Page 49 of Soulless Rivalry

“Dinara. What are you doing?”

A little devilish smile spread on her face and she winked at me before spinning around and facing him. “Hey,dorogoy brat.”

Konstantin’s eyes settled on me for a beat and I did my best not to show how much that affected me. When he broke his stare to look at his sister instead, a stream of Russian words easily flowing from his mouth, I took that as my cue to leave.

I turned around, running up the stairs and towards my room. I couldn't resist peeking over my shoulder at him, though, and when I saw that his eyes were already on me, heat gathered in the pit of my stomach.

I was seriously fucked.

“So you’re tellingme nothing happened between you and Konstantin after he all but kidnapped you?” Mia eyed me curiously, her blue eyes narrowed into slits.

I simply shrugged.

“Nope. I mean, I thanked him and he called me stupid for venturing through the woods alone when I knew people in the village hated us.”

“And he didn’t even say anything about the drugs?”

“No,” I lied.

“I never know what to think with these boys,” Briar confessed, putting her fork down. “He spent the first two years here trying to intimidate you, glare and take jabs at you, but then he goes and freaking…” She looked around, making sure nobody could hear her. “...Killssomeone for you.”

My throat became a little tighter at that, not knowing what to say. Even I had trouble understanding what went on in Konstantin’s brain most days. Though Briar didn’t have all the information. She didn’t know how much time we had spent together the last few days. It felt like so much time and yet not enough at the same time. I hated how confusing everything was these days.

Last year, or hell, even just a few weeks ago, things were more simple for me. There was only black and white, good andbad, Konstantin’s craziness and me being dumb enough to be blackmailed by him.

But then he had to go and put my mind in shambles. He had to fucking touch me and make me forget about why I hated him in the first place. He fucking killed someone who was out to harm me, protected me from his mother’s wrath, and all that just didn’t correlate with the version of him I thought I knew.

A part of me hated admitting to myself that there was more to Konstantin Korolov than met the eye.

“I think maybe we should address the other elephant in the room,” Mia changed the subject, sensing I was getting uncomfortable. “There might be a fucking war brewing between the Village and the Academy.”

“I’m not worried about that. I mean you saw how Royal and Mikhail wiped the floor with those two dumbos yesterday.” Briar widened her eyes for emphasis. “And let’s not talk about what Konstantin did to their little leader.”

“I feel kinda bad though.”

The words flew out of my mouth before I could think them through. Both my best friend’s and cousin’s eyes were on me. Sinem hadn’t joined us tonight, she’d preferred staying in her dorm to recuperate. She didn’t handle yesterday’s scene well. I mean, I’m pretty sure Mia barfed after coming back to her dorm, and Briar had looked two seconds away from fainting, but still. All three of us were used to violence in some ways. None of us were strangers to witnessing men in our families come back home late with bloody clothes.

Lord knew Mia and I had had to patch up Lorenzo enough times that blood didn’t even faze us anymore.

“You feel bad? For that bastard who tried sexually assaulting you and mistook you for a punching ball?”

“Obviously not.” I rolled my eyes. “But I do feel bad for the one whose sister was taken.”

I bit my lip, staring at my plate. I wasn’t so hungry anymore.

“I mean, come on, guys. I’d probably go out of my mind if this happened to one of you. He looked so distraught.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Briar looked down. “But that’s not an excuse for what they tried doing to us. We didn’t do anything to his sister. Or her friend.”

“If anything, I feel bad for them. Knowing they’re dead and the Academy is hiding their bodies because they’re afraid of losing funding from our parents.”

I hummed, my fingers tracing the wood lines on the table.

“And Old Berthie saying this wasn’t the first time it happened too.”

Something clicked in my brain. Curiosity, or maybe the need to make myself useful. I thought about that damn journal again, the one I left in the secret room.

“I tried looking that up last night but couldn’t find anything,” Briar confessed. She too was done with her food, if the way she tossed it around in her plate was any indication.

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