Page 19 of Vicious Knight

My insides squeeze. “The first and the second movie.”

“Yeah. He’s like all the bullies rolled into one and then some. Caspian has only tamed because he’s married to Willow Raventhorn. She’s really sweet. We have some English classes with the sophomores so you’ll see her then.”

“Willow Raventhorn. Wow.”

“I know, right. She’s the heir to all of this.” Isabelle waves her hand around, motioning to everything. The things we can see and the things we can’t, which includes anything with the name Raventhorn attached to it. “Her marriage to Caspian quadrupled the Ivanov name in wealth and power. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so rich.”

“Me too. My stepdad is wealthy, but nothing like the Ivanovs.”

“There’s no one like them on campus at the moment and there are some pretty powerful families here.”

She’s talking about people who come from families with billion dollar wealth, so I can only imagine how much the Ivanovs have.

“What’s Aleksander Ivanov like?” I need to know. We have a welcome meeting with him on Friday. I just want an idea of who he is before I see him.

Isabelle shakes her head slowly. “Not good. You don’t ever want a run-in with him. I’ve met him a few times because my father has to report to him and he runs the fundraisers. Each time I saw him I liked him less and less. But you didn’t hear that from me. I’m sure he’d have my head on a spike Game of Thrones style just for saying that.”

I gulp past the lump in my throat as I’m pulled into her grotesque vision.

“Wow, I guess I have a lot to learn.”

“You’ll be fine. Most of us have the advantage of knowing each other from high school. Once you get used to the place you’ll fit right in. And you’ll see there’s more fish on campus than Thorne Ivanov.” She looks toward the entrance of the café, watching a group of guys walk in.

I saw them earlier. They’re freshmen too and of course they’re all good looking.

“Like them?” I grin.

“Yes. But the tall dark-haired guy with the snake on his neck is mine.”

The guy she’s referring to looks like he should be a Hemsworth brother. “Is that your boyfriend?”

I’m surprised when her cheeks color fiercely. “I wish. I just meant I want dibs on him. That’s Kade Gurkovsky. I’ve known him since forever, but he’s never said a word to me.”

He must feel her eyes on him because he looks around, takes note of her and looks away again.

“Like that.” Her smile is small and playful but there’s notable disappointment in her eyes.

“You should speak to him.” I’m the last person to give any kind of relationship advice but I feel she needs the encouragement.

“I promised myself I would. That this year would be the year.”

I smile back at her. “Good. That sounds exciting.”

“Oh crap. We need to go.” She glances at her phone. “If we don’t leave now we’ll be late for the meeting.”

“That’s the last thing I want.” The rush of nerves I previously had returns, making me feel queasy like I might throw up.

“We can finish our coffee on the way over.”

That’s what we do and we even reach Myrrdin with ten minutes to spare.

We head into the meeting lounge which looks like it was plucked from the set of Legally Blonde with its pink and gold décor. There Isabelle makes use of the time by introducing me to her friends.

There’s Mackenzie, a slender redhead who’s studying dance and the performing arts. Billie, who Isabelle introduced as her best friend, and Sawyer and Savannah who are identical twins.

As they have near enough the same hair color as me they made the joke that I was their missing sister.

Everyone is nice and seem genuinely interested in knowing about me.

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