The Freshman (Kingmakers)

by Sophie Lark

  I went all-out. I orchestrated a fucking symphony of romance.

  I knew it wouldn’t take long for Leo to realize what a fool he’d been to let her go, so I knew I had to act fast, before he wormed his way back into her good graces.

  I spent a week planning it. I studied everything I could about Anna. I quizzed her roommate and her classmates, and I racked my brain for every last bit of information she’d ever let slip, trying to figure out what would be the perfect date.

  Her roommate Chay wasn’t helpful. She already doesn’t like me, so she flatly refused to talk about Anna behind her back. Our classmates were even more useless. They don’t know Anna any better than I do. The only people at Kingmakers who could have given me tips are Leo Gallo, who’d rather cut my throat than help me, or maybe Miles Griffin, whose cousins are the only thing he won’t sell for cold, hard cash.

  In the end, I did something kind of fucked up.

  I broke into her room again and read all her letters from her sister.

  I skipped Combat class to do it, knowing that Anna would be occupied. I snuck into her room, and I read all fourteen letters, one for each week we’d been at school.

  The letters were a treasure trove of information. I only wished I could see the ones that Anna had written back.

  She’d told me that she was closer to her little sister than to almost anyone, and that her sister liked to write. That much was obvious from the letters—they were half-essay, half-diary, long and full of ruminations, descriptions, and reminiscences.

  The latter was the most useful part—Cara recalling shared experiences with Anna that I knew I could use to my advantage.

  I devoured the letters. It was like watching scenes from Anna’s childhood through her sister’s eyes.

  Do you remember when we floated through those caves in Belize? I was claustrophobic and it scared me, floating on the water in the dark. You told me to close my eyes. You said I’d see better that way, using my ears instead. You said we were in the heart of the earth, and there was no safer place to be . . .

  I’m scared of everything, and you never seem afraid of anything. Heights, dogs, cemeteries, blood . . .

  Watching you be brave makes me feel more brave.

  I miss you. Mama and Papa miss you. Even Whelan, though he wouldn’t admit it.

  Did I tell you he’s been sneaking into your room just to sit in there? Not even to fuck up your stuff. I guess he does have a heart after all, under all that demon-energy.

  Don’t worry, he hasn’t been touching your birds. I’ve been taking care of them, and I don’t let him in the aviary.

  Too bad Mama’s allergic so we could never have a dog or cat. I’ll get a puppy someday. I’ll bet you’d rather have a cat. Haha no that’s too tame—maybe a snow leopard.

  I think Papa had trouble at work this week. He was out all night on Thursday and Friday. Mama waited up for him, and you know she only does that when there’s a problem.

  How are your classes? Are you still learning to scuba dive?

  Two hours went by in the blink of an eye. I totally lost track of time, only realizing what had happened when I heard girls’ voices right outside the door. If it were Anna and Chay, I would have been caught. Luckily it was only the Galician Heir talking to Pippa Portnoy. I waited until they passed the door, then hurried out before Anna could come back for real.

  It was addictive, learning things about Anna that she had never told me. Things that might take months or years for her to tell me.

  I used the information to plan our date. I knew it couldn’t be anything as prosaic as a walk around the island or going to the cafe in the village.

  I had to impress her. I had to make her feel something—something that would cut through the morass of her attachment to Leo Gallo.

  I waited for her outside her dorm. She came down a few minutes late, looking hesitant, like she’d considered not coming down at all. I could tell she’d taken care getting ready though, and that was all the encouragement I needed.

  I no longer disliked Anna’s odd way of dressing. Instead, it was having a Pavlovian effect on me. The moment I saw her torn tights or her thick black eyeliner, I could feel my cock stiffening and my heart racing. I wanted to tear those tights right off of her. I wanted to see her makeup run down her face with those full, pouting lips wrapped around my cock,

  But not yet . . .

  I knew I had to be patient.

