Arcturus’ back hit the mat with a shock of impact, compelling a groan of pain from his lips. A laugh from above drew his attention, and he turned to where his father was standing victoriously, arms folded across his black tank top and a pleased grin on his face.

“Still too predictable, junior.” His dad, also named Arcturus — though in their house he was called ‘Senior’ or ‘Old man’ whenever Arcturus Junior addressed him — teased good-naturedly. “You need to step up that legwork if you’re going to take me down.”

“You taught me my moves.” Arcturus grumbled in annoyance.

“Excuses.” His father answered while extending a hand to help him up. Arcturus Senior had served in several different private security and paramilitary roles for over a decade before settling down with his wife, and though he never spoke about it, Arcturus had always suspected that his father was more lethal than he showed himself to be. It was just something in how we walked, how we carried himself around his business associates and partners: An aura of command, and intensity of presence, which made them bend like subjects to a King.

That presence definitely skipped a generation, eh?

Arcturus ignored his self-deprecating subconscious voice and let his father pull him to his feet with a grunt, dusting off his own dark tank top with a sigh. “You know we live in sleepy rich suburbia, right?”

“I do.” Senior responded readily.

“So why are we training like we’re in a warzone?” Arcturus pressed, rolling his shoulders to disperse some lingering soreness.

“Because you need to be ready for anything, son.” His father answered enigmatically. “You never know what lurks around the corner.”

“Bruises and another sore day at Uni.” He complained. “Do you even realise that my Professors give me weird looks when I show up with bruises and have to explain that my Dad did it?”

“I’m sure the fine men and women of Yale are intelligent enough to separate training from abuse, kiddo.” Senior responded confidently. “Besides, martial excellence is in your blood. Valouras have been warriors since before the British Empire. Anyway, who cares what those stuffy lecturers say.” He tossed Arcturus a towel and took one for himself, rubbing it over his face and head of healthy, silver-streaked jet black hair. How much have we donated?”

“Enough that no one ever really asks too many questions,” Arcturus responded with a sigh. “Which, by the way, is pretty damn shady when you think about it.”

“I don’t make the rules of the world, kid.” His father said with a sly wink. “I just take advantage of them.”

“How mercantile.” Arcturus responded drily, and earned himself another boyish grin from his father.

“You weren’t complaining when you picked your car, were you?”

“Okay. Point.” Arcturus admitted in defeat. “Still! You’re shady!”

“I don’t make the rules—”

“—you just take advantage of them.” A female voice answered from the stairs to the basement gym, drawing their combined attention. Clarissa Valoura, wife and mother, had a look of exasperated long-suffering annoyance on her beautiful features as she looked between her husband and son. “You’re both going to be late. Your son needs to shower for school, and you, mister, need to prep for our meeting today. Your board isn’t going to be happy if you waltz in with gym clothes on again!”

“They’re a stuffy bunch of buzz-kills.” Senior agreed readily with an exaggerated wink for Arcturus.

“That stuff bunch of buzz-kills is why your company has done so well!” Clarissa retorted.

“Really?” Senior asked in mock astonishment. “Here I thought it was my gorgeous, brilliant, beautiful wife and her impeccable skills as my lawyer and CFO.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, mister. Shower! Now!”

His father lifted his hands in surrender and turned to Arcturus. “In all seriousness son, you’re progressing well. Just remember to work on your speed and footwork. Your strength is fine, you’re already far above average in that area. Your dexterity is good too, especially given your height — but your speed is important. There’s no point being strong or having dynamic movement—”

“—if I’ll never hit anyone.” Arcturus finished with a nod. “I’ll do some drills tonight. Still need to get that switch and flip down, anyway. More sparring when you get home?”

“Call it eight o’clock.” Senior agreed readily.

“Cool, I’ll—”

“Showers!” Clarissa interrupted loudly, emphasizing her point by tapping comically on her watch. “Don’t make me beat both of you up!”

Arcturus didn’t take the threat lightly. His mother might have been blonde enough and tall enough to be considered a model, but she stayed in shape by being very good at kickboxing. He wasn’t about to test her resolve on beating them into submission, joke or not. His family was competitive.

“Going, mother!” He answered as he started towards her and the stairwell she was occupying.

“Hold it bucko!” Clarissa said sternly, before smiling at him and tapping her cheek.

Arcturus rolled his eyes and obligingly gave her a morning kiss.

“Thank you.” His mother said glibly. “Good to see my son still remembers his manners. Now, off you go.”

He started away before she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Oh, and sweetheart?”

“Yeah, mom?”

“Good luck with Amélie today.”

“That’s today?!” His father demanded from below them.

Clarissa ignored her husband and focused on her son, who felt mildly mortified by his parents’ attention to his decade-long crush on his high school sweetheart. “She likes you, Arcturus. A mother can tell. We’ve always liked Amélie. Just be yourself, and be honest. The rest will come naturally.”

“Be confident!” His father called, and Arcturus could hear the ‘dad-up-to-no-good-grin’ in his voice. “I’ve seen the way she makes doe eyes at you. You’ve got this!”

“Oh my god. Can I go now?” He demanded of his parents.

One tender cheek pinch and amused laugh from his parents later and he was free, though he could already hear his father riling his mother up with promises of a showdown. He wouldn’t be surprised if she delayed them both by kicking his dad’s ass up and down the practice mats.

If only you were half as confident as your parents.

