by Sophie Lark
I see motion at the end of the field. My heart swoops up as at long last Isabel pushes her way through the trees. But at the same moment, Sven limps and lurches his way up the road, a lump of gold clutched in his hand.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter.
I don’t have to tell Isabel to run—she’s already sprinting at top speed, quicker than Sven can manage. She’s a mess, hair tangled and muddy, fingernails broken off, hands and arms scratched raw. She thrusts the last puzzle piece into my hands, saying, “God I’m sorry, that fucking Pippa—”
Matteo and Anna seize the last piece, but it doesn’t elucidate how they’re supposed to finish the puzzle. Whatever they’re building is oddly-shaped, and Matteo removes one of the other pieces that was already in place, not sure it’s in the right location.
Still breathing hard, Isabel says, “We had to get through this fucking mess of snares and tripwires. She was setting them off on me on purpose . . .”
I’m only half listening. On the other side of the field, Sven has added his piece to the pile, and the Seniors are feverishly working to assemble their puzzle. I can’t tell whether they’re further along than we are. All I know is that every second that passes of Matteo turning the uneven golden lumps over in his hands seems torturous and interminable.
We’re so fucking close. If we lose the whole thing because of this goddamned puzzle . . .
“No, that’s wrong,” Anna says, taking the puzzle from Matteo. “It goes this way, I’m sure of it . . .”
Anna manages to slot one more piece into place.
“Wait!” Isabel breathes. She grabs the last piece, twisting and turning the puzzle in her hands like a Rubik’s cube. Two of the pieces rotate, leaving a gap. She slips in the last piece and gives a final twist, the two halves of the puzzle finally coming together in one solid whole.
We stare at the golden skull in her hands.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Hedeon says.
A split-second whirl of images whips through my brain. The Chancellor, the banners, the announcement of the Quartum Bellum . . .
“The Keep!” I hiss, careful not to call it out. “The Grand Hall!”
Seizing the skull in my hand, I start to run. The rest of the team chases after me.
As we pass Pippa’s team, I can see Pippa herself holding the puzzle in her hands, one single piece out of place.
She stares at me in wide-eyed disbelief as I sprint past her, her shock quickly turning to fury.
I’m not looking back at her—I’m staring straight ahead as I dash through the gates, between the greenhouses, right toward the Keep.
My team dashes inside the Grand Hall in a tangled knot, sweating and panting, hoping we’re at the right place . . .
As soon as I see Luther Hugo standing in front of the fireplace, I know that we are. He’s beneath his own black banner, the grinning golden skull floating above his head like a crown.
He smiles at us, his dark eyes glittering in his deeply-lined face. It’s the sort of smile the Devil might give you, if you managed to fiddle his tune.
“Well, well, well,” he says, softly. “Do my eyes deceive me? Or am I looking at the Freshmen?”
I take the heavy gold skull and press it into his hand.
35
Dean
I watch from the common room window as Leo and his team of Freshmen run into the ground floor of the Keep. They’re followed less than five minutes later by the Seniors. I can tell from Pippa’s expression of fury, and their lack of haste, that they already know Leo won.
For me, it’s like watching a demon be resurrected for the sole purpose of torturing me all over again.
I fucking killed him. I drowned that motherfucker. How is he still alive?
I had him trapped way down deep in those caves with no air.
It’s impossible.
And yet there he is, not just alive but triumphant.
I go into my room and I lock the door and I sit down on my bed.
Outside I can hear the ruckus as the other Freshman realize that we won the Quartum Bellum for the first time in anyone’s memory. They’re all celebrating, loudly at first, and then the noise fades away as they leave the Octagon Tower and head out onto campus so they can hear the whole story.
I don’t care about the details. I only care what this means.
For one thing, I might be in a fuck of a lot of trouble. Leo knows I tried to kill him. If he tells the Chancellor what happened, if he has proof . . . I don’t know exactly what they’ll do to me, but it won’t be good.
That should be my primary concern. But it isn’t.
I have an entirely different realization occupying my brain.
I sit alone on my bed, reliving everything that happened this year. What I tried to accomplish, and how I failed every time.
I was wrong in thinking that there are good and evil people in the world.
There’s no good and evil.
There’s only the people blessed or cursed by fate.
Fate smiles on Leo. It gives him everything he wants. I killed him, I know I did. And yet somehow he was saved. I loved Anna . . . she loved Leo instead.
“Good people” are simply favored by fate.
“Evil people” understand that the world works against us. So it doesn’t matter what we do. We have to survive by any means necessary. We have to fight and claw to take a tiny fraction of what fate denies us.
I thought I could have love. It was impossible from the start. The universe doesn’t want me to have love. I’ve never been given it, not from my father or mother, not from friends or lovers.
I give up on love. I give up on kindness, friendship, integrity, mercy.
If all I can be is brutal, vicious, cruel, if that’s what I’m meant to be . . . then I’ll be the most brutal. The most vicious. The most cruel.
In a way it’s a relief.
I’m tired of fighting it.
It’s time to be who I really am.
