Why can I not go five goddamned minutes without getting myself in trouble?
I’m so consumed by my own thoughts that I run right into Dean Yenin waiting for me outside the Keep.
I know he’s waiting for me by the way he grabs the front of my shirt and lifts me up off my feet, totally unsurprised by my appearance.
“Watch where you’re going, Cat,” he hisses into my face.
“Let go of her,” Rakel says.
“Fuck off, Black Death,” Dean snarls at her.
“Eat shit, Zack Morris,” Rakel sneers back at him.
“Rakel!” I gasp, half-choked by Dean’s grip on my collar. “Just . . . go on without me.”
She stares at me like I’m speaking Swahili.
“Please!” I wheeze. “Just go.”
She looks between Dean and me for several seconds. Then she narrows her eyes and says, “Fine. If that’s what you want.” She heads off to the dining hall without me.
Dean releases his grip on my shirt so I can breathe again.
“That’s better,” he says softly.
Actually, I’m sure it’s about to get worse.
Dean looks anything but cheerful. His face is heavily bruised on the left side. He’s got a cut on that cheek and a nasty black eye, the purplish marks especially dire against his fair skin. He looks like an angel stripped of his wings and fallen all the way to earth.
“What happened?” I say without thinking.
Wrong question. Dean’s top lip pulls up in the snarl that I’ve quickly come to recognize as the harbinger of his most intense aggression.
“Never mind that,” he growls. “Where the fuck have you been all day?”
“Breakfast. And class,” I stammer.
“Why weren’t you waiting for me outside the Octagon Tower this morning?”
“I . . . why would I be?”
“Because you’re my slave, Cat,” Dean says, in a tone of stating the obvious. “What good are you to me in the dining hall and at class?”
“But . . . I have to go to class,” I squeak.
“Yes, you do. And you’ll walk from class to class with me. Carrying my books. Every single day.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Dean’s eyes are fixed on mine, steady and unblinking. His pupils are so large that the irises comprise barely more than a thin halo of violet.
“Why do you . . . I mean, okay,” I say, knowing better than to argue.
“You mean, ‘Yes, sir,’ ” Dean corrects me.
My cheeks flame and I feel an intense impulse to tell him to fuck off. But that would be suicidal.
“Yes, sir,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“Good girl,” Dean says softly.
His low purr sends a thrill through my body.
Am I completely fucked in the head that I feel a flush of warmth at his approval? Maybe it’s just relief that he might not have me murdered in the immediate future.
His smile of satisfaction quickly turns to a scowl.
He seizes my chin in a steel grip.
“What the fuck is on your face?” He demands.
“Makeup,” I say, trying to twist my chin out of his grasp.
He pinches it all the harder.
“I hate it,” he hisses. “Wash it off.”
“What? No, I just—”
“Clean that shit off your face,” he barks. “Do it now, then get your ass over to the dining hall.”
He lets go of me so abruptly that I stumble back.
I want to scream with frustration at this fucking maniac and his ridiculous demands. But I can’t do it. I can’t say one damn word to him, and he knows it. All I can do is spin on my heel and march off toward the bathrooms in the Keep, where I wash all Rakel’s expertly applied makeup off my face.
What the fuck is his problem?
Since when does he hate makeup?
Anna Wilk wears a shit-ton of product on her face, and it never seemed to bother him any.
I don’t think he hates makeup at all. He just relishes my misery.
With my face freshly pink and shiny, I walk back to the dining hall, dragging my feet the whole way.
I don’t want to go in there.
I don’t want to experience whatever new humiliation Dean has been dreaming up.
But I’m hungry. So I join the line of students waiting for their portion of pesto chicken pasta, then I carry my tray toward the tables.
I see Leo, Anna, Chay, and Ares already eating, laughing together at some joke. They look so lighthearted and comfortable. God, I wish I could join them.
I can feel Dean’s cold stare fixed on me. When I turn to meet his eyes, he jerks his head toward the