  I took her off campus, because I knew she’d never be comfortable inside the walls of Kingmakers where Leo might see us together.

  “Where are we going?” Anna asked me.

  “You’ll see,” I told her.

  We walked a long way down the winding main road of the island that led from the school down to the harbor. I walked slow, wanting to have plenty of time to loosen Anna up with conversation about her favorite books. I already knew from one of her sister’s letters that Anna loves Jane Austen novels, and I’d read one on purpose earlier in the week, sitting in one of the overstuffed armchairs in the library.

  I mentioned it casually, and watched Anna’s face light up as she said, “I love Persuasion! Everybody thinks Pride and Prejudice is her best one, but Persuasion has such a beautiful arc from melancholy to happy . . .”

  I didn’t see it as deceiving her. I saw it as evidence of what I’d do to make her happy. What I’d do to give her the conversation she deserved—centered around her likes and interests, instead of around whatever bullshit Leo Gallo would have talked to her about. He wouldn’t have read a book just to discuss it with her. He wouldn’t have spent all week planning a date.

  When we got to the sheep farm, I took Anna right into the little stable I’d staked out earlier in the week.

  “What are we—” she asked again. Then she broke off, seeing what I’d brought her to see.

  Three little lambs curled in a pile, two white and one black.

  Their mother stood nearby, looking exhausted.

  “What are they doing here?” Anna asked in amazement.

  “Sometimes they come early in the winter,” I said. “This ewe had three, so the farmer’s been bottle-feeding them. He said we could help if we wanted.”

  Actually, I’d bribed him with a substantial wad of cash so I could bring Anna here on this little excursion. I figured from her sister’s letter that she must love animals.

  Sure enough, she gladly took the bottle of warm milk I fetched from the farmhouse and knelt down in the straw so she could give it to the greedy lambs. The ewe didn’t care—she seemed relieved that we were there to share the workload.

  The lambs were only three days old. Their knees were still knobby and uncertain, their coats puffy and clean. They tumbled over each other fighting for the bottle. Anna laughed with delight, pulling them onto her lap and feeding them in turn.

  The little black lamb nibbled at her fingers and one of the white lambs tried to sample her hair. Anna pressed her nose between their ears and inhaled the clean scent of their wool.

  I didn’t give a fuck about the lambs. I was watching Anna—watching her face soften, her lips part, her defenses drop. At Kingmakers she was always so intent on showing that she was tough and emotionless. Here, just a couple of miles away, just us and the animals with no one else to see, I caught a glimpse of the real Anna. The same one I saw the night of the party. The one with a vulnerable heart.

  “Do you want to feed them?” Anna asked, looking up at me.

  “Sure,” I said, just for an excuse to sit down beside her in the hay.

  I grabbed one of the white lambs and stuffed the bottle in its mouth. It snuggled up against me, its rapid little heart beating against my hand. I was surprised how soft its wool felt, and how comforting its warmth and weight seemed, despite its tiny size.

  “I’m not a vegetarian,” Anna said. “But I could never stand to eat lamb. They should have some time to live, even if they’re slaughtered in the end.”

  “I think they just use these sheep for wool,�
� I said.

  “Have you ever seen pictures of that sheep that ran away and hid in a cave for six years?” Anna laughs. “When they finally caught him his coat had grown so big that they shaved sixty pounds of wool off him.”

  “Sixty pounds?” I wrinkled my nose in disbelief.

  “Yeah! He became a celebrity in New Zealand.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “No I’m not! He was on TV. They wrote children’s books about him. He visited the Prime Minister.”

  I wanted to kiss her again right there, with her defenses low and her oxytocin high from contact with the lambs.

  But I waited. Patiently and strategically.

  We walked down to the beach next. Not Moon Beach, because I didn’t want her thinking about Leo when I needed all her attention focused on me.

