Page 25 of Kingmakers, Year Two

“GOOD morning!” she chirps, dropping a tray loaded with an obscene amount of bacon and sausage down onto the table.

“Chay. . .” Anna groans. “Inside voice before nine in the morning, please.”

“Is that what you’re eating?” I ask Chay, eyeing her pile of protein.

“I’m on keto.”

“You’re gonna get scurvy,” Anna tells her, sleepily stirring several teaspoons of sugar into her coffee.

“Andyou’regoing to get diabetes,” Chay replies sweetly.

I see Cat hovering uncertainly over by the chafing dishes. I wave to her so she can see where we’re sitting. She hastily fills a plate with fresh fruit and scrambled eggs and comes to join us.

“This is Anna Wilk and Chay Wagner,” I tell Cat, as she sits down beside me.

“Hello,” Cat says shyly.

“You’re so little!” Chay says cheerfully. “I thought you’d be tall like Zoe.”

“No.” Cat blushes. “I’m not.”

I can tell she’s embarrassed, because honestly, she looks like a little kid compared to everybody else at Kingmakers. It doesn’t help that Cat always leans toward oversized clothes that drown her petite frame. She looks like she’s wearing hand-me-downs even in her brand new uniform.

“Doesn’t matter!” Chay adds quickly. “I’m pint-sized myself. I still hold my own. Puts you right on level to give somebody a good punch in the balls if you have to.”

“Great,” Cat says weakly. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“You’ll settle in here soon,” Anna says kindly. “Everybody is intimidated their first week.”

“Really?” Cat eyes Anna with disbelief.

Anna does not look like she has ever experienced intimidation. Even just rolled out of bed, she has that indefinable air ofno-fucks-to-give. Maybe it’s her inch-thick eyeliner, or her icy stare, or her low voice that always sounds mildly threatening, even when she’s trying to be nice.

“Really.” Anna nods. “I wanted to come here all my life, and I was still overwhelmed at first. You’ll settle in. Zoe will be here to help you. We’ll all keep an eye on you.”

She smiles at Cat across the table. I feel a warm flush of gratitude that I have a clique of ready-made friends for Cat. It’s the least I can do, after getting her into this mess.

That lasts about five seconds until Rocco sits down next to me, with Dax Volker and Jasper Webb right behind him.

Dax and Jasper are his favorite henchmen. Dax because he’s a nasty brawler—thickly muscled, with a square, blocky head and a bulldog jaw, and Jasper because he’s almost as cruel as Rocco himself. He’s tall with a slim build and long, dark red hair. Beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt, I can see tattoos running down both hands, mimicking the bones beneath like a skeleton superimposed on the skin.

Rocco sits right next to me, while Jasper drops down beside Chay and Dax flanks Cat, so all three of them hem us in like a Bermuda Triangle of assholes. There’s no need for any of them to share our table—there’s plenty of open space in the dining hall. This is obviously Rocco’s first foray into expanding our “intimacy” at Kingmakers.

The temperature at the table drops twenty degrees, and the friendly conversation amongst us girls hardens into stony silence.

I hate having Rocco next to me, but I’m even more conscious of Cat’s discomfort as she cringes against me, trying to shrink down to nothingness so she doesn’t accidentally brush up against Dax’s melon-sized shoulder or the tree-trunk thigh straining the bounds of his trousers.

“Thanks for saving me a seat.” Rocco gives me a thin, chilling smile.

I can’t describe the antipathy I feel every time he invades my personal space. Every cell in my body screams at me to get away from him. There’s something so off-putting in the way he moves—either holding too still or making swift and unpredictable movements that make me want to jump out of my skin.

However, unlike Cat, I refuse to move away from him. I hold perfectly still, trying not to let him see how much his proximity bothers me.

“I didn’t.”

Rocco makes a disappointedtskingsound.

“Oh, Zoe,” he says quietly. “I thought we discussed this. Is this really the attitude you want to take as we beginanother year of school?”

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