Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
“Come on, Biba. Call, damn it,” I whispered sharply, hoping that a call popped up on my phone.
But it didn’t. There was silence. There was nothing.
What if she’d walked into a death trap? What if we’d let her go to her death? The thought made my stomach twist, threatening to send the few bites of food I ate right back up my throat. I couldn’t lose Biba. I didn’t care if her love was divided. I just needed a part of her to be mine, and I would give her my entire soul.
I hoped I still had one to give to her.
CHAPTER 3
ZEPHYR
There was a knock on my door. Lately, I hesitated whenever someone came to my suite because there was no telling who was there. With Arvo gone in Switzerland, it was just me left at the academy. I wasn’t afraid to walk around campus like I owned it, which I basically did, but I wasn’t stupid either. I needed to watch my back because more and more names appeared on my enemy list.
I cracked the door and peered through to see a smirking Arvo outside in the hallway. I pulled the door open the rest of the way and allowed him inside of my room before shutting the door behind him.
“Thanks for giving me a heads up that you were back in town,” I commented sarcastically. Arvo came and went as he pleased, which grated on my nerves. We were facing stressful times right now, so I needed him to work with me.
“Why did you need to know? Hiding things from me like your ex-fling?” Arvo scoffed at me as he strode into my room.
I grinded my teeth at his snide comment about Biba. Even if I was upset with her and her decisions, a part of me still felt connected to her. No matter what, she would always have a piece of me. I was aware of how dangerous that was, but it wasn’t like I could control how I felt about her.
“What did you find in Switzerland? I hope your trip wasn’t a waste. You cut it close to classes starting,” I told him. I didn’t want him to dredge up any suspicions from our enemies because of his absence. With classes starting tomorrow, we needed to work together to keep the academy under our rule. Too many people were trying to dethrone us.
If I failed to keep Stormcloud under the Kings’ rule, I didn’t even want to think about what my father would do to me. Plus, this was my legacy. Upholding the Kings’ legacy was all that I knew. If I wasn’t a King, I wouldn’t be anything.
“It wasn’t a waste,” Arvo replied as he turned to face me. “Schmidt made a large deposit at an extremely secure Geneva bank. We’re talking trunks of money.”
Air puffed out of my nose sharply as I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear that. If Schmidt was making moves like that and shuffling money around, he was forcing our hand. I preferred to punish Schmidt by running him out of town and leaving him with nothing, but we might have to kill him instead.
He was taking the Kings’ money and sending it over the border to store in anonymous accounts to hide it from us. He wasn’t as smart and sneaky as he thought he was, though. We knew what he was up to. Now, all we had to do was stop him and steal our money back.
“Bastard. Doesn’t he know he’s playing with fire?” I gritted out as I stalked around my room.
Arvo watched me with a relaxed look on his face.
“He’ll get burned. Don’t worry,” Arvo assured me, not seeming stressed in the slightest. In fact, he seemed more pleased than anything. Schmidt kept putting a target on his own forehead, and Arvo was locked on and ready to fire.
With a sigh, I dropped down on my bed. I couldn’t catch a damn break it seemed like. I always had to deal with bullshit, and I was growing sick of people thinking that they could fuck us over.
“We need to keep a closer eye on Schmidt,” I told him. I didn’t need him sneaking anything past us.
“Already done. Got plenty of little birdies ready to fly this semester,” Arvo replied with a devious grin on his face. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that he was usually a step ahead of me. Probably a bad thing.
“I hope you’re vetting these birds well,” I muttered. He was recruiting half of the academy at this point. Not that many people liked us. We didn’t need them to like us, though. We just needed them to fear us so that they fell in line and didn’t challenge us.
“I’m not a moron, Zephyr,” Arvo said pointedly as he moved to stand in front of me. He crossed his arms, cocking an eyebrow. “You need to relax.”