3. Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
C andles lit up the great room, highlighting all the plants and crawling ivy that had taken over the place. It was beautiful to see: Nature taking back what had forcefully been taken from her.
I looked up at the vaulted ceilings of the old chapel, closing my eyes and putting my racing thoughts to sleep.
Or, well, I wished I could.
Not for the first time, either.
“Man, I’m ready for this school year to be over already.”
My eyes snapped open as Royal, the closest thing I had to a best friend, spoke up. He took a long puff of his cigarette before exhaling the smoke up in the air, his head tipped back on the old couch we had brought back here during freshman year.
The Church, which is what everyone called the abandoned and desacralized old chapel on school grounds, was where my brothers and I went to when we needed peace—kind of like headquarters. Over the years, we all brought friends we knew were loyal to us to hang here. Dominik was the first one to make it somehow liveable when he started his studies and he and his friend Damian did most of the job. Then came Mikhail, and that dumbass didn’t do shit because he was too lazy. I joined in then and was allowed to bring Royal since I’d known him for years. His cousin, Rhodes, and his best friend Asher came a little after. This year was Roman’s second year at the Academy, but so far he hadn’t shown any interest in hanging out here with us.
The whole place was pretty run down and covered in dust, nothing like the luxurious houses and commodities we were used to in our everyday lives, but none of us cared.
The pews were almost all broken or taken over by ivy, a tree was growing in the corner of the main room, and the altar was where we had moved the four saints statues that decorated the place. They weren’t that big, came to around the middle of my chest, but they were fucking creepy, so we covered them with a white sheet.
Rhodes snickered at Royal’s statement, “Already? Dude, classes haven’t even started yet.”
His cousin was a man of few words and didn’t say much else, simply groaned and took another whiff of his cigarette. I hated the smell, but since he was sitting on the windowsill and the smoke was escaping through the broken glass, I let it slide.
“Well, I can’t wait for tomorrow.” Mikhail smirked, taking a swig of the bottle of vodka he’d brought with him.
My brother was all about playing into Russian stereotypes.
“No wonder why,” Royal snorted before looking back through the window at the dark woods surrounding the property.
Asher went on. “Found your first prey of the year yet?”
“Nope, but there are a lot of new faces this year. Lots to choose from.”
“Especially when you swing both ways.” Asher smirked.
My eyes went straight to Rhodes who in turn was staring at his lap. He took a swig of his beer, his mood souring seemingly out of nowhere.
“Jealous?” my brother goaded Asher.
“Fuck no. I love pussy too much. Pussy is enough for me.”
Rhodes took another swig.
Neither Mikhail nor Royal seemed to notice the tension growing between our friends, but I did. And it had everything to do with me walking in on them last year, while Rhodes was on his knees sucking Asher’s dick.
Ash was careful not to meet my gaze and Rhodes suddenly was more interested in his phone than whatever was going on in the room.
It wasn’t a secret for anyone that Rhodes was bi, but Asher? I didn’t think even he knew that about himself.
“If Mom or Dad knew you were such a whore, they would disown you,” I stated, turning the attention back to my brother and his incomprehensible need to fuck everything with a pulse.
“Keyword: if.”
I snickered at that. “You think they don’t know?”
“How would they?” He took a sip of his drink. “I’ve been pretty discreet about my outings.”
“Yeah, which is why they fired the new pool girl at the beginning of summer.”
Mikhail dared to look surprised. “Wait, what?”
“They saw her blowing your dick in the backyard. Need I remind you there are cameras everywhere at the compound?”
Royal chuckled and smirked at my brother. “Not as sleek as you thought.”
“This is fucking ridiculous.”
Mikhail was embarrassed, which I found quite funny. He was not bashful around us, but when it came to our parents, he tried acting like it. He tried acting like the responsible adult we all knew he was not.
“Don’t worry, brat ,” I said, using the Russian word for brother. “I’m sure they’re fooling themselves into thinking it was a one-time thing and you’re still a perfect little virgin waiting for his soulmate,” I mocked as the guys laughed at how distraught Mikhail looked.
“I’ll never understand your parents’ weird obsession with virginity.”
I looked at Ash and shrugged. “It’s not about virginity. It’s about not sharing yourself with just anyone.”
He snickered, “Damn man, you sound just like them. Are you guys, like, in a cult or something?”
I rolled my eyes and didn’t bother with an answer. Mostly because I didn’t believe Asher to have the mental capabilities to understand what my parents meant by that. I mean, he would already have to accept his bisexuality before trying to make sense of people’s opinions on sex altogether.
Our parents’ story wasn’t ideal. It was dark and fucked up and started when my dad kidnapped my mother to get back at her father. Yet, for some reason, Adna and Aleksandr Korolov had it in their mind that they were soulmates. Born for one another. And they wanted that for their kids, too.
I placated them, not because I believed in something as foolish as soulmates or true romantic love, but because the mere idea of someone intimately touching me made my skin crawl.
“What about you, Kon’?” Royal changed the subject, bringing my attention back to him.
With his black hair, chipped black nail polish and black clothes, he looked like an overgrown emo kid. His shirt stretched around the shoulders, and he wore faded jeans as if his billionaire daddy couldn’t afford to buy him new ones. His skin was covered in tattoos, so much he put Roman to shame, and he had his tongue pierced.
I’d known Royal for years, long before joining the Academy. We hadn’t attended the same school, not with me living in Louisiana and him in California, but our parents were friends.
Well, friends was a big word when it came to my family. Our parents didn’t really have much of those, but they did have allies, contrary to what most people thought. We kept them close and were interested in forming the right alliances, but always made sure to let them come to us first. And, so far, we’d never asked any of them for help.
We just liked being cautious.
“What about me?” I asked, shrugging and getting more comfortable on the rundown couch.
Royal exhaled the smoke of his cigarette into the night before turning his head back to me. “Are you excited about class starting tomorrow?”
Was I excited about seeing all the morons I had been going to school with for the last two years? No. Did I miss the assignments, boring lessons, and professors that awaited us tomorrow? I didn’t.
But, somehow, this first day seemed different from all past ones.
Because I had something I didn’t have during my last two years here.
Leverage.
And I was fucking excited to use it.
With that in mind, a smirk drew itself on my lips. “Yeah. Can’t wait.”