by Sophie Lark
Bram Van Der Berg is rubbing tanning oil on his swarthy skin, apparently determined to darken himself another shade before reaching the island.
“Give me that,” Dean mutters, swiping the oil from Bram’s hand.
He strides over to me, a smirk already spreading across his face.
“Cat!” he barks, making me jump. “Rub this on my back.”
Anna laughs derisively.
“Get Bram to do it,” she says. “Cat’s busy.”
Dean ignores her, his pale purplish eyes fixed on my face.
“Now,” he says quietly.
I feel myself jumping up from my position on the pile of ropes, snapping to attention before I’ve even formulated a thought.
“Okay,” I murmur, my face flaming pink.
Anna frowns. “You don’t have to listen to him,” she says to me.
Anna and Dean dated briefly in their first year of school, but I know that’s not why she’s defending me. Anna is the sort of feminist who always protects her sisters, whether she knows the man in question or not.
Dean is watching me, his face darkening as I fail to obey his order.
“I really don’t mind,” I stammer, stumbling over my own feet as I hurry across the pitching deck.
Anna, Leo, Ares, and Rakel watch me with identical expressions of confusion while I take the oil from Dean and squirt it into my hands.
“Rub it on my back,” he says. “Slowly. And don’t spill one fucking drop.”
My hands shake and my face burns as more students watch the bizarre performance of me, a shy little nobody, oiling up the back of one of the most vicious boys at school.
Dean’s skin is smooth and sun-warmed, the muscle beneath the flesh iron-hard.
“Rub out those knots,” he orders.
I try to obey, but my small hands are no match for the tough muscle. I can’t sink my fingers in at all.
Dean makes me rub his back and shoulders, then all the way down his arms.
“Now the chest,” he says, smirking.
He turns to face me, looking down into my face while I spread oil across his pectoral muscles. I can’t meet his eye. I feel utterly humiliated, forced to do this in front of hundreds of watching eyes. Dean is so much taller than me that I have to stretch up on tiptoe just to reach the top of his shoulders.
Standing in such close proximity to him makes my whole body shake. I feel like a mouse forced to dance around within the confines of a tiger’s claws. I’m trembling, my brain telling me that this is much too close, that I need to flee immediately.
I can smell Dean’s skin beneath the coconut oil. He smells clean and freshly showered, but as the sun beats down on us both, I get a hint of his actual scent, an intense and titillating aroma like the green-tinged fumes of absinthe. It makes me weak and wobbly.
“You can stop,” he says, abruptly dismissing me.
He turns away from me and strides back to his friends, like I don’t even exist.
I feel oddly disappointed. Almost angry.
I rubbed him for twenty minutes. He could have at least said thank you, or good job.
Then that spurt of idiocy fades away, and I’m simply relieved that he let me off so easily.
I return to Anna and the others.
“You don’t have to do what he says!” Anna says indignantly. “I know he’s scary, but he’s not going to do anything to you with us around.”
I know Anna’s intentions are good, but in this particular instance, she’s very wrong.
I do have to do what Dean says.
And the consequences are dire if I refuse.
3
Dean
Settling into Kingmakers is old hat at this point. We’re in the same dorm as before, though I’ve moved up to the third floor of the Octagon Tower along with the rest of the Junior male Heirs.
I feel at home as I pass through the vast stone gates into the sprawling medieval campus. My first year at school was bitter, due to my disastrous infatuation with Anna Wilk. Since then, I’ve become master of my emotions and master of my domain at this school. The Dutch Penose, the Armenians, and half the Moscow Bratva answer to me. I’m already proving my leadership skills, my ability to make soldiers follow my orders.
Not to mention, I’m the undisputed champion when it comes to fighting. No one can beat me in the boxing ring. No one ever has.
My father’s house is chaotic and filthy. Kingmakers suits me better. It’s full of power and history. A true meritocracy, where an Enforcer like Adrik Petrov or a would-be Heir like me can rise to dominance, purely by proving our skill and intelligence.
Most of the third-year students keep the same roommates they’ve had all along. I stick with Bram because we’re used to each other at this point. Irritating as he can be, he’s still better than Valon or any of the others. Bram at least knows better than to make a mess, and I prefer his surly silences to Valon’s inane chatter.
As we each unpack our single suitcase, my mind is drawn back irresistibly to the specter of Cat Romero obeying my orders on the deck of the ship. Though Cat is weak and timid, and hardly worth bossing around, the sheer weight of my leverage over her fills me with a blissful sense of power. She has to do whatever I say, she has no other choice. The extent of that control is intoxicating.
Forcing her to obey me in front of Anna, Leo, and Ares was particularly enjoyable. They have no idea why she answers to me. Their bewilderment adds spice to the proceedings.
Instead of looking forward to the commencement of my classes, I’m planning what I’ll make her do next. I’m remembering her flushed pink cheeks and how she squirmed under my gaze. I’m thinking about how I can humiliate her further. The farther I push her, the more I prove my power over her. It might be fun to see how far I can stretch her before she finally snaps.
I wish we were in the same year, so we had classes together. Unfortunately she’s only a Sophomore.
That’s fine—I can stalk her easily enough between classes and in the dining hall.
