Page 92 of Kingmakers, Year One

Comprehension sweeps his face like a dark cloud passing over the sun.

“Dean…”

He says it low and guttural, a sound too much like the noise he made last night, when he was with Gemma. When my head turned toward him in the dark, knowing the sound of Leo anywhere.

Anger, fear, sadness, regret.They cycle through me over and over, until I have no idea what I want, or what I feel.

Regret, sadness, fear . . . anger.

Wildly, defiantly, I lift my chin. “That’s right.”

“What do you mean you werewithhim?”

“What do you think I mean?” The words spill out of me. “I can do whatever I want. I’m a free agent, the same as you. Isn’t that right, Leo? After all, we’re justcousins.”

I spit out that word like I hate it.

Maybe I do.

I wanted to take a little cut at Leo, in revenge for how he made me feel. But I seriously underestimated how furious this would make him. His eyes blaze like yellow fire and now he truly is pressing me up against the stone wall at the base of the staircase, his fists clenched at his sides and his long frame trembling from head to toe.

“Are you insane?” he hisses at me. “You’re not dating Dean Yenin.”

“It’s none of your business who I date,” I inform him. “You’re not the boss of me.”

Leo is pressed closer against me than we’ve ever been in our lives. His chest crushes me, his thigh pins my hip to the wall. His hand twitches, and I think he’s almost angry enough to grab me by the throat. He’s desperate, he’s cracking, neither one of us is ourselves, let alone the person we usually are to each other.

Leo’s shouting right at me, our faces inches apart.

“He’s our ENEMY! And he’s just using you to try to get back at me!”

I laugh in his face.

“You really do think the whole world revolves around you, don’t you? Is it so impossible for you to believe that someone could like me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Leo says “It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s Dean—he’s a slimy, manipulative, conniving?—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I cut him off. “I’m sick of your stupid rivalry. And I’m sick of you thinking you can control me while you run around doing whatever you feel like.”

I try to duck under Leo’s arm, and he tries to grab me, holding me back.

This time I shove him, harder than I’ve ever shoved him before. This isn’t playfighting, this is me telling him that if he doesn’t keep his fucking hands to himself I’ll break his wrist.

We’re both breathing hard, and Leo’s expression is like nothing I’ve seen before. He’s a stranger to me. I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me.

“Just STOP,” I hiss at him.

He hesitates. For once in his life.

In that moment he looks like a confused little boy.

I walk away from him, and this time he doesn’t try to stop me.

That Sunday afternoonis long and lonely. Usually Leo, Ares, and I would do schoolwork in the library or walk down to the village together. Or we might play cards with Miles and Ozzy, or steal raspberries out of the greenhouse.

Today I don’t feel like doing any of that. I can’t even practice dancing because I forgot my speaker in the dorm room, and Chay has been sleeping all damn day, after stumbling home at 5:00 in the morning. She had sand in her hair and her top was on backward, so I’m assuming Sam stopped playing football long enough to notice her, or Chay honed in on someone else equally interesting.

I make sure to visit the dining hall as soon as dinner service starts, before anyone else is there. I grab a fresh-baked roll and two apples so I can eat somewhere else. It’s not only Leo I’m avoiding—I can’t face the thought of seeing Dean, either.

---