Page 128 of Kingmakers, Year Four

“Will you come along quietly?” he asks me. “I don’t want to have to gag you.”

“You’ve gagged me plenty of times before,” I say.

The muscle at the corner of his jaw twitches.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have been intimate with you.”

“Is that what we were?” I say. “Intimate? Or was it just me who was intimate, and honest, and real, while you were a fucking lying snake.”

Now Rafe’s anger flares to match mine. He seizes me by the front of my shirt, bringing our faces close together.

“I’ve told you things I never told anyone in my life,” he growls. “I felt things with you I’ve never felt. I fell into you like a well and I’m still fucking falling. I never lied when I said I love you.”

“Just about everything else!” I cry.

“I don’t care about anything else!” he shouts back at me.

Someone clears their throat on the dock. I see three people standing watching: a tall young man with a shock of wild black hair and a ferocious expression, a slim, dreamy-looking girl with eyes dark as bruises in her pale face, and Miss Robin—or, Sloane Petrov, I suppose I should call her.

It’s plain as day that this woman is no librarian. I’m not sure how I ever believed she was. She’s dressed in black, her hair no longer red, now a deep midnight shade that mirrors her companions. The glasses are gone. She stands taller, straighter, radiating that dangerous energy I intimated the first time we met. Now her power is unleashed, like a shade taken off a lamp.

“Let’s go,” Sloane says.

Rafe takes my arm. I try to shake him off, but he pulls me along with that unnerving strength he tried so hard to conceal.

I see Kade grin at the black-haired young man, passing him a couple of scuba tanks.

“Are you getting shorter?” the man says, grinning back at him.

I’m guessing this is the famous Adrik Petrov—famous at Kingmakers, at least.

“You fucking wish,” Kade says, sizing up their relative heights in a glance. “You’re lucky if you’ve got a solid inch on me still.”

“I’ve still got several inches on you where it counts,” Adrik says, winking not at Kade, but in the direction of Sabrina Gallo.

Sabrina rolls her eyes, picking up the last two scuba tanks.

Adrik holds out his hand to take them from her.

Ignoring him, Sabrina leaps lightly down to the dock.

Adrik narrows his eyes, following close after her.

He doesn’t know Sabrina likes the hunt herself. Showing obvious interest is the quickest way to bore her.

I’d be amused to see how this will play out, if I didn’t have more pressing things on my mind. Like where the fuck we’re all going, and what these people plan to do when they get there.

We all load into two SUVs. I’m in the first car with Sloane, Rafe, Hedeon, and the dark-haired girl.

The girl slides into the backseat next to me, with Rafe on my other side.

“I’m Freya,” she says, quietly. “Rafe’s sister.”

This is not how I wanted to meet Ares’ family.

I blush, remembering the stupid fantasies I had of meeting the Cirillos on some beautiful Greek island. Being welcomed into their home.

I was such a fucking fool.

---