“Oh, shit.” I sat up excitedly. “Christmas is in three days!”
Keon entered the kitchen. “Demons don’t celebrate Christmas.” He sniffed the air. “The Academy awaits.”
“Yeah, well, I do celebrate, and I’m not working Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.”
He looked at me levelly for a long beat and then shrugged. “I’m hungry.” He peered at my bowl of cereal. “What is that?”
I got up and fixed him a bowl. “There you go. Try it.”
He stared at the bowl of cereal as if it was a holy offering and then took it carefully.
O-kay…
He climbed up on the chair—like literally climbed on it, sitting in a crouch and then lapping at his food.
I flinched at the size of his tongue. It was long but flattened out to scoop up the cereal.
“Oh, blue boy, what an interesting tongue you’ve got,” Cora said.
She widened her eyes in my direction, and I choked back a laugh while Keon continued to eat his cereal.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand when he was done. “We should train now,” he said to me. “You need to master the weapons.”
He hopped off the chair and then looked down at me with an unfathomable expression. “Thank you for feeding me.”
“It’s no problem.”
He opened his mouth as if about to say something more, then snapped it closed and shook his head. “Training room in ten.”
And then he left the room.
Cora stared after him. “God, he’s super weird.”
I stared at the doorway. “I don’t know, Cor, he just seems lonely. I feel sorry for him.”
“Um, Fee, he’s a killer, a cold-blooded assassin who only a couple of weeks ago offered to tear your face off for his queen.”
“I know, but I get the impression there’s more to Keon than meets the eye.”
Cora took my hand in hers. “Just be careful with him, okay. I know you and your need to help and fix and make things better, but not everyone can be or even wants to be fixed. Keon belongs to Lilith, and I doubt she’ll take kindly to you messing with her weapon.”
She was right, of course. Keon was deadly. I’d be nice to him, of course, but no more hang-out sessions.
I bumped into Azazel on my way to the training room to meet Keon. He was all dressed up in his Dominus gear, and his silver hair was pulled back off his face, highlighting his strong bone structure. His eyes lit up at the sight of me, and his step slowed.
“Hello, handsome.” I beamed up at him.
He smiled with his eyes. “Hello, beautiful.” His voice was an intimate rumble as if we were lying in bed post-coitus.
My heart did a backflip. “You coming to the Academy with Keon and me?”
“Not today, I have outlier business, but I’ve spoken to Master Luena, and she’ll be introducing you to Conah’s class and making the transition smooth.”
I made a face. “She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t understand you. Just focus on the older cadets and leave the younglings to her.”
“I won’t argue with you, but I still think children need to be allowed to be children.”
“Yes, let’s not argue.” He kissed the top of my head. “I spoke to Mal…We should set a date for the wedding. Something to work toward.”
I touched his jaw. “Once Conah is back. Once I know we won’t be dredging up pain for him, then we can set a date.”
Azazel gripped my fingers and then kissed the tips. “Whatever you want.”
“I’ll see you later.” I pushed up on tiptoes and kissed his lips, ignoring the stab of fear that sliced through me.
Nothing was going to ruin my high.
I wanted to die.
I lay on the mat in the training room, staring at the ceiling while waiting for the tiny canaries to stop flying around in circles above me.
“You lost your rhythm,” Keon said, appearing above me. “Get up and try again.”
I was soaked with sweat, my pulse fluttering erratically in my throat. I was done. My goose was cooked, my pepper was stuffed, my donut sucked dry. Okay, that last one sounded a little sexual.
But yeah.
Done.
Keon’s aquiline, feral face was a blue smudge above me. “Are you broken?”
I was busted, fractured, shattered.
I held out my hand. “Help me.”
He hauled me up easily, so I flew up and slammed into his chest. I pressed my palms to his pecs to push him away, but he held on to me a moment longer. And wait, did he just sniff me.
But then I was free and stumbling backward.
“Again,” he ordered, falling into a fighting stance, tail whipping back and forth, ready to attack me. “Defend.”
I must have imagined the sniffing. Focus, Fee.
I lightly touched the holster at my waist. A sturdy one with leg holes and a fucking appendage just like his.
They called it a tail because that’s what it was. A shoel tech tail that connected with the wearer’s mind to allow the wearer to wield it.
“You need to think of it as a limb,” Keon said. “An arm or a leg. As part of you. This is a daemon’s advantage. They will each have one, barbed or serrated. Some will have two, and this is what will make them formidable in battle.”
Daemon were fast, able to fly, able to shift from place to place, able to fend off bullets with wings that were almost armored. The tail was made from obsidian and Virilium steel. Materials that could pierce a daemon’s skin. Being able to wield a tail would even out the odds.
“You’re basically teaching me how to kill your kind. Doesn’t that bother you?”
He blinked, and then his expression hardened. “There are no more of my kind. I am the last.”
He attacked, and I evaded or tried to, but the tail thing got in the way, and I tripped and fell on my face.
“Ouch.”
Hands wrapped around my waist, and I was hauled to my feet. Shit, he was strong. “Are you broken?” he asked again.