“What was the deal with the little chickadee on the ship?” Bram inquires, running a hand through his shaggy dark hair.
“What about her?” I say, hiding my smile.
“Why are you fucking with her?”
“Why not?”
Bram looks at me, narrowing his wolfish eyes. He knows I’m up to something, but he couldn’t guess the truth in a hundred years. He has no vision.
He could have watched Cat climb back in that infirmary window and never guessed a thing. Only I’m smart enough to put the pieces together. Nobody else on this campus would ever guess that shy, awkward little Cat is a full-blown murderer.
I’ll admit, I don’t know how she had the balls to tangle with Rocco Prince.
It intrigues me. There must be more to that timid little kitten than I guessed. I want to peel back her layers one by one and see what’s inside.
“She’s not your usual type,” Bram says, smirking. He wants to rub it in my face that I chased after tall, glamorous, gorgeous Anna Wilk in our Freshman year. The gothic ballerina and fellow Heir, lethal and brilliant—opposite in every way to Cat Romero.
But for once, the mention of Anna doesn’t sting me.
I’m not thinking about Anna, I’m fixated on my new plaything.
Cat Romero is a useful distraction, in more ways than one.
Bram is looking over his handwritten schedule. Everything at Kingmakers is handwritten by the administrative staff in ornate, old-fashioned script, which makes it damned hard to decipher, especially if you’re only semi-literate to begin with like Bram. He squints at the page until the scar across his left eye forms one continuous line.
“How come I’ve got boxing and combat now?” he demands.
“Let me see,” I say, snatching the schedule out of his hands.
Sure enough, I see a boxing class scheduled three times a week, in addition to his regular Combat classes.
I check my own schedule, finding the same thing.
“You don’t think . . .”
“What?”
“Filip Rybakov fought under the name Snow.”
Bram stares at me, uncomprehending.
“He was the heavyweight champion. He held all four titles at once.”
“When?” Bram says.
“Twenty years ago.”
“You think he’s here? To teach us?”
I shrug. “Could be. He got his start in St. Petersburg in the underground matches. He could be Bratva.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Bram says. “First class is tomorrow morning.”
The next morning, Bram and I cross the commons to the Armory with a pleasant sense of anticipation. Rumors have been flying around the school that we are indeed to be receiving instruction from one of the most famous boxers of the modern era.
The other students are jealous as fuck, because only a select group of us have been enrolled in boxing. Everybody else has to be content with their normal Combat classes with the decidedly less-glamorous Professor Howell.
It’s a mark of honor to have been placed in Snow’s class. I’m not surprised to see Silas Gray, Bodashka Kushnir, Kenzo Tanaka, Leo Gallo, Ares Cirillo, and Hedeon Gray already waiting inside the gymnasium. I’m less pleased to note Vanya Antonov in attendance, straining the bounds of a white t-shirt deliberately bought two sizes too small.
Bodashka Kushnir is trying to chat up Ilsa Markov, one of the only female Enforcers at our school. Her father Nikolai was at the meeting I attended in Moscow. Ilsa is tall and well-built, with her long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and her Wonder Woman thighs filling out her gray gym shorts. I can only imagine the continual harassment she must get from idiots like Bodashka in the male-stuffed Gatehouse. But Ilsa has no problem taking care of herself.
Bodashka seems to be bragging about his summer exploits, which apparently involves him flexing his substantial biceps for Ilsa. Pretending to be impressed, Ilsa challenges him to try to hold his arm at a ninety-degree angle while she pulls down on his elbow. Bodashka agrees, planting his sturdy legs while Ilsa pulls on his arm with all her might, even hanging off of it so that Bodashka is holding up her entire weight with one arm.
Bodashka grins, sure that he’s impressing her. Until Ilsa abruptly lets go of his elbow, making Bodashka punch himself in the face.
Bodashka stumbles and almost falls, while Ilsa throws her head back and roars with laughter. Vanya, Leo, Ares, and Hedeon all join in. Even Silas Gray chuckles, and he wouldn’t know a joke if it danced naked in front of him.
Bodashka shakes his head, stupefied by the force of his own ham fist. He knows he’s a fucking fool, but Ilsa’s laughter is so infectious that even he has to shrug and admit that the prank was well-played.
Usually our classes only include students from our same year, but the Senior Spy Jasper Webb is leaning up against a heavy bag, methodically cracking the flexible knuckles of his skeleton-tattooed hands. His dark red hair hangs over his face, and he looks moody and standoffish. Still, he gives me a nod as I pass, which I suppose means that he doesn’t hold a grudge over the fact that I beat him in the final round of the tournament last year.
I see Kasper Markaj, likewise a Senior, and August Prieto, a Sophomore, which must mean the boxing class will be attended by anybody good enough to fight.
With only one minute left before class time, Kade Petrov comes sprinting through the door, along with a baby-faced blond boy who must be a Freshman, though he’s as big as any of the Seniors. His face looks familiar to me. When he says to Kade, in a French accent, “We barely made it!” I realize he must be one of the Paris Bratva.
The blond boy is right. The moment the clock hits 10:00, Snow comes striding across the mats.
