by Alix Sharpe
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she heard him say, “I just need to know if you’re alright. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She wasn’t alright. She never would be. That bastard had stolen that from her. She wasn’t strong enough to fight him. Shit, and there she was the night before, telling Hale he just needed to be stronger, he just needed to forget his past.
“It wasn’t you,” she said, barely lifting her head.
He sat all the way down and sighed. “I’m still sorry.”
She folded her arms around her knees wondering if she could disappear if she tried hard enough. But then, if she disappeared… she’d never see Hale Draven looking at her like that again. Something had shifted. The tiger in his yellow-green eyes no longer roved wild and untamed, but instead paced, observing the threat, guarding her. A protector. His eyes were the color of sunshine and tall grass, blended together in one. An open field, one where shadows couldn’t hide.
He'd opened up to her, she could do the same with him.
“My Ex,” she said, breaking away from his stare. “I was an idiot.”
“What happened?” he said quietly, shifting closer to her as if he knew how much she needed it. He was offering be her shield. Now she could finally drop her own.
“I should have known I’d become a Diviner,” she said, “back when this all started, but I was young and in love. Or at least I thought I was.” What was she saying? She couldn’t deny it. She’d loved that boy more than she loved anything. More than she loved herself.
She glanced up at Hale’s open gaze, warmly encouraging her to finally share the burden. To make it real.
“He was my first,” she said, voice starting to shake. “And I did love him.”
She squeezed her knees tighter as Hunter’s face swam to the forefront of her memories. That smile. That smile had a magic of its own, one that didn’t require an amulet. A dark magic, she saw now. A curse.
“Everything was perfect until the day the nightmares began. Now I know they were more than that.”
She brushed her fingertips absently over her black amulet.
“I had a premonition. One of him and some other girl. I shrugged it off as a bad dream. The stress of finals. Then it came again. And again.”
Keira closed her eyes as the darkness floated back to her. Every night she had dreaded falling asleep because Hunter would be there waiting for her, those piercing eyes locked on hers, smiling as he fucked the faceless body beneath him.
Keira opened her eyes a fraction and stole a glance at Hale, his eyes penetrating in a totally different way. One she couldn’t describe. He nodded and she pushed forward.
“Then one day I snapped and I finally had to know. I told him about the dream. He laughed and told me I was being paranoid. And I believed him.
“Except it didn’t stop. So I asked again. And again. We started arguing more. Then fighting. Then he hit me. Just once. He said he was sorry, he even cried.”
Her mind flashed back to the dingy apartment, to her stinging jaw. To the tears in his eyes, his shaking fists. Then he’d kissed her and started taking off her clothes. He spun her around. He pushed her onto all fours. That was the only way they’d been fucking those last few weeks, now Keira understood it was all so he wouldn’t have to look her in the face.
“Then we started… making up,” she hadn’t really wanted him to touch her, she was still worked up from the fight. But she let him anyway.
“I thought he was trying to show me he loved me. But a few minutes in, he starts getting a little rougher. I ask him to ease up. He says that’s not what he’s in the mood for.
“He shoves his elbow into my back, right between the shoulder blades, and pins me to the mattress. It hurts. But I don’t say anything. I just wait. He finally finishes, and rolls off me. I tell him I love him. Then he starts laughing.”
A bubble popped in the back of Keira’s throat at the memory of Hunter’s dark amusement ringing in her head, the feel of the bruise forming between her shoulders. She’d never forget the cruel satisfaction in his eyes that moment when she’d realized he had all the power and she had absolutely none.
Keira wasn’t sure how long she sat there with Hale, but finally she continued. “Then he gets dressed and that’s when he hits me with it, when I’m sitting in his fucking wet spot on that broken mattress on the floor: I was right the whole time. He’d been fucking some girl from work for months. He tells me I’m not enough for him and I never will be. He tells me he’s done with me. Then he leaves. Forever. And I have no say.”
For a couple strange seconds, she felt nothing, like finally saying it out loud just tore it all out of her. She knew it wasn’t gone for good, it was rooted too deep. She was waiting for it all to come rushing back in. Then she felt an aura, dancing behind her eyes. Red. For Hale.
She glanced up and caught his stare, yellow-green gaze swimming with emotions not his own, ones he’d taken from her. “Where is he?” he said, through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t want to know, not anymore.” She reached over and brushed her fingers over Hale’s arm. She could feel the heat, the red-hