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“Why didn’t you tell me when I?—”
It only takes one look in those crazed eyes to shut my mouth. Dean is fully invested in this game, and that means he’s only too happy to deal out consequences if I disobey. Silently, I stand once more to walk back over to the food.
Dean’s friends watch this parade with avid interest. I’m quite sure that none of them know how Dean acquired his own personal servant, and their curiosity is mixed with envy. For a bunch of power-hungry douchebags, nothing could be more appealing than a girl forced to jump to attention every time they snap their fingers.
I seize a bundle of purple grapes, grown in the vineyards outside the castle grounds, and I ferry them back to Dean like an obedient little waitress. I plop them down next to the milk and resume my seat, praying he doesn’t have any other cravings.
“Feed them to me,” Dean orders.
“. . . You want me to feed you grapes?”
“That’s right,” he smirks.
I hope he chokes on these fucking grapes. I’d like to ram them right down his throat.
Instead, I pluck off one dusky purple orb and hold it out to him. Dean’s full lips part as he opens his mouth.
I place the grape on his tongue. As I pull my hand back, my fingers graze his lower lip. A shiver runs down my spine.
I’m certain Dean sees me twitch. He doesn’t miss a thing.
He bites down hard on the grape, crushing it in his mouth.
“Very good,” he says, in that deathly low voice.
Every boy at the table is staring like they’re watching a peep show.
“What else can you make her do?” Pasha whispers.
I’m sure Dean’s friends aren’t the only ones watching this mortifying display. I don’t dare look over at Anna’s table. She must think I’ve morphed into a masochist in the few short weeks since Chicago.
The problem is that if I can’t look at Anna, and I can’t look at Dean’s leering friends, the only place left to fix my eyes is on Dean himself.
Strangely, his injuries, the marks of his mortality, only make Dean seem all the more inhuman because he refuses to acknowledge them. Refuses to be cowed or humbled.
I watched Dean win that boxing tournament almost unscathed. I’d hate to meet the man who actually landed a blow on him.
“Another,” he says, his eyes drilling into mine.
I pluck another grape off the stem, lifting it to his lips.
This time, his tongue slides against the ball of my thumb as he takes it from my fingers. That instant of wet, hot friction sends a flushing warmth through my whole body. I know my face is bright red, I know I’m squirming in my seat. I don’t understand how my body can betray me like this whenI fucking hate Dean!
How can I loathe someone so much, and yet I can’t take my eyes off him? I’ve never been so present. I see the tiny golden hairs on Dean’s skin, the minute lines on his perfectly-shaped lips, the edges of his strong, white teeth. I feel his breath on my fingertips, warm from his lungs and faintly scented grape.
“That’s enough,” Dean says softly. “Clear my dishes away.”
I’m happy to clear his dishes, just to get away from him and the encircling mass of the other four boys, who have leaned over the table so they can watch our every movement. Bram Van Der Berg frowns suspiciously, his vertical scar and narrowed eye forming a shape like the crosshairs of a trigger pointed directly at me.
Why does Dean have to be so public about this? People are going to ask questions.
He doesn’t give a fuck. It’s the brazenness that excites him.
I drop the dishes off with the kitchen staff, not having eaten a single bite of food. Dammit, now I really am starving.
Too late. Dean appears at my side, already carrying my bookbag. He thrusts it into my hands, and then as soon as I sling it over my shoulder, he dumps his own armful of books on me.
“Carry those,” he orders, tossing back his shock of white-blond hair.