There’s no fighter like an old fighter, with shoulders and traps harder than petrified oak, and fists of pure calcified bone. His face bears the marks of a thousand punches, delivered by men who train on heavy bags, tires, and even fence posts.
His nose is broad and broken, his brows scowling, his mouth sternly set above a jaw as hard as steel. His graying hair lays closely buzzed against the skull, and his ice-blue eyes pierce each one of us in turn as he surveys the students lined up before him.
“My name is Snow,” he says, in a deep, booming voice that instantly silences even the slight shifting of feet upon the mats, until you could hear a butterfly’s wings beating in the still air. “Boxing is the fight for perfection. We can never be perfect, because we are human and flawed. But every single day in this gym, we will strive for perfection. We will believe in perfection. And we will inch toward it, with infinitesimal steps, until we are the closest to god that man has ever been.”
He walks up and down the line of students, those sharp eyes examining us as if he’s already tallying up the weaknesses in every one of us. He sees Bodashka’s swollen face and Ares’s dingy, torn sneakers. His gaze fixes upon me, and I hold his eyes, refusing to flinch beneath that frosty stare. He won’t find a hair out of place on my person. My body is already a shrine to the gods. I sculpt and shape it every fucking day.
“The fight is not won in the ring, in the brilliance of shining lights and cheering of the crowd. The fight is won here, in this gym. It’s won in countless hours of training and conditioning, in the punishment you’ll take and the honing of your skills, for months and years before you ever face your opponent.”
I can feel the fierce energy swelling in my fellow students. Snow has the powerful presence possessed by all great teachers and leaders. He sets a standard before us. He’s painting a picture of what we could become: tempered, hardened, perfected. Already we strain against the bounds of inaction, wanting to show him that we can do as he says, wanting to impress him.
I feel something else: a desire to prove to him that I’m already superior to the rest of these fools. I want to distinguish myself above them all.
“This is not a fundamentals class,” Snow says. “All of you have been selected because you already know how to fight. We will focus on higher-level skills, which are more complicated and precise. You will follow my instructions exactly. Particularly when sparring with your fellow students. Remember, if you fuck up in golf you get a mulligan, if you fuck up in the ring, you’ll wake up eating through a straw.”
We wrap our hands and don our padded training gloves.
Snow breaks us into sets of two, assigning the pairs himself. Though he doesn’t know any of us yet, he’s able to judge our size and skill level with fair accuracy, so that most of us are evenly matched: Leo with Ares, Silas with Bodashka, Kade with August.
However, he matches me with the blond Freshman, which I can’t help but take as an insult. While the kid is tall, he’s obviously young and inexperienced.
He introduces himself in his gentle, accented voice. “Tristan Turgenev.”
“Dean,” I say curtly back to him, facing off across our mat.
He must be related to Claire or Jules Turgenev. I don’t really give a shit which it is. I’m annoyed that I’m babysitting instead of getting proper practice with someone like Jasper or Leo.
I love fighting. I love falling into my stance, easy and natural, knees bent and fists raised. I love the energy that flows through my frame and the knowledge that I can strike and hit as hard as I want. When my opponent answers back, I’ll slip his punches like I can see them coming from a mile away.
“I’m going to assume you all know the basic strikes and footwork,” Snow says, standing in the center of the gym. “Today we’re going to work on the left jab counter. A jab from a right-handed opponent is the most common punch you’ll encounter. To turn a left jab into an attack, you want to slip the punch, sending their glove over your left shoulder. Then you counter with a jab of your own right to their chin.”
He demonstrates the movements against an invisible opponent. Though he slows down his speed for instructional purposes, I can tell how tight and precise he remains, even
after a decade out of the ring.
“Begin,” Snow barks.
Tristan and I circle each other. Tristan has a decent stance, but he’s slow and hesitant.
I snap out a lightning-fast jab to his face. He fails to slip the punch. My glove connects with his nose and his head snaps back. He stumbles back a step, shaking his head. A fine thread of blood dribbles down over his upper lip. He ignores it, continuing to circle.
Now it’s his turn to jab. He punches out, straight and true, and I slip it easily, responding with an even harder jab to his lip. Tristan grunts, the lip splitting and beginning to bleed as well.
This happens six or seven more times.
I become infuriated that he’s failing to block my punches, and I jab him harder and harder. I’m annoyed that we’re paired together because it’s ludicrously easy to avoid his blows, not a challenge at all. I up the speed of the exercise, until he’s dizzy and stumbling from a dozen direct hits to the head, while he’s failed to strike me even once.
Finally he can’t even keep his hands up, and I hit him with a hard right cross that knocks him on his ass.
“STOP!” Snow shouts.
He stomps across the mats, jaw set and eyes blazing.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.
“A left jab counter,” I reply. “Exactly as you said.”
“That was a right cross.”
“He’s not keeping his hands up. He needed a reminder.”
“Do you think you’re in charge of discipline in my class?” Snow says, standing only an inch away from me. We’re almost exactly the same height— though he’s ten or twenty pounds heavier—so we’re eye to eye and nose to nose.
“You said everyone here should be experienced. He’s not even in my league.”
“You think you’re better than him?”