His eyes grew hard and he slowly started to move in a circle, forcing me to follow him and wait for his first attack. “You know I saw Anna in the library again,” he said in a low voice, a hint of a grin on his face.
I gave a casual shrug. “So?”
He laughed. “She’s looking into her father again. I don’t think she has been scared off yet.”
Yeah, I doubted it either. The pauper, as I liked to fondly call her, wasn’t scared of shit. We had thought we were getting a lamb that we could manipulate in our hands and mold her to our liking.
Instead we got a tiger who refused to give up.
“Arthur was there too.”
I didn’t wait for Max to make the move, striking so fast that he had to scramble back as the sword swiped at his abdomen. He easily blocked my first parry, but I got him with the second, barely nicking his side before he held up his hand, panting hard. “What the fuck, man?”
I lowered the sword. “Yield.”
“You need to get your shit together if you are gonna fight next week,” he said instead, walking away to place the sword back in its case. “Or I will be picking up your body pieces.”
“I’m fine,” I ground out as he grabbed his shirt, shrugging it on, signaling that we were done here.
He grabbed his bag, slinging it over his shoulder before turning to look at me. “Yeah, say it enough and you might believe yourself.”
I watched him go before swearing as I stalked over to the case, placing the sword back. Max was right about one thing. I would be in pieces if I didn’t get my shit together. For the last four years, I had run an underground sword-fighting club, carefully selecting those who were allowed to step into the circle and duel it out for money. While we used blunted swords, blood was still spilled on a routine basis.
The rules were simple: first to draw blood was the winner. Anyone who tried to do more harm than that was thrown out, shunned by the kings, and banned for the rest of their time at the academy. I was pretty sure that the headmistress knew about my little business, but she knew better than to try to break it up.
After all, she wasn’t an idiot to forgo getting her cut in the form of a check every month. It was one of the things I was going to miss about this academy. I couldn’t believe that my time was nearly up, the weight of what I would be facing this time next year scaring the shit out of me. Here, I ruled this fucking place with the other two kings. There was nothing I couldn’t have.
Well, maybe one thing and it still was pissing me off.
Picking up my towel, I wiped my face and shoulders, removing the sweat that had collected there. I couldn’t remember what moment had led to her getting under my skin, but now that she was, I couldn’t shake her.
I shrugged on my shirt and grabbed my gear, not forgetting to grab the swords so that I could replace them in the gym before anyone noticed them gone. The girl on my mind was my pauper, the American orphan that had somehow gotten herself in the midst of a shitload of rich kids.
The one we had been waiting for.
Flipping off the lights, I stalked out of the room and up the stairs that would lead outside, where I knew it was still raining. Anna Komita had been our plan from the beginning, a wager between friends to see who could lay claim to the lost princess. When she had arrived, we had all been on an even playing field.
Until Arthur had gone rogue and fucked it all up. He had taken her virginity and tried to have a fucking relationship with her.
When Max and I had found out that we had been robbed of the same opportunity, I knew I had to take matters in my own hands. Yeah, it hadn’t been all excitement to spill the beans to Anna, the devastation on her face when I had told her the truth about why Arthur was interested in her to begin with too raw, too emotional.
Everything that we were not. She didn’t have the steely exterior that most of us had been taught in our younger years.
She was, well, too fresh, though she had held her own pretty well given the shit storm that Isauros had caused upon her arrival. I had been secretly impressed that she hadn’t wavered despite it all. And no matter what we did to her, Anna was still here.
Hell, even I had softened toward her. Anna had made me feel a stir of emotion I hadn’t wanted to toward any other person and the burn in my gut had stuck with me for days after, no matter what I had done to her.
The roses had been a peace offering, though I was sure she thought I was the last one who would give her anything like that.
It had been a moment of weakness, one that I hadn’t wanted to admit to and wouldn’t admit to. I had no weaknesses. Weakness would get your legs cut out from under you or a sword to your throat, both physically and figuratively. My father had taught me at a young age to never show emotion.
So, I didn’t.
I stepped outside and pulled up my jacket hood, awkwardly jogging to the parking lot where my car waited. It was a sleek Audi, an early graduation present from my father.
Little did he know that I might not graduate. I hadn’t given a shit about my studies this year and I was dangerously close to failing my English class of all things.
