a shy little nobody, oiling up the back of one of the most vicious boys at school.
Dean’s skin is smooth and sun-warmed, the muscle beneath the flesh iron-hard.
“Rub out those knots,” he orders.
I try to obey, but my small hands are no match for the tough muscle. I can’t sink my fingers in at all.
Dean makes me rub his back and shoulders, then all the way down his arms.
“Now the chest,” he says, smirking.
He turns to face me, looking down into my face while I spread oil across his pectoral muscles. I can’t meet his eye. I feel utterly humiliated, forced to do this in front of hundreds of watching eyes. Dean is so much taller than me that I have to stretch up on tiptoe just to reach the top of his shoulders.
Standing in such close proximity to him makes my whole body shake. I feel like a mouse forced to dance around within the confines of a tiger’s claws. I’m trembling, my brain telling me that this is much too close, that I need to flee immediately.
I can smell Dean’s skin beneath the coconut oil. He smells clean and freshly showered, but as the sun beats down on us both, I get a hint of his actual scent, an intense and titillating aroma like the green-tinged fumes of absinthe. It makes me weak and wobbly.
“You can stop,” he says, abruptly dismissing me.
He turns away from me and strides back to his friends, like I don’t even exist.
I feel oddly disappointed. Almost angry.
I rubbed him for twenty minutes. He could have at least said thank you, or good job.
Then that spurt of idiocy fades away, and I’m simply relieved that he let me off so easily.
I return to Anna and the others.
“You don’t have to do what he says!” Anna says indignantly. “I know he’s scary, but he’s not going to do anything to you with us around.”
I know Anna’s intentions are good, but in this particular instance, she’s very wrong.
I do have to do what Dean says.
And the consequences are dire if I refuse.
3
Dean
Settling into Kingmakers is old hat at this point. We’re in the same dorm as before, though I’ve moved up to the third floor of the Octagon Tower along with the rest of the Junior male Heirs.
I feel at home as I pass through the vast stone gates into the sprawling medieval campus. My first year at school was bitter, due to my disastrous infatuation with Anna Wilk. Since then, I’ve become master of my emotions and master of my domain at this school. The Dutch Penose, the Armenians, and half the Moscow Bratva answer to me. I’m already proving my leadership skills, my ability to make soldiers follow my orders.
Not to mention, I’m the undisputed champion when it comes to fighting. No one can beat me in the boxing ring. No one ever has.
My father’s house is chaotic and filthy. Kingmakers suits me better. It’s full of power and history. A true meritocracy, where an Enforcer like Adrik Petrov or a would-be Heir like me can rise to dominance, purely by proving our skill and intelligence.
Most of the third-year students keep the same roommates they’ve had all along. I stick with Bram because we’re used to each other at this point. Irritating as he can be, he’s still better than Valon or any of the others. Bram at least knows better than to make a mess, and I prefer his surly silences to Valon’s inane chatter.