36
Anna
The party that takes place that night down on Moon Beach is the most epic of the school year. Almost every single Freshman is there, along with most of the Sophomores and even a good portion of the Juniors. The Seniors, of course, are entirely absent, furious that their final week at Kingmakers was marred by such a humiliating defeat.
Leo is laughing and telling the best parts of the story to anyone who wants to hear, which is a constant stream of students. He makes everything sound amusing and suspenseful, even the parts that were fucking awful, but I notice he’s leaving out one key detail.
He hasn’t told anyone that Dean tried to kill him. He admits that his regulator was torn off and that I had to dive down to help him. But he’s acting like it was an accident.
When I get the chance, I pull Leo aside and ask him, “What the hell are you doing?”
He smiles at me, slipping his arm around my waist and pulling me close against his body.
“What’s wrong, beautiful? You mad ‘cause I haven’t danced with you yet? Come on, I’ve still got plenty of energy. I’ll spin you around all night long . . .”
He’s pulling me toward the crowded mass of students dancing around the bonfire, already starting to sway me to the music.
“That’s not what I’m talking about—” I say, but he’s got his hands on my hips, his whole body pressed against mine, making me grind with him. Leo has such a smooth and enticing way of moving that I find myself putting my arms around his neck, dancing along with him before I even know what’s happening.
“There you go,” he growls in my ear, “isn’t that so much better?”
I laugh and nuzzle my face against his neck, breathing him in, feeling his warmth against my cheek. Leo’s heat radiates out of his whole body, flowing into me, warming me to my core.
“Now,” he says, “Ask me what you wanted to ask me.”
I say it to him quietly, right in his ear, so no one will hear over the noise of the music.
�
�Why haven’t you told anyone what Dean did?”
Leo looks down into my face. His eyes are glowing and alive from the reflected flames.
“You think that I should?” he says.
“Of course you should! He tried to kill you—he probably will again!”
Leo frowns slightly. Not from anger—it’s something else.
“What?” I say.
“I just . . . feel bad.”
I stare at him like he’s lost his fucking mind.
“You feel bad for the person who tried to murder you.”
Leo gives a low laugh.
“I mean . . . yeah,” he says. “I kinda do.”
Just when I think Leo couldn’t possibly surprise me again.
“Pity is a dangerous emotion,” I tell him. “It won’t be reciprocated.”
“I know,” he says. “And I’m not saying we’re going to be friends or that I’ll lower my guard. But Anna . . . if I lost you, and he was the one dancing with you right now . . . I’d be so fucking devastated. I might have tried to kill him, too.”
“You still have to tell the Chancellor. You can’t just let this slide . . .”
“I won, Anna. I won you. That’s punishment enough.”
I don’t entirely like that answer. I’m afraid of what Dean might still try to do. If Leo thinks their grudge is over, I highly doubt Dean agrees.
Leo can tell I’m not convinced.
He wraps my hair around his hand and gently tugs to force me to look up into his eyes. He holds me pinned in place, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other hand cradling the back of my neck. He turns the full intensity of his gaze on me.
“Anna,” he says. “He’s not a threat to me. No one is. When I have you, I’m fucking invincible.”
All Leo’s power and determination burns in those golden eyes. His face is terrifying in its beauty. His body thrums with strength. I can’t do anything but believe in him when he’s like this.
“Alright,” I say. “I trust you.”
Leo gives me a wicked grin. “I don’t know. I think you need a little more persuading . . .”
He takes my hand and pulls me back through the crush of students, over the uneven sand. He takes me all the way off the beach.
For a second I think he’s going to lead me into the trees where everyone likes to sneak off and hook up. I pull up short, feeling an irrational aversion to the place where I saw him with Gemma Rossi not so long ago.
“Not in there,” I say.
“Of course not,” Leo agrees.
Instead he takes me back up the path away from Moon Beach, all the way to the fields on higher ground. It’s a warm night—the grass is tall and fragrant, sprinkled with patches of pale blue wildflowers. We walk through it, the breeze making a soft whispering sound all around us.
Only when we’re far away from anything else does Leo lay me down in the grass and gently removes all my clothes.
I’ve never been completely naked in the outdoors like this—not since we were little kids skinny dipping. Strangely it brings me back to that time when I had no fear or shame, when Leo and I seemed like one person, having never been apart.
I’ve loved him through every stage of our lives. And I love him most today—I’m amazed at the man he’s becoming. Overcoming his weaknesses. Amplifying his strengths.
“You’re a goddess,” Leo says, looking down at my nude body glowing in the moonlight.
He lifts my foot in his hands, that he’s just stripped of shoe and sock. He presses his thumb into the arch of my foot, massing me. I groan from how good it feels.
Leo kisses my foot, then he runs his tongue from my heel, all the way along the instep up to my toes.
“Don’t!” I laugh, trying to pull my foot away, but he’s got it locked tight in his grip, and he’s looking down at me with that hunger, that fire, that I know means he’s about to do something kinky to me.
“You think I care about licking your foot?” he says. “I’ll run my tongue over every fucking inch of this body.”
To prove it, he starts licking and sucking on my toes.