“No. No, I am not broken.” I brushed him off and rolled my shoulders to iron out the kinks. “How come you’re here with me when you could be training at one of the academies higher up on the list?”
“They already have tails in their arsenal. Already trained.”
So, Conah’s Academy, our Academy, was the only one left untrained. Lilith really must think we were subpar.
“Enough talk. Let’s fight,” he ordered.
I faced him. “Easy for you to say. Your tail is a part of you.”
He walked over to the chest, picked out another tail and strapped it on, then walked toward me, both tails whipping back and forth in perfect synchronization. He looked insanely threatening now. All steel blue muscle and sinew, royal blue hair kissing his high cheekbones, black horns gleaming in the overhead lights.
“Um…Keon…” I held up my hands. I wasn’t ready.
But then his tails slammed into the ground, launching him up into the air and over my head. He landed behind me. I spun to face him only to find him crouched a meter away with both tail heads aimed at my face.
Motherfucker!
He stood slowly. “You can do this. Just stop thinking so hard and predict.”
“Predict?”
“Yes. Do you think when you walk? Do you tell your limbs to make the movements?”
“No, of course not.”
“You simply decide you wish to walk. And when you fuck”—he moved closer—“do you tell your hips to move, do you tell your back to arch?”
My mouth went dry. “Okay, I get what you mean.”
His yellow cat-like eyes tracked across my face. “Predict the way you want your body to move. The tail is a part of you. It will accommodate you and move in the way you need to achieve your goal.”
I was tired, like bone-achingly tired. We’d been at this all fucking morning, but seeing him wield two tails had the competitor in me surging up. The Loup simmered
under my skin, and my alpha nature asserted itself.
Like fuck was I failing at this, or anything else for that matter. Our Academy may be on the bottom of the pile, but our cadets wouldn’t be.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, tuning in to the low-grade buzzing in my head until it was all I could hear, and then I opened my eyes and fixed my gaze on Keon.
“Attack me.”
He didn’t wait to be asked twice and rushed me.
I needed to leap.
And then I was sailing over his head, propelled by the force of my tail slamming into the ground behind me. I landed with my back to him but imagined my tail lashing out from behind me.
Euphoria filled me as the tip of my tail crashed against his, and I finally turned to face him with a fist pump.
Keon backed off with a grin that showcased his fangs. “Good start. Now for the hard stuff.”
Wait, what?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I landed in the Academy courtyard and stumbled forward when my knees gave way. Traveling through a river was a strange experience, and I still had to learn the location of them all. Luckily for me, Keon was pretty up to speed, but I’d need to get Azazel or Mal to draw me a map to memorize or something when we got back to base.
A shadow fell over me—Keon getting ready to land—but my attention was on the building around me. The red brick and shiny windows. The balconies and nooks for secret study. This place was Conah’s place. His voralex. This was a part of him.
My lungs grew tight.
Getting kidnapped and then mating with Grayson meant I hadn’t had the mental space to think about Conah too much, but now, being here in his domain, made my heart ache with loss.
He wasn’t dead.
But he was gone.
Changed with the loss of his soulmate.
Kiara…My eyes misted, and I swiped at them angrily. I was here to inspire the cadets, to be a leader, and demons had no respect for tears.
Keon landed behind me and joined me to stare at the building. “I’ve not been here before,” he said. “It’s larger than I imagined.”
I looked up at him, so blue against the red brick. He’d pulled his hair back in a braid that fell down his back, lying against his spine obediently. Delphine, his tattoo, was absent. Probably back at the Dominus quarters with Cyril.
“Are you nervous?”
He made a sound of derision. “I don’t get nervous. Nerves are a hindrance to what I do. Killing requires a steady hand and conviction.”
“Good to know. Allow me to lead the way.”
He followed as I entered the building, making my way toward the high-tech training room Conah used to train his cadets. We’d need the scenario-building facility of the room once Keon and I had shown them how to use the tails.
We’d sent the chest ahead an hour ago by drake and carriage, so they should have it by now.
My stomach bubbled.
Excitement.
Yes. I was excited to do this, to be this person. To lead. It felt liberating. If only the circumstances weren’t so fucking dire.
I stepped into the training room to find the operations desk already occupied. Master Luena, the hard-ass war games coordinator for the older cadets, glared at me from across the training room, and then her gaze tripped over my shoulder, and her shoulders stiffened.
She stood and inclined her head. “Blade, we are honored.”
Keon slipped past me. “Good. You received the chest?”
“We did.” She looked at the wall behind her, where the chest was stationed. “You’ll be training the cadets in its use.” She didn’t even look at me.
“The Dominus will. I am merely here to assist if necessary.”
Who knew Keon could be so formal and proper. The Blade had many hats, it seemed. It made me wonder how he’d become who he was. Was he a natural born killer, or had Lilith molded him into one?
“With all due respect, Blade, we would prefer it if our cadets were trained by a professional,” Luena said.
Keon hissed, and Luena flinched. “The Dominus has been chosen by Lilith herself to train the cadets. Lilith’s cadets. Do you question my queen’s judgment?”
