Page 20 of Soulless Rivalry

Then he stopped suddenly in the middle of the hall and I bumped into his back.

“Oof, what the??—”

In a move that was way too smooth and fast for me to comprehend, Konstantin found himself behind me, my back flush with his chest and his hand over my mouth, keeping any sound from coming out.

I gasped inaudibly as he pushed us out of the main hall and into a small alcove underneath a staircase, his back against the wall.

That’s when I heard them.

Footsteps. People were walking down the corridor and we would have been discovered for sure had we stayed there.

From the heaviness and the pace of those steps, I would have guessed they were men walking towards us. Four, maybe six.

Not only that but the pitter-patter of paws could also be heard.

The guards didn’t typically bring dogs inside during their rounds, but maybe they were looking for something specific this time around, like drugs.

The Academy was known to throw random drug searches during semesters, bringing in narcotic detection dogs to do the job. Maybe they were looking through our lockers?

My chest was moving up and down as I did my best to steady my breathing but it wasn’t easy when both my mouth and nose were trapped under Korolov’s hand.

Finally, the footsteps became lighter, like they were getting farther from us, but Konstantin still didn’t move.

It seemed like he had completely forgotten about me needing to breathe until I sent my elbow swinging against his ribs.

Then he came back to his senses with a grunt and let go of me like he couldn’t believe he’d been touching me.

And I wouldn’t even blame him for that. We had touched more in the last half hour than in the past two years studying together.

Konstantin cleared his throat, a faraway look in his eyes, before taking a step closer and pointing his finger at me threateningly.

“No more fucking late-night snacks. Go back to your fucking room and don’t get out.”

Before I could snap at him that he wasn’t my dad, he pushed past me and disappeared down the hall, in the direction of the guards.

Looking down at my still-bloody hands, I let out a deep breath.

What the fuck just happened?

ELYSSA

“Elyssa! Elyssa, open the door!”

I groaned, pulling the cover right over my face in the hope it would drown out whoever was knocking on my door at the ass crack of dawn.

“Bitch, we’re late!”

More banging echoed in my small room. Cracking open an eye, I looked at the alarm clock on my nightstand and when eight o’clock stared back at me, I closed my eyes again, ready to go back to sleep.

That’s when it hit me. Classes started at eight-fifteen.

My eyes snapped open and I leaped out of bed, running to open the door. Mia entered, flinging her arms around.

“What the hell, Lyssa? You’re usually the one waking me up.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I groaned, hurriedly searching for my uniform from the small wardrobe, “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

The reason why was voluntarily left out as I simply couldn’t afford a whole interrogation at the moment and I knew that would happen if Mia learned I’d spent a good chunk of the night with a Korolov.

---