I give a little shriek from how strange that feels—I’ve never had my toes in someone’s mouth. It makes me shiver and squirm. But there’s also something erotic about Leo’s warm lips and tongue on such a sensitive part of my body, and something even more sexy in the proof of how rabid he is for me. Nothing about me could disgust him. He wants all of me.
Leo starts licking and biting and kissing his way up my leg, up the calf to my inner thigh. Now I can hardly stand it, I want him to go higher still. His mouth feels indescribably good and I want that tongue on my pussy, I fucking need it. I’m spreading my legs, begging him to give me relief.
Leo’s teasing me, getting closer but torturously slow.
“Please . . .” I moan.
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me . . .”
Leo buries his face in my pussy, licking me everywhere I want. He uses his fingers and tongue like a fucking maestro, playing me like an instrument. He shoves my thighs wide open and thrusts his tongue inside of me, fucking me with it, making me scream out loud from how good it feels. I grind my pussy against his face, wave after wave of pleasure crashing over me, sudden and hard.
I could cry. That’s how powerful it is—it makes me want to sob like a baby.
But there’s no time for that. Because Leo is already climbing on top of me, freeing his cock from his trousers with one hand, gripping the back of my neck with the other so he can kiss me ferociously.
I can taste myself in his mouth and I love it. I love all parts of us mixing and combining.
I’m longing for him to shove his cock inside me, I’m waiting for it, but it still takes me by surprise. It does every time. He thrusts into me and the sensation is brutal, intense, and right on the edge of pleasure and pain—as powerful and acute as it can possibly be.
Leo feels enormous on top of me. He blocks out the moon and stars overhead, he envelops me in his warmth and his scent. I can feel his strength as his muscles flex with every thrust.
I can’t get enough of him.
I’m obsessed.
“This is the best thing,” I gasp. “It’s better than dancing.”
Leo laughs. He wraps me up tight in his arms and fucks me even harder. “Like that?” he growls. “You like that?”
“I fucking love it.”
He squeezes me so hard that I can’t move. He fucks me so deep that I can’t feel anything else. I love the way he takes me over, the way he draws this pleasure out of me.
I can feel another climax building and I don’t have to do anything to make it happen. I couldn’t make it stop if I wanted to.
“You ready?” Leo groans.
“Yes. Yes . . .”
We cum together, me tipping over the edge first, Leo following right after so we’re both crying out together, both clinging to each other, both clenching and squeezing each other as hard as we can.
Then we’re laying together in the trampled grass, and I realize how silent it is without our heavy breath and the blood pounding in my ears. It feels like Leo and I are the only two people in the world.
The next morning we have to pack our bags. The ship is coming to take us all back to Dubrovnik.
Chay is wondering how the hell she’s going to fit all her stuff back in her suitcase.
“How did you get it in there in the first place?” I ask her.
“I don’t know! For one thing I didn’t have this blanket, but I want to keep it. Fuck it, I’ll just throw away my uniforms and buy new ones in the fall.”
“I should do that anyway,” I say, examining the skirts and blouses that have become increasingly distressed over the course of the school year. The hem of my green plaid skirt is nothing but ragged threads.
I definitely have to throw away my ballet slippers—they’re beat to shit from dancing on the rough stone of the cathedral. I have more at home.
I can’t believe I�
�m going to see my house again, and my parents and brother and sister.
I still haven’t warned them that I’m dating Leo. I don’t know if it’s cowardice or if I really think they’ll take it better in person.
I’m hoping they’ll understand that Leo and I were meant for each other from the beginning. But I’m afraid that they won’t be able to shake off the taboo of falling in love with someone you were raised with as family. Mafia families can be so stubbornly traditional. Our cousins are treated as close relatives, whether linked by blood or not.
“If you folded your clothes, they’d fit better,” Zoe says to Chay from her perch on the end of my bed. She’s watching us pack, having already filled her suitcase and spotlessly cleaned her tiny room.
“You could fold them for me . . .” Chay says, batting her eyelashes at Zoe.
Zoe gives her a stern look, but stands up from the bed to come over and help.
“Thank you, love,” Chay says, putting her arm around Zoe’s waist and laying her head on her shoulder.
Zoe sighs, her expression unhappy. Unlike Chay and me, there’s no anticipation for Zoe in the journey home.
“You should come visit me in Berlin,” Chay says, sympathetically. “Come see me over the summer.”
“I don’t know if my parents will allow that,” Zoe says. “I expect they’ll want to spend the full three months pressuring me to drop out of school and marry Rocco sooner.”
“You’re not going to do that, are you?” I ask her.
“Absolutely not,” Zoe says. “No matter what they say.”
It’s not what they’ll say that I’m worried about . . . it’s what they might do.
“Come on,” Chay coaxes. “I bet Anna will come visit me too.”
“Sure,” I nod. “Leo would love that trip.”
“If you’re gonna bring Leo, you better bring a hot guy for me,” Chay says, smiling mischievously. “What about that cousin of yours . . . you think Miles would fancy a trip to Germany?”
Zoe gives a haughty sniff.