Luena shook her head. “Of course not. I would never do such a thing.”
“Get out,” Keon said. “Get out and bring me the cadets. Now.”
Luena strode stiffly from the room, but not before throwing a lethal look my way. My heart sank. The last thing I needed was animosity in the ranks. It’s not what Conah would have wanted, and it would make working here that much harder. The cadets didn’t know me, they knew Luena, they respected her, and if I wanted to get them on my side, I needed her on my side.
“You shouldn’t have yelled at her like that.”
“She was being impudent. She was belittling you.”
“I know. Trust me, I know. But she’s right. I’m no trainer. I haven’t done this job before. The cadets don’t know me.”
“They don’t need to know you to respect you. They don’t know me either, yet she was happy for me to train them.”
“You’re the queen’s Blade. You’re notorious.”
“And you are a Dominus. You are…” He paused and looked at the ground. “You are good.”
He said the word as if it was an alien concept.
“You are kind.” His frown deepened as if he was struggling to unravel an inner conflict.
My cheeks grew warm. “Um, thank you. But being good and kind doesn’t help win wars. In fact, I have it on good authority that being kind and compassionate is actually detrimental to the cadets here.”
Keon frowned, his face taking on an expression that looked almost pained. “Kindness makes warriors weak because it reminds them that there is more to existence than the sharp edge of a blade or the cold kiss of shadows. Compassion makes killing without question harder. It makes you look into your victim’s eyes and wonder who will miss them. That is why cadets are distanced from these traits. It doesn’t alter the fact that you have them, or that they make you worthy.”
He wasn’t making sense, not completely, but I surmised he knew that, because he shook his head as if to clear it and then glared at me like I’d done something offensive.
“Lilith chose you. That is all that matters.”
The door opened, and cadets began to file in. I caught sight of Master Luena in the corridor.
“I’ll be right back.”
I left Keon barking orders to the cadets and slipped out to catch Luena before she could make a run for it.
“A word, please.”
She stopped and sighed. “Yes?” She faced me with a polite smile. “What can I do for you, Dominus.”
“Look, Luena, I didn’t ask for this job. I’m not a trainer, but I do want these cadets to survive once the war starts, which we know it will. I want what’s best for them, just like you do. I want them to be ready, and I need you to help me make sure of that.”
Her expression softened. “They’re good cadets. Eager, disciplined, skilled.”
“I’m sure they are, and they deserve the best training team. I believe that between the four of us, we can get them ready for what’s to come.”
“The four of us?”
“Keon, Azazel, me, and you.” I smiled and tipped my head to the side. “Luena, I need you on board. I can’t do this without you.”
For a moment, I thought she’d tell me where to shove it, and maybe the woman in her wanted to, but the tutor, the teacher in her, won.
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Very well.”
It was going to take several sessions to get the cadets up to speed on using the tails. A handful had picked it up quickly, but the rest were struggling.
Needless to say, I was glad to be home.
I’d shucked off my Protectorate gear, showered, and then tugged on my sweats and fluffy socks, ready for a night of making mince pies with my bestie. She’d picked up marshmallows too, so I’d be adding those to my hot chocolate later
. Had Azazel and Mal ever had marshmallows?
Mal maybe, but Azazel, probably not. I couldn’t wait to get him to try them. I couldn’t wait for them both to get home so I could hug them.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve and I’d be spending that with Aunt Lara. My mood dipped because Christmas Eve was one step closer to her ascension date. It was our goodbye.
No. Aunt Lara wouldn’t want tears and sad faces. She deserved smiles and laughter. The ascension would be her chance at peace; I had no right to bring her mood down. Tomorrow would be a good day, and so would the next because we were having Christmas dinner at Grayson’s. All I wanted to do was switch off my brain and enjoy the family time.
Uriel crossed my mind, and my heart sank. Vi was still working on the spell to summon him. Apparently, she needed to prep a room with symbols and get hold of certain ingredients, and with the Masterton ball taking place tomorrow night, she wasn’t going to be able to do much until Boxing Day.
I opened the door, eager to get down to the kitchen and join Cora in baking, and froze, staring at the thing lying in front of my door.
It was a foot long with a long nose and tiny ears. A fucking rat.
There was a dead rat on my doorstep.
“For me?” Cyril slid out of my room and did a circle around the dead rodent. “You shouldn’t have.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I didn’t.”
Cyril raised his head and flicked out his tongue. “You didn’t?”
“Nope. And you didn’t, so who the hell did?”
“For goodness’ sake!” Iza came bustling down the corridor. “Not again.” She scooped up the rat. “That darned daemon and his offerings.”
Daemon? Keon? “Iza, what the hell is going on?”
The rat swung by its tail, dangling from Iza’s fingertips, and Cyril swayed with it, mesmerized.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to get rid of this one before you saw,” she said.
“This one? You mean there’ve been more?”
She pursed her lips. “The blue daemon seems to have taken a shine to you. It’s customary for some breeds of daemon to leave offerings. Part of a courtship ritual.”
Reaper Undone (Deadside Reapers Book 5) Page 15