You would think I’d get used to Dean, with all this time spent glued to his side, but you don’t get used to him—not at all. He doesn’t become less intimidating, or less striking. In fact, every day I notice more of his strange beauty—the soft curve of his lips above the broad, rigid lines of his jaw. The carved muscle of his forearms, and his fists like white marble. The swoop of pale blond hair that hangs over his left eyebrow, and then the soft, velvety texture at the nape of his neck where the glittering silver hair is shaved short.
And then, most insidious of all, his scent . . .
Every time Dean shifts in his chair, I smell the subtle amalgam of his signature. Dean’s scent is clean and warm like rain-washed earth, with a mild sweetness like vanilla, and then something sharp and enticing, an intense thread of testosterone and aggression that stings in my throat.
It takes me over every time I’m within his sphere of personal space. It makes my head swim. And sometimes later, when I’m down in my room in the Undercroft, I’ll catch the scent of Dean lingering on my clothes and my heart begins to race.
I might be noticing it more today because of my hunger.
Jasper Webb has finished loading his tray with food. He’s walking toward his usual table that once held Rocco Prince, Wade Dyer, and a dozen other friends.
Now only Dax Volker sits there, sullen and surly.
Rocco and Wade are dead, and the rest of their clique dispersed around the dining hall, welcomed into other groups.
I know it shouldn’t bother me, but the sight of all those empty seats at Dax’s table makes my guts churn. I look at the blank chair where Rocco used to hold court. It’s my fault he’s not there anymore. My fault he’ll never be there again.
Rocco was a sadist, a monster.
Yet the finality of forever eats at me.
I killed him. I’m a murderer. And I can’t seem to feel okay about that, no matter how much he deserved it.
Dean nods to Jasper, inviting him to sit at our table.
“No!” I squeak. “I hate him!”
Too late. Jasper’s already sliding into place across from me, fixing me with his pale green stare.
“Hello, Cat,” he says.
I shiver. I didn’t know that Jasper knew my name. I suppose it makes sense—he must have been on the receiving end of all Rocco’s sadistic plans for my sister.
Jasper held my sister down while Rocco threatened to cut out her eye. He was part of the fight that resulted in Wade’s death and the execution of Ozzy’s mother. I hate him more than anyone at this table. Maybe even more than Dean.
“Don’t talk to me, you fucking animal,” I hiss at him across the table.
“Oooh,” Valon chortles, mocking me. “Watch out, Jasper. Kitty’s got claws.”
“I don’t hold a grudge against you,” Jasper informs me with cold insouciance.
“Oh, you don’t have a grudge against me?” I scoff. “How benevolent. Unfortunately, I have a bit of a grudge against you for torturing my sister for that lunatic Rocco!”
“Quiet,” Dean says to me, placing a warning hand on my thigh. His touch makes me shiver, even through the thick material of my skirt.
It won’t stop me. Dean may have decided that Jasper is his friend and welcome at this table, but I disagree.
“You disgust me,” I hiss at Jasper.
Jasper takes a bite of his peas, chewing calmly.
“I saved your sister’s life,” he says after he swallows.
“You don’t get credit for that!” I cry. “When you chase someone up on a wall, and scare them into jumping off, you’re not a hero for grabbing their ankle!”
“Well.” Jasper shrugs. “She’d be pretty dead if I didn’t.”
I leap to my feet, incandescent with rage.
“You’re a fucking psychopath just like Rocco! All of you are psychopaths! A bunch of vicious, conniving, bullying ASSHOLES!”
“Sit down!” Dean snaps, grabbing my arm to jerk me back into my seat.
This time, I’m too quick for him. I twist my wrist free and snatch up his tray of food instead. Then I dump it right in his lap.
Dean bolts up. The rage in his eyes hits me like a bucket of cold water to the face. My burning anger is doused in an instant. All that’s left is terror.
Dean’s going to fucking kill me for that.
He seizes my wrist in a manacle grip and drags me out of the dining hall.
Nobody tries to stop him.
Dean drags me from the dining hall all the way to the Octagon Tower. He pulls me up the steps like a child, yanking my arm so hard that my feet barely touch the ground as I try to keep pace with his much longer strides.
I twist and pull my hand, trying to free it from his grip. My wrist might as well be welded to his fingers.
Not until this moment have I truly felt Dean’s immense strength. He’s half-carried me across campus and up three flights of stairs and he isn’t even breathing hard. He overpowers me without effort. We aren’t even the same species.
As he hauls me down the hallway, we pass Erik Edman, another Junior Heir. He raises a blond eyebrow at the sight of us but says nothing as Dean wrenches open his bedroom door. It’s clear that Erik is too intimidated by Dean to speak a word, let alone report us.
I’m not sure which outcome I’d prefer at this point. I don’t want to get in trouble for going into Dean’s room. Even less do I want to be trapped in that small space alone with him when he looks angry enough to rip my head off my shoulders.
Dean slams the door behind us and starts tearing off his dirty clothes, his trousers stained from the chicken and peas I dropped in his lap. He rips off his pants, not caring if the material tears, balling them up and flinging them in the corner like they’re diseased.
I stand awkwardly by the door, wanting to run but pinned in place by Dean’s bizarre atavistic reaction. Though his shirt is only marred by one or two tiny spatters, he rips that off too, a button pinging against the window as he flings the shirt into the corner.
Only once he’s stripped to his boxer shorts does he turn to face me, chest heaving with anger, every muscle standing out on his frame.
He looks like a furious god, like Zeus in all his anger, pale and shaking with eyes like churning storm clouds.
“How fucking dare you,” he seethes.
“That was your fault!” I squeal. “You pushed me and pushed me!”
He crosses the room in three strides, seizing me by the throat right under my jaw, so his thumb forces my chin up to look at him.
“And I’ll keep pushing you,” he hisses. “I’ll twist you and stretch you and bend you till you break. And you’ll do as I fucking say, or you’ll suffer the consequences.”
“I don’t care!” I cry, my voice compressed by his hand on my throat. “I won’t sit at a table with Jasper! I hate him! And I hate you!”
“You’ll sit on his lap if I order it,” Dean says, his face close to mine.
He has to bend down to my level. His eyes are terrifying at this proximity, long and narrow with pinpoint pupils, like a beast. Heat radiates off his bare chest.
“I own you, Cat. Don’t you ever fucking forget it.”
I shove Dean with all my strength. It barely moves him a millimeter.