Page 84 of Kingmakers, Year One

It’s been a while since Leo saw me in anything besides our school uniform. As we slip between the twin figures guarding the stone gates of campus, I catch his eye drifting down to the exposed flesh not covered by my corset top.

He pulls his gaze quickly back to the rocky path in front of us, but I know he was looking at me in a way he never used to back in Chicago.

Neither of us is speaking. There’s a strange tension in the air—like a breeze you can hear but not quite feel on your skin, not just yet.

Something is going to happen tonight. I’m sure of it.

I don’t have any reason to believe it, but my heart is racing all the same. Leo looks lean and powerful, stalking down the path in the moonlight. He’s almost vibrating with energy.

You would think I’d be used to his beauty, having known him all my life. But instead, it’s the opposite—he’s my standard ofwhat a man should be. Tall, muscular, walking with the rangy grace of a lion. His amber-colored eyes and his deeply tanned skin make him look exotic, like he could be from anywhere. His skin and hair glow with health and vitality. His teeth gleam every time his full lips part in a smile.

“What are you staring at?” he laughs.

“I’m looking at you,” I say honestly.

“How come?”

I take a deep breath, trying to make myself brave enough to say what I want to say.

“I feel like things have been different since we came to Kingmakers,”

Leo looks at me, serious for once. “Different between you and me?”

“Yes.”

There’s a long silence, in which my heart beats so hard against my ribs I think I’ll have a bruise inside.

“I think you’re right,” Leo says softly.

We’ve stopped walking and we’re standing in the middle of the path, facing each other. There’s only a foot or two of space between us. The night feels suddenly twenty degrees warmer. Enough that my skin starts to sweat ever so slightly.

I’ve never seen Leo look at me this way. He looks . . . almost scared. Leo’s never scared.

His tongue moistens his bottom lip, and he opens his mouth, about to say something. Then someone hollers, “LEO!”

Matteo Ragusa and Emile Girard come jogging down the path, followed close behind by a couple of girls from our year.

“Did you see Bram pitch a fit that he didn’t get Captain?” Matteo says gleefully. “He punched a hole through a window and cut his arm open, the dumb shit. Had to go to the infirmary and get stitches.”

Leo pulls me close for a moment, murmuring in my ear, “I want to finish our conversation later.”

Then he releases me, laughing loudly and saying, “God, what I’d pay to have that on video.”

“Not like he was gonna get it anyway,” Matteo says. “His grades are shit.”

“He’s a good shot, and he did well in our scuba classes,” Emile says.

“Not well enough, obviously,” Matteo laughs.

We continue on down the path as a group, Matteo and Emile flanking Leo, and me trailing along behind between the boys and the girls. Leo glances back at me several times, but Matteo and Emile are both yammering away at him from either side.

I’m half-disappointed and half-relieved. My nerves were so acute that I almost felt like I was going to puke. It might be better to get a drink in me before we try talking again.

It takes the better part of a half-hour to walk down to the beach. We have to cut across a vineyard, then scramble down a steep slope to find the path down to the beach. There’s no streetlights anywhere on the island, so all of this is done in the dark, all of us tripping over unseen rocks and clumps of grass along the way.

We can hear music playing long before we arrive. Chay is making use of my speaker, running through one of my playlists. I can hear the crackling of a bonfire and the steady wash of waves on the shore. Some of the kids are already shouting and laughing, sounding tipsy though the party’s only just begun.

As soon as we step foot on the sand, several people shout Leo’s name and rush over to talk about the upcoming competition. The Freshmen are excited—if anyone can make us win, it’s Leo. The Sophomores and Juniors at the party openly laugh at our hopes.

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