Chapter Text
Chapter One: Not the face
Landon King
Landon King existed above the mess of other people.
That was the simple truth of it—one he had never needed to defend. The world arranged itself around mediocrity, and Landon rose cleanly above it, untouched. An anarchist crowned by royalty, a god masquerading as a man. His sculptures made museums feel like mausoleums, their Greek idols reduced to clumsy relics beside his work. Empathy, sentiment, hesitation—those were indulgences for the weak.
He wore charm the way others wore skin. Polite. Immaculate. Lethal if peeled back.
The few who glimpsed what lay beneath—the rival academies, the secret bloodlines playing at civility, the mafia heirs pretending they weren’t animals—were irrelevant. Even his so-called mortal enemy, Nikolai Sokolov, the barely clothed barbarian with fists for a personality, barely registered.
Or at least, he shouldn’t have.
The boxing arena pulsed with sound, a living thing that bent toward Landon as he stepped into the ring.
“KING! KING! KING!”
He let the noise wash over him, let it feed the image. His movements were precise, almost lazy—each strike clean, calculated, devastating in its economy. Art in motion. He could dismantle this brute blindfolded.
Then something shifted.
Not fear. No doubt.
Awareness.
A fraction of a second—too long, too strange—and—
WHAM.
The mat slammed into his spine, breath punched from his lungs in a humiliating rush. The crowd gasped, the sound sharp and collective. Heat bloomed along his cheek, copper flooding his mouth.
Distraction.
Unacceptable.
“What’s the matter, king?” Nikolai’s voice cut through the haze, rough and amused. “Zoned in on me? Am I that pretty?”
Landon looked up slowly.
Nikolai stood over him like a thing carved out of violence—sweat-slick, feral, with eyes too dark to be empty. There was no polish to him, no restraint. Just hunger. Challenge.
Landon rose in one fluid motion, the crowd holding its breath with him. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his glove, his expression curling with disdain.
“You wish,” he said coolly. “As if I’d ever drool over a heathenistic dog.”
His fist connected before the words finished echoing.
Nikolai staggered back into the ropes. The crowd erupted—boos drowning him, Landon’s name roaring back into dominance.
“Heathenistic dog?” Nikolai snarled, and then he was moving—too fast, too reckless—slamming Landon down again, fist raised.
“Not the face,” Landon snapped, catching the blow. “That’s worth more than your life.”
He twisted Nikolai’s arm, forcing him down, their bodies colliding in a tangle of sweat and fury. Nikolai’s hair clung to his face, lashes dark with moisture, eyes burning.
Landon’s hand came up—too slow to be efficient, too deliberate—and brushed Nikolai’s cheek.
A slap.
It could pass as a slap.
The moment stretched—an electric wrongness—and then Nikolai flipped them, pinning Landon beneath him.
The impact knocked a breath from Landon’s chest, heat pooling low in his body in a way he did not acknowledge. He kneed Nikolai hard, then harder, until the brute collapsed away from him.
The crowd lost its mind.
“Landon.”
That voice—familiar, unwelcome—cut through everything.
Brandon.
Landon’s gaze flicked instinctively to his twin at the edge of the ring, immaculate and disapproving. When he looked back, Nikolai was staring at Brandon with an intensity that made something sharp twist in Landon’s gut.
No.
He struck Nikolai mid-glance, his fist snapping his head sideways.
“Don’t look at my twin like that,” Landon hissed, voice low and lethal.
Nikolai laughed—dark, pleased. “Jealous, king?”
The blow to Landon’s chest sent him reeling into the ropes. The crowd booed viciously, but Landon barely heard them.
“I don’t appreciate a barbarian,” he snapped, breath uneven despite himself, “looking at my family.”
Nikolai grabbed his ankle. Landon went down hard, landing astride him.
“My, what a pos—”
The punch cut him off.
“This is nothing,” Landon snarled, heat coiling tighter now, unfamiliar and infuriating. “Careful. Someone might think you’re drooling over me.”
Nikolai’s eyes flared at the bloodline insult, something old and dangerous flashing there.
“Plummet him, Niko,” Killian’s voice drawled from the sidelines.
Rage surged—pure, righteous, useful. Landon welcomed it. He struck again and again until Nikolai spat blood and the crowd screamed his name like a prayer.
Then Nikolai flipped him.
The world fractured—sound dissolving into screams as fists rained down, vision swimming. Pain sang through him, sharp and ecstatic.
Landon smiled.
He loved this. Loved pushing Nikolai past control. Loved being the reason.
He broke free with a savage strike to Nikolai’s neck. “Not the face,” he growled, accent shredded. “You inhuman mutt.”
He left the ring limping, Brandon at his side, the chant fading behind him like a receding tide.
“He plays too rough,” Landon muttered, dismissive.
Beneath him, something still burned.
—
The night air was cold and biting as Landon approached his car—each step measured, every wince concealed. Pain was a choice. Weakness a performance he refused to give.
Glass shattered.
Three figures emerged, masks laughable in their transparency.
Of course.
Killian was already swinging a bat into the side of his car, the sound sacrilegious.
Landon rolled down the window slowly. “You lot are predictable,” he said coolly. “And that car is limited edition.”
Insults. Threats. Family. Bloodlines.
It was all noise—until Nikolai stepped forward.
He said nothing. Just bent the mirror with one hand.
The ease of it tightened something in Landon’s chest.
“Hands off the car,” he snapped, too sharp—then corrected himself. “Brandon wouldn’t appreciate it.”
Nikolai froze.
For a moment, they stared at each other—something unreadable passing between them. Then Nikolai turned away with a growl, the others following like shadows.
Landon watched until they disappeared.
Only then did he exhale.
Annoyance, he told himself.
Nothing more.
But long after the echoes faded, Nikolai Sokolov lingered—uninvited, unresolved—like a bruise that hadn’t yet bloomed.