Page 120 of Bad Little Bride

“How much farther?”

I pick up the pace.

“I’m sweating.”

I take a deep breath.

“I need water.”

Slamming my eyes closed, I come to a jerky stop and whip around. She has no control over her body, staggering into me, but I put my shoulder out and she knocks onto her ass in the sand.

Her eyes snap up to mine, sweat dripping down her temples and cheeks flushed red. Somehow, she still looks pretty.

I shake my head, glaring at her. “Stop complaining.”

“I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well after…” She swallows, and I almost smile at the blush that slips over her. “I haven’t eaten, and I didn’t even have time to drink a glass of water.”

“And if you get kidnapped, you won’t sleep or eat for even longer. You’d be lucky if they give you a bucket to piss in, let alone a glass of fucking water.”

She scurries back, shooting to her feet and looking around frantically before bringing her eyes back to mine. “He told you.”

“He should have told me sooner.”

She scowls at that. “He shouldn’t have told you at all.”

I stalk toward her, getting in her face. “You’re lucky he did, princess, or I would have likely killed you before you left for Greyson Elite.”

“He wouldn’t let you!”

“Yes, he would, but that’s irrelevant now, isn’t it?” I spit. “Now that I know, I can’t ignore it. Your first term starts in a few weeks, and you need to be prepared.”

She crosses her arms like the bratty teenager she is, legal age or not. “I don’t need your help to pass my classes. My IQ?—”

“The fact that you’re bothering to tell me what your IQ is further cements how fucking dense and out of your league you are. You must not know this, but. Every. Single. Person. In the academy is in the one percent. The brightest of the fucking bright, but not only are they masterminds, they’re the toughest of the tough. They are geniuses with full combat training, all who have mafia, royalty, and cartel ties that most of them call Daddy, and not the kind they begged to be branded by.

“You’re a mouse going into a jungle of predators who will chew you up and spit you out for no other reason than because they’re bored, and they can. You probably won’t survive your first week before you’re calling and crying, begging Enzo to let you come back.”

She swallows, lifting a shoulder in false bravado. “So what if I do?”

I’m already shaking my head, predicting what she was going to say before she spoke the first word. “You’re not coming back here, Katana, not as a permanent fixture. The day you leave, is the day you step toward your future, and we both know there is no future for you here.”

Her lips press together, an anxiousness settling over her because she knows I’m right.

I am the woman of this house. Enzo is mine.

She’s a temporary shadow, an obligation at best, but she has one of her own to fulfill, and she has no idea what that entails.

“So this is all about getting me out of your hair?”

“No.” I lift a shoulder. “You’ll be back for holidays, breaks, and any other time the campus is cleared. Or at least until it’s time to tell them who you are, and you take your wing in the mansion with the other girls of Greyson.”

“Why not just send me off, leave me to find my way on my own?”

“Because your name on your dorm door will read Katana Fikile, sister to Enzo Fikile.”

“They’ll leave me alone when they realize this.”

“They’ll know before you set foot in the door, and they’ll come at you harder because of it. You’re the first Fikile to be accepted into the academy, the only first generation of your year. You’ll have more to prove than anyone. The Greyson Gala will be here before we know it, and as the highlighted student of first years, which make no mistakeyou areas Enzo’s little sister, they will escort you across the stage and introduce you to every single board member, including the men who witnessed your birth, the birth of the fourth Greyson, and you don’t even know who’s who.”

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