Kingmakers, Year One

14. Dean

14

DEAN

I follow Anna back to Kingmakers.

I keep a long space between us, so she won’t hear me.

Honestly, I don’t think she’d hear a brass band behind her. She’s stumbling along with none of her usual grace.

I don’t like seeing her like this. It pains me to hurt her. But it pains me more to think that she’s upset over that fucking asshole Leo Gallo. He doesn’t deserve her devotion. It took him all of thirty minutes to stumble off in the woods with Gemma Rossi. There’s no drug on earth that could distract me from Anna.

I watch her every moment from the beach to the castle. She’s fleeing across the ground like a white bird, her hair streaming behind her. And I’m chasing after her like a hunter with an arrow at the ready.

When she passes through the gates into Kingmakers, I watch to see which direction she turns.

Just as I expected she veers left, away from her dorm. I know exactly where she’s going.

She passes between the Gatehouse and the greenhouses, then shoots the gap between the dining hall and the brewery. She takes a hard left, passing the library tower, hurrying on toward the cathedral on the far west side of campus.

The cathedral looks skeletal and spooky in the moonlight. The large rose window above the double doors peers at us like a baleful eye.

Anna doesn’t have her speaker, she forgot it at the party. But she came here anyway, because this is her sanctuary.

She’s already inside before I reach the doors. As I slip through, I expect to hear her sobbing echoing around the stone walls.

Instead, there’s nothing but silence.

I walk quietly up the nave, my eyes sweeping the shadowy spaces for any sign of Anna. All the furniture has long since been removed from the cathedral—no pews, no altars, no shrines. Even the doves are quiet, asleep up in the rafters.

At last I see Anna, sitting on the stone floor of the chancel with her knees tucked up against her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins, her silvery hair a shroud around her.

“Anna,” I say.

My voice echoes in the empty space, even though I spoke quietly.

Her eyes fly up to meet mine, and even then, I can tell she’s looking for Leo. She thought he came after her. Painful disappointment flashes across her face when she sees it’s me instead.

She jumps to her feet, tossing her hair back over her shoulder, trying to maintain her composure even now.

I feel wild admiration for this girl who refuses to show a single crack in her armor, even when I know she’s about to break apart.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

I hear it, though she tries so hard to hide it . . . a quaver in her voice.

I cross the room in three steps and wrap my arms around her.

I pull her close against my chest, cradling her head in my hand, pressing her cheek against my heart. She tries to pull away, but I keep her pinned in place, my other arm wrapped tight around her body.

I force her to take comfort from me.

She fights me, but not hard. She’s too beaten down by what happened. The strength has gone out of her.

After a moment, she submits.

She stops struggling, and she lets me hold her.

I inhale the scent of her hair—smoky from the fire, but still fresh and clean underneath.

I hold her tight, making her feel the warmth of my body, the strength of my arms, the tremor of muscle that betrays how long and how intensely I’ve wanted this.

And then some magic happens, something I couldn’t predict: Anna starts to cry.

She cries like her heart is breaking. Her tears soak the front of my shirt and her whole body shakes. When she looks up at me, her eyes are bright and wet, and her lips are trembling.

I see the moment, and I seize it without hesitation.

I kiss those soft and devastated lips.