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Unfortunately, the ship only goes one place, so I don’t have much choice unless I fancy jumping the rail and swimming the last mile to shore.
He might not even be waiting.
Men don’t keep their promises when they live in the same house as you. I’m not arrogant enough to think he’s been mooning over me the last four months, while I’ve been trapped on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
He might not even remember gripping my wrist so hard it left a bruise in the shape of his thumb.
Iwillsee you again. I was simply offering you the courtesy of choosing the time and place …
Like I was one of his Wolfpack.
Like I had to obey.
He doesn’t know me very well.
I don’t even like men.
Is Adrik a man? Or an animal?
I grin, wondering how to test him.
I’ve got at least another hour before I see if he showed up.
The journey back to shore seems interminable.
Wilting in the heat, the students strip off their uniforms, leaving button-up shirts and knee-socks scattered all over the deck.
My own uniform is much the worse for wear. It takes a beating when our classes take place anywhere but the classroom: Marksmanship, Combat, Surveillance, Torture Techniques, Stealth and Infiltration …
The hem of my plaid skirt is distinctly bedraggled, stained with something dark—grease, or old blood. My socks have long since lost their elastic, puddled around my ankles.
I’d like to burn the lot, and maybe I should when I get home. God knows this set of uniforms won’t last another three years.
“What are you scowling about?” Cara asks, leaning against the rail with a notebook tucked under her arm.
It’s not schoolwork—Cara’s always scribbling. She wants to be a writer. I suspect she only came to Kingmakers so she could get material for her novel. She’s not criminally-minded, which won’t matter. Her sister Anna is heir.
Cara’s as dark as Anna is fair. With her large, sad eyes, and pale, pointed face, she looks like a Victorian ghost child. That suits—the gothic mansion in which she grew up is almost certainly haunted.
“I’m sick of these clothes,” I tell her.
Cara’s uniform is still perfectly pressed. She’s the only person on the deck not sweating profusely. The Irish students resemble lobsters fresh out of the pot.
“Aren’t you hot?” I demand.
“Mind over matter.” Serenely, she turns her face into the breeze.
Even the Chancellor looks uncomfortable in his dark suit and thick black beard.
He’s probably peeved that he has to take the ship back to shore with the rest of us plebs. Word got out about his private cruiser. All his secrets are leaking out. Nothing stays hidden in the mafia world, unless everyone who knows is dead.
Big bad Hugo got a slap on the wrist. Now he has to pretend to be on his best behavior. If the Hugos weren’t richer than god, he’d have been sacked from the school, with a knife in the spine as a retirement gift.
I know better than to think he’s actually changed. He stands in the shade of the mainmast, his beetle-black eyes crawling over me.
I return the stare.
Men have looked at me like this since I was eleven years old. It doesn’t faze me. Their lust is their weakness, and my strength.