  Instead I took her down to the east side of the island where the waves had hollowed-out caverns in the limestone. We walked through the caves, stalactites hanging down like pale stone icicles and seawater seeping into pale green pools in the rock.

  I’d brought a backpack full of food stolen from the kitchen: oranges, bread, cheese, and two bottles of the local beer. I knocked the caps off the beer, handing one to Anna.

  She took it from me. I peeled an orange and handed that to her as well.

  “Dean,” she said, and I knew immediately from the tone of her voice that she was going to say something about Leo. “This has been really nice, but I—”

  I interrupted her. “I know you like spending time with me.”

  “I do,” she admitted.

  “And I know you have feelings for Leo.”

  She didn’t reply to that but sat quietly in the dim green light of the cave that made her eyes look blue-green too, like arctic seawater.

  “He had his whole life to love you, Anna,” I said fiercely. “He never did anything about it. I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Anna was silent, biting the corner of her lip. She held the peeled orange in her hand, untouched.

  “I can’t stop how I feel about him,” she said quietly. “I’ve tried.”

  “I’m not trying to stop you,” I said.

  That was a lie. I planned to slice through every tie that bound her and Leo together, one by one. But I had time to do it. For now, all I needed was for Anna to let me in, just a little.

  “All I want is a chance,” I said to her. “To see if you could maybe feel something for me, too.”

  She pressed her lips together, and I thought she might be about to shake her head. So I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up from where she was sitting on the soft, chalky limestone.

  “Here,” I said. “Come look at this.”

  I pulled her deeper into the cavern, to the place where the seawater was pouring in from the ocean as the tide came in. It was dark there, almost fully dark. Unconsciously, Anna’s fingers interlocked with mine.

  “What are you showing me?” she asked.

  “Just wait . . .”

  The water poured in with each set of waves, cold and dark.

  And then, as the incoming waves churned against each other in the dark recesses of the cavern, the pools began to glow. The light was faint at first, just threads of turquoise in the black water. Then the color spread, until the entire pool was illuminated with a vibrant, shifting, moving light. Organic and surreal. The light reflected off the cavern walls and glimmered on Anna’s smooth skin.

  She stared at me wide-eyed.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “Dinoflagellates,” I said. “They’re bioluminescent.”

  It was like a million tiny fireflies underwater. Each fresh wave from the ocean increased their supply and their agitation. Soon the whole cavern was glowing, and Anna’s mouth was open in awe.

  That’s when I kissed her again. Her lips were already parted, and I slipped my tongue into her mouth, tasting the warm remnants of the beer and the sweetness of Anna herself. I pulled her hard against me. I was trying to restrain myself, but it was almost impossible when the taste of her made me starve for more, and the feel of her lean, tight body against mine made me want to rip every scrap of clothing off her so I could see that naked flesh I’d been obsessing over since the very first day of school.

  My hand cradled the side of her throat. I let my fingers slide down to her collarbone, and then the top of her breast. I dipped my fingers under the tight material of her top, down the warm swell of her breast, my ring finger just grazing her stiff nipple before Anna put her own hand over mine to stop me.

  “Wait,” she said.

  I stayed still, though I didn’t want to. I still had one hand gripping her hip and the other resting on that perfect breast. I wanted to pull her back into me, yank her top down entirely, and take that hard nipple in my mouth.

  “I’m not . . . very experienced,” Anna stammered. “You’ll have to go slow.”

  It was in that moment that I realized that Anna was a virgin. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought a girl that gorgeous could come to college still a virgin. Bare minimum, I’d assumed that she and Leo must have fooled around at some point in their past. I couldn’t imagine a world where he could have had that cherry in the palm of his hand without popping it.

  If I thought I was infatuated with Anna before, it was nothing compared to the obsession that seized me then. I silently swore that I would take Anna’s virginity or die trying. I’d be her first lover. And that’s what would bind her to me, no matter what Leo tried to do after.

  I literally salivated at the thought. I had to swallow hard before I could reply, “That’s alright. I understand.”

