The Heir

“What’s wrong with Americans?” I say. I keep my voice level, but I’m looking the blond boy right in the eye.

Bram and I sized each other up last night, and it was clear that we both thought we were hot shit. Who’s shit is hotter remains to be determined. With Dmitry it’s something else. He’s doesn’t view me as a rival. He’s looking at me like an enemy.

“It’s not Americans,” he says to me. “It’s you.” His voice drips with disdain.

Something in his tone, coupled with his coloring and the familiarity of his features makes it all click at once.

I’m talking to my cousin. He’s calling himself Dmitry, but this is Dean Yenin, I’m sure of it.

Not that Dean considers us family.

His father and my mother are twins. They were best friends growing up. Until my mom chose my dad over her own family.

Dean’s grandfather tried to kill everyone I know and love at my parents’ wedding: my uncle Nero, my aunt Camille, Uncle Dante, my godmother Greta, even my father. He succeeded in murdering my grandpa Enzo, so that I’ve only ever known him from a portrait that hangs in my father’s office.

And in return, my father rained down bloody retribution on Dean’s family. Dean’s grandfather is dead, strangled to death by my dad. And his father Adrian is burned up worse than Vader from what I’ve heard.

So we are enemies, maybe more than anyone else on this boat.

I knew that Dean was coming to Kingmakers.

I knew this was coming.

But it’s something different to meet him face to face, after never even having seen a photo of him.

He’s the main reason my mother didn’t want me coming here. She’s tried to reach out to her brother over the years—tried to repair their relationship so they could at least have a measure of forgiveness, even if they could never be close again.

He never responded to her, not a single word.

It’s clear from the expression on Dean’s face that my mom was right. The Yenins weren’t just avoiding us. They fucking hate us still.

“Is that any way to talk to your cousin?” I say to Dean.

I won’t give him the satisfaction of glaring back at him. Instead I paste a grin on my face, like I don’t take him seriously. I know that’s the best way to really piss him off.

Sure enough, he takes another couple steps toward me, closing the space between us. Instinctively, everyone else steps back. They all know the feeling of a fight about to happen. That anticipation in the air, the electricity between two people itching to do each other harm.

“Don’t call me that,” Dean says.

It’s fu

Dean hasn’t raised his voice, but he makes it perfectly clear that he isn’t fucking around. His fists tighten at his sides, and his shoulders swell as his body shifts into a more aggressive stance. He’s got the look of a fighter, as if he’s most natural in that position. If I were anybody else, I’d probably take a step back, cringing like a little bitch.

But I’m not somebody else.

I’m me. And I don’t back away from anybody.

“Don’t call you what?” I say. “Cuz?”

Dean takes another step forward until we’re within arm’s reach of each other. I’m taller than him by two inches, but he’s got a decent amount of muscle packed on his frame. I’m watching him carefully, though I don’t let it show. I stand there as relaxed and casual as ever.

“We’re not family,” Dean hisses. “Because your whore of a mother betrayed her family. She’s not a Yenin anymore. She’s just a piece of treacherous trash.”

I want to hit him so bad my fists are throbbing. I can’t let that go unanswered.

“The Yenins broke a blood oath,” I spit back at him. “I don’t know how the fuck you’re even here. You should be excommunicated. Whose cock did your father have to suck to get you back in?”

We rush each other at the same moment. I throw the first punch, right at his stupid fucking face. But to my surprise, he slips the hit so my fist barely glances off his jaw. I’ve never missed like that before.

At the same time, he hits me with a left hook that fucking rocks me. Dean may not be quite as big as me, but he’s fast as fuck and strong, too. My head is ringing, and my hangover headache comes roaring back.

I swing back at him, and this time he can’t quite duck it—at 6’5 I’ve got a fuck of a longer reach than he’s used to. I pop him in the cheek, raising an instant red welt under his eye.

In retaliation he slugs me back in the gut, and that fucking hurts, too. Jesus he’s got a sledgehammer for an arm.

The howls of Bram and the other students draw the attention of the sailors. Two of the deckhands tear us apart before we can finish the fight. They’re big, burly men, and they fling us down on the deck, shouting for us to knock it off.

The bigger of the two, a man with a glass eye and two sensuously entwined mermaids on his forearm, points a sausage-like finger at me and growls, “Raise your fists again, and I’ll chuck you in the fuckin’ ocean. No fighting on board.”

He stands there, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching us both until Dean picks himself up off the deck and resumes his sullen position at the railing, and I head back toward the bow.

I climb up in the net once more, making Ares stir and mumble in the midst of his nap, and A

“What the hell?” she says. “What happened to you?”

She’s staring at my face.

I swipe my hand under my nose, seeing blood smear across my knuckles.

“Little family reunion,” I say.

“Dean?” A

“Who else?”

“Why’d you have to go and fight him?” A

“He started it. I was willing to be friendly.”

“For how long, two seconds?” A

“He called my mom a traitor!”

“Of course he did! You know what he’s probably been told. Did you even try to talk to him?”

“It’s not my job to talk to him!” I scoff. “His family are the fucking traitors, and if he says another word about my mom, I’ll break his fucking jaw for him.”

“You’d better not,” A

“He’s the one—”

“They won’t care!” A

“Oh, get off it,” I grumble at A

I hate when A

The thought of going to some school without her, any school, made me sick to my stomach. She’s my best friend. We’ve always done everything together.

I know A

I know it’s ridiculous because they’re just kids. But I want to be first in her eyes, the way she is in mine. Closer than blood.

“Leo, you can’t act like that at Kingmakers,” she says, her blue eyes fixed determinedly on my face.

“Act like what?” I say stubbornly.

“You can’t act like you usually do.”

I hear the edge of fear in her voice, and that’s what makes me smother my flippant retort. A