Page 8 of Kingmakers, Year Three

Rakel flashes her dark eyes at me in a way that clearly intimates that she will seek revenge on me later for involving her in this conversation. I smile back at her, knowing that nobody else wants to room with Rakel, so she’s stuck with me.

“Who does your nails?” Perry examines Rakel’s silver-ringed hands. “They look like claws!”

“They grow that way naturally,” Rakel deadpans, while Perry’s eyes go big and round in total belief.

Anna Wilk and Leo Gallo climb the gangplank hand in hand. Anna is one of Zoe’s best friends. She was exceptionally kind to me during my first year at school when I was drowning in terror at the arcane demands of Kingmakers.

“Cat!” she cries, hugging me.

I saw Anna in Chicago over the summer, but she squeezes me like we’ve spent months apart.

“It makes me so sad to see you here without Zoe. Are you gonna come hang out with me and Chay all the time anyway? You have to fill your sister’s spot, or we’ll be miserable.”

“I would love that,” I promise gratefully. I wasn’t sure if Anna and Chay would want me hanging around, now that Zoe decided not to return to school.

“I miss Miles, too,” Leo says glumly. “Trust him to take off right when he was finally turning into a reasonable human.”

Dean Yenin is next to board the ship, flanked by his best friends Bram Van Der Berg and Valon Hoxha. Instinctively, I shrink back behind Leo’s substantial bulk, but it’s pointless. Dean’s sharp eyes alight on me at once. For the first time in memory, I see his face break out into a smile.

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.

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 Greekisland. 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.

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