  If Anna said I had to “go slow,” that meant she was going to let me try. She was going to keep seeing me. Which meant I had to be careful not to fuck it up, not to scare her off. Even if it seemed impossible. Even if it was torture trying to keep my hands off her.

  So that’s what I did. I kissed her again, slowly and gently. And then I took her back up to Kingmakers, back to her dorms. I didn’t try to push it any further, so she’d believe I was respectful. So she’d come out with me again.

  And all the while I was plotting how I’d be the first person on this planet to fuck Anna Wilk, so I’d have that piece of her always. So she’d belong to me.

  In the weeks that follow I pursue Anna relentlessly. I take every possible opportunity to keep her away from Leo, inviting her to sit with me in our shared classes and during meals, constantly trying to tie up her time with dates and activities that don’t involve him.

  The first challenge of the Quartum Bellum is the best part of all, because Leo himself is forced to pair Anna and me together so I’ll have a babysitter. Granted, it does prevent me from sabotaging, but it also gives me plenty of opportunities to remind Anna what a great team we made together, and to dramatically rescue her from jail.

  I’m irritated when Kasper Markaj gets himself kicked out of the competition so easily, but at least the Freshmen place last of the three winning teams. Best of all, Leo loses his stupid bet with Calvin Caccia.

  He has to come down to breakfast the next morning stark naked.

  I expect him to back out of the bet, or at bare minimum to slink through the dining hall with an appropriate level of embarrassment.

  Everyone in school has heard about the terms of the bet, and every single seat is packed with students waiting to laugh and jeer at the sight of the cocky Freshman literally stripped bare.

  Instead, Leo strolls into the dining hall at the stroke of eight, naked as the day he was born. He’s grinning and waving at his friends, freshly showered and wearing only a pair of flip-flops.

  He takes his time selecting his bacon and eggs from the chafing dishes, then chooses a seat right in the middle of the hall, attacking his breakfast with apparent enjoyment.

  While some of the Juniors and Seniors continue shouting and jeering at him, it’s impossible to come up with much in the way of insults when Leo is such an undeniable physical sp
ecimen.

  I fucking hate his guts, and even I have to admit that his height, his tan, and his physique leave little to scoff at. In fact, I think it’s making him more popular than ever, especially when the girls get a good look at the package swinging between his legs.

  I see Gemma Rossi leaning forward in her seat, openly staring at his cock, practically salivating—something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Anna.

  I expected to enjoy Leo’s humiliation, and instead I’m seething with irritation long before he even sits down.

  It doesn’t help that I can see Anna’s eyes irresistibly drawn toward Leo again and again while she tries to ignore him, eating her breakfast next to Chay.

  Before Leo even finishes his food, the jeers turn into a chant, led by the Freshmen and a substantial number of Sophomores who don’t seem to give a fuck that they lost their place in the competition.

  “LEO! LEO! LEO! LEO!”

  Their voices echo around the dining hall and the plates rattle as they pound the tables with their fists.

  I’m gripping my fork so hard that I’ve almost bent it in half.

  How in the FUCK does everything Leo touches turn from shit into gold?

  “LEO! LEO! LEO!”

  He stands up from his seat, giving the crowd a little salute. Then he sinks into a deep bow with his naked ass pointed in the direction of Calvin Caccia’s table. The dining hall erupts in howls of laughter, while Calvin’s face turns an ugly shade of puce.

  I shove my plate away from me, furious and disgusted.

  I can’t help looking over at Anna again. She’s watching Leo, the tiniest hint of a smile tugging up the corner of her mouth.

  Somehow I’m burning with envy. Leo is naked, disgraced, and publicly shamed. And I’m sitting here jealous of him yet again.

  18

  Anna

  Christmas at Kingmakers is depressing. We aren’t allowed to go home to see our families. We can’t send them gifts, either, though they’re permitted to send one package to us.