Prologue: Julian
Therearetwotypesof silence at Westpoint Academy. The first is the stifling hush of tradition, smeared on every stone by centuries of ritual. The second is the aftermath of violence, a pause thickened by humiliation, pain, and the faint scent of fear.
Tonight, the Feral Boys’ wing is heavy with both.
I recline in a leather armchair, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, an unblemished crystal tumbler balanced on my thigh. The bourbon is older than most of the student body. In this light, it glows like a captured sunset.
On my lap, a woman. Blonde, with a fat ass, not a student, just someone who comes when called. She’s not paid to speak, soshe doesn’t. Her thigh muscles tremble as she grinds against me, working for a reaction that isn’t coming. Her hands knead my chest through fine cotton, nails tracing the ridge of my sternum with professional optimism.
I study her scalp. Roots the color of dishwater. A rash of acne along her jaw, hidden with cheap concealer. There is a transient, brittle quality to her beauty, the sort that bends under scrutiny, then shatters.
She looks up at me through false lashes. The act is supposed to read as inviting, but she flinches at the cold scrutiny in my gaze.
To be honest, I don’t know why I called her here. Guess I needed my mind off of the one thing that’s been running through it since I heard he news.
Amara Marcus.
This is a distraction, but not the one I want. My thoughts drift, as they always do, to the reason my father made me attend the Academy: the next Hunt.
MyHunt.
I take another sip of bourbon and let the liquor burn through my tongue, corroding the taste of cheap lipstick.
My father, the Governor, called me after I got home with the same blunt precision he uses to order executions. “Your Huntwill go as scheduled. Don’t fail the Roth name,” he’d said. “See to it that her family’s loyalties do not… waver or kill her.”
Dean Marcus’s bloodline is an embarrassment of riches—hedge fund capital, international influence, a direct line to the White House. His daughter, Amara, is the forbidden fruit of this tree, locked in an ivory tower and guarded by a squadron of security that would make the Secret Service look underfunded.
The dancer’s hands are on my fly now, clumsy and insistent. Her mouth presses to my neck, the scent of peppermint gum eclipsing the bourbon. There’s a logic to her movements: a calculus of need, compensation, and old-fashioned greed. She’s paid by the minute and incentivized by tip. I let her work for a while. It amuses me.
It’s all chump change anyway.
Her tongue finds my jaw. She bites, hard enough to sting, and whispers something she thinks is dirty. I look at her, and the smile I give is pure condescension.
“Are you bored?” she asks, voice raw from disuse.
“Indeed I am.”
She pouts. “I can do more. Anything.”
This is the point where most men say yes. Consent is implicit. But I’m not here to fuck, or even to be entertained. I’m here toconfirm a hypothesis: that desire is just a variant of hunger, and hunger is always, inevitably, about power.
I place a hand around her throat, thumb pressed to her windpipe. Her eyes widen—part fear, part anticipation. She’s been choked before. Probably prefers it.
“Try harder,” I say. The words are soft, the grip is not.
She whimpers, wriggling closer, desperate to please. Her hand is inside my shirt now, nails dragging over muscle, then down. When she slides her palm beneath my waistband, I let her because the frown that accompanies her frown at my flaccid cock is almost enough to make me laugh. I want to see how far she’ll go for the illusion of control.
The answer: too far.
She fumbles with my belt, fingers slick with sweat, breathing ragged against my shoulder. She looks at me, pleading, to help her, but I don’t. She’s desperate so she switches tactics. If she can’t get the belt off, she will try dry humping me until I’m hard. It won’t work because I can’t stop comparing her to the woman I will claim as mine. The moment her other hand slips between my thighs over my pants, I tighten my grip on her throat and twist, using the leverage to throw her to the floor.
She lands hard, arms splayed in an undignified heap, one stiletto flying off into the gloom. For a moment she just blinks, stunned. Then she scrambles upright, fury and humiliation flaring on her face.
“You’re an asshole,” she spits. Her lower lip is bleeding where her teeth punctured it on the landing.
I adjust my cuffs, smooth the front of my trousers, and look down at her. “Get out.”
She hesitates, eyes flickering to the corner where her purse is abandoned. “My—”