The journey from the basement gym to his room and bathroom on the second floor of the three-storey house was relatively quick, with a stop only to give a quick bit of love to the two family malamutes his Dad had insisted on getting when Arcturus had been sixteen. Three minutes after he’d left the basement, he was standing under a scalding hot shower and scrubbing shampoo through his bi-coloured hair. A result of an odd genetic quirk, he’d inherited both his parents’ hair colours, though in the case of his mother’s genes it’d mutated oddly. His hair was closer to white than her own rich, honeyed gold.

Where his mother’s eyes were a clear blue, Arcturus had inherited his father’s rusty brown eyes — which was fine with him, since they almost looked like a dark shade of red in the right lighting.

Once he’d finished his shower, he grabbed a towel to dry off, and then stepped into his room to get dressed. Five minutes later he’d acquired a white tee, black leather jacket, dark blue jeans, and his favourite pair of aviators. At 6’5”, he could pull off the jacket-shirt-and-jeans combination well, thanks to his stature. At least, that’s what he’d been told by his friends and mother. He still struggled to really believe it, since he still remembered being a lanky and uncoordinated giant compared to his peers in middle school.

There’s the confidence-lacking kid we know and loathe.

Ten minutes later, he was well on his way to Yale University, departing the massive mansions commonplace to his hometown of Darien, Connecticut to the strong vocals of a female rock singer blasting throughout his sports car. The journey from home to campus was relatively relaxed, and Arcturus took the time to mull over what he would actually say to a very specific girl when he saw her. Pulling her aside for a frank conversation could work, or perhaps waiting until they were naturally alone and doing it that way.

How incredibly courageous of you.

Of course the main issue wasn’t even the how so much as the after. What if she didn’t feel the same way? What if she was only interested in staying friends, regardless of the ‘vibes’ he’d been supposedly picking up on? His male friends had both asked him when he was going to ask her out, each of them broaching the subject individually and in confidence. That, if nothing else, told him that the attraction might indeed have been as reciprocated as he’d hoped.

Or they’re as useless with women as you are, buddy boy.

A grimace of irritation crossed his features, and Arcturus turned off towards his exit to Yale, merging into the other on-time arrivals and slipping into the gradually slowing traffic heading towards the student parking lots. The beauty of modern engineering was the ability to build down as easily as up, and twenty years prior Yale had invested in and opened a massive underground parking lot for its non-residential students.

Even as he was driving into the parking lot, his phone went off in its wireless mount, pinging the inside of his car with its ringtone. A swipe of his hand activated the device, and he flicked his eyes to the holographic overlay on his windscreen as his friend Adam’s face popped into existence in a blue-bordered digital window. “Yo.”

“Hey Adam, I’m just pulling in.”

“Awesome, but you should hurry.”

Arcturus blinked, “hurry? Our Political Science lecture isn’t for another hour.”

“Yeah,” Adam said with a sigh, “but The Dictator called a meeting. Mandatory.”

“You’re shitting me.” Arcturus said with a groan.

“I wish. Starts in ten, usual place.”

“Alright, I’ll see you soon. Thanks for the heads up, man.”

“You got it. See ya.”

Arcturus cursed again once Adam hung up, entering the underground car park and circling downwards as fast as he safely could, eyes darting for a suitable car park. The Dictator, as Adam had called her, was Alanna Lawson; the coordinator of pop culture clubs and organisations, and ostensibly the student authority to whom Arcturus and his friends owed their ability to continue their small gaming club. Her less-than-flattering nickname had come from her penchant for intrusive and obnoxious levels of micro-management and interference, from suddenly showing up uninvited to various club activities to calling impromptu and minimum-warning meetings.

And yet, you’ve admired her flattering physical aspects more than once, you dog.

That much was true. Even if she was one of the most aggravating and irritating people he’d ever met, Arcturus could not fault Alanna’s appearance. She was appealing in the way the head cheerleader or a movie star was appealing; in a way that seemed to appeal to everyone and yet no one in particular. From what he’d heard, she’d been Miss Young Texas before moving to Connecticut to attend Yale. He believed it.

The tennis skirts don’t hurt, either, eh?

Arcturus snorted to himself at his inner monologue, agreeing quietly. Alanna was the Captain of the Tennis Club, and she could often be seen in the skirts associated with the sport — a look that Arcturus would admit, at least to himself and no one else, flattered her quite nicely. It was a shame her personality was about as attractive as skunk spray, or he might have even found her alluring. His eyes snapped to the left as he spotted a vacant space, and he smoothly spun the wheel of his car, slotting the Skyline into the parking space neatly and depressing the button to turn off the engine. He grabbed his bag from the passenger seat, took his phone from the charging mount, and quickly exited the car before locking it by pressing his thumb to the door handle.

A glance at his phone told him he had less than six minutes to get halfway across campus for the meeting, and Arcturus broke into a sprint for the nearby fire escape, foregoing the elevator in favour of taking the steps up to the surface three at a time. He burst out forty seconds later, sprinting past alarmed students and members of faculty, ignoring the laughs and shouts of surprise or “slow down!” thrown his way. His legs pumped as he ran, dodging between people and slow-moving cars to race across the campus towards the building that housed the usual meeting place.

Better hurry, Arcturus. Her Majesty doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

He had never agreed with his own thoughts more than at that moment, weaving between laughing and talking students to burst through a pair of old-fashioned wooden school doors, taking a sharp left and ascending a narrow flight of steps three at a time to reach the second, and then third floor of the building. A moment to catch his breath, a glance at his phone — one minute remaining — and he raced along a narrow corridor before skidding to a halt outside the closed classroom door that the meeting was being held behind.