Page 5 of Wicked Knight

The ghost of his presence lingers in the wind like the memories of how we used to be taunting me.

Why do you want me now?

I don’t get it.

Why now after everything that’s happened between our families?

The pain can’t be fixed.

Nothingwill bring his brother back from the dead.

The horrors of the past ripped us apart. They rippedmeapart. And this crazy impromptu idea will do the same thing to me.

I’m constantly torn between my feelings for Dmitri and the consequences of pursuing them.

We’re notthe spider and the scorpion anymore.We’re not the boy and the girl who vowed to be friends forever. We’re not supposed to be together.

Although my heart leaps at the desire I shouldn’t entertain, I know I can’t always get what I want. He should know that, too.

Now I have to wait and see what he’s going to do with me.

What a hauntingly demented way to end my freshman year.

Chapter Two

Dmitri

Three Months Later, Initiation Day

My mind is a minefield of shit and damnation, but I need to stay focused.

It’s time.

Time for my initiation into the Knights.

My family have been a part of them since the first oath was made and the Knights became brothers in war, wealth, and power.Tonight, I become one ofthem.

As an heir to their legacy, I’ve been preparing for this moment all my life.

Like all other nineteen-year-old male heirs, I’ve gone through the life-threatening trials at Raventhorn University, made the elite, and earned my stripes. Yet tonight feels like it’s snuck up on me with the weight of all the responsibilities, duties, and obligations that come with being a Knight.

Maybe it’s because I’ll no longer be the boy. I’ll become a man bound to a fate that was signed in blood centuries ago.

With my head held high, I walk through the large oak doors of the ceremonial room of Raventhorn Hall. There I’m greeted by stormy gray walls and the critical, assessing stares of the members of the Knights Council.

Like me, they’re wearing the Knight’s black tunic with the silver-blue R embossed in the center.

With their hoods up, their presence feels ancient and powerful, like echoes from the Viking era on which the society was founded.

They’ve gathered here tonight to watch me take the Oath. My loathsome father, ‘the great’ Maxim Valneko, is among them.

The uncanny thought of him reminds me that stayingfocused is as vital as breathing air. It is my ticket to success, power, and survival amongst the dark ways of the underworld, where only the strong triumph. In this world, the weak perish as quickly as an ant falling into the cruel waves of a stormy sea.

I’ve never chosen weakness. Not even when I was allowed to, and I’d tasted the harsh grief that came with the cold sting of death.

Becoming a Knight is a milestone that signifies the beginning of the rest of forever. The only other things in my life I’ve ever taken as seriously are footballand the girl.

The girl I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about now, so I try to force those forbidden thoughts out of my head.