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Kaden Hunter is staring straight at me.
As opposed to Jace and Rico, whose brown hair curls softly, Kaden’s hair is black and straight. Severe. Everything about him is severe. From the sharp cut of his cheekbones to the lethal muscles his body is carved from to his cold dark brown eyes. Ice seeps through my veins at the way those emotionless eyes bore into mine, making my pulse flutter nervously.
Almost every time I see Kaden, he is twirling a knife in his hand. He was when he rounded the corner, but he’s not anymore. Now, he’s just standing there, completely still, while staring at me. Like a predator sizing up its prey. And all I can do is to just stare back at him with wide eyes while my heart thunders in my chest, because I suddenly get the feeling that if I so much as breathe right now, he’s going to attack.
“Alina, get to the car,” Mikhail snaps from right next to me.
But I can’t take my eyes off Kaden. Because if I do, I just know that something bad is going to happen.
A slow smile, the smile of a true psychopath, spreads across Kaden’s lips. It sends a flicker of fear through my body.
“What’s this, Mikhail?” Kaden says, though his dark eyes remain locked on me. “You have a little sister? You’ve been holding out on me.”
Mikhail immediately takes a step forward, angling his body so that he is shielding me. Cold hatred drips from his voice as he growls, “If you come within six feet of her, I’ll kill you.”
That sadistic smile on Kaden’s mouth widens.
It makes Anton and the twins shift closer to me as well.
I flick a quick glance at them before meeting Kaden’s stare again.
Surprise shoots through me.
Kaden isn’t looking at me the way Rico did. He isn’t looking at me as if I’m breakable. He’s looking at me as if he wants to see just how much I can take before he breaks me. A subtle difference. But a difference nonetheless. And the realization sends a bolt of electricity through my spine.
However, before I can decipher that emotion, Kaden takes a step forward.
My brothers react immediately. Lurching forward, they try to trap Kaden between them. But before they can, Rico darts forward and slams a fist into Anton’s side. I jerk back as Mikhail aims a hard kick towards Kaden while my cousins engage Jace.
The sounds of punches and kicks echo through the temperate morning air as they fight. And all I can do is to stand there uselessly and watch. Frustration wells up inside me because I desperately want to help. But I know that if I do, I will only get in the way.
I’m not a fighter. I didn’t enroll at this university to become an assassin. The only reason I’m here is because I managed to convince my father that it would be better if I had some basic training before he married me off to someone he wanted an alliance with. That way, it would be more difficult for my future husband and his family to take advantage of our family. Or that’s what I told him at least.
But I’m not here to train. I’m here because I desperately wanted out of an arranged engagement before it was too late. I’m here because I want a few years of freedom before I’m forced into another arranged marriage. Because I know that no matter how much I beg, my father won’t break off my next engagement as well. The next match he makes for me will be non-negotiable.
So all I can do while my brothers and cousins fight is to watch. As useless as the glass figurine that everyone always treats me as.
Panic pulses through my body as Kaden suddenly feints a strike to Mikhail’s left but instead dives to the right. Towards me. I try to scramble backwards, but Kaden grabs my arm before I can get away.
His fingers dig into my upper arm as he yanks me towards him.
Air escapes my lungs in a huff as my back slams into his hard chest.
A moment later, the cold edge of a knife appears across my throat.
All around us, the fight comes to a halt.
My heart is beating so wildly that I’m sure Kaden can feel it.
“One more step, and I’ll slit her throat,” the psycho behind me announces.
From two steps away, Mikhail is staring at the two of us with a mix of horror, panic, and hatred in his blue eyes.
“You move one muscle, and we’ll break his arm,” Maksim retorts.
I snap my gaze towards my cousin. Hope surges in my chest. Anton and Rico are standing a few steps from us, and from each other, but the twins have now managed to get Jace down on one knee after he decided to leave himself wide open for Maksim in order to stop Konstantin from reaching Rico a minute ago. Konstantin now instead has a hand on the back of Jace’s neck, forcing him to stay down, while Maksim is pushing his arm up at an angle that looks very painful.
Deafening silence hangs over the empty street like a crackling lightning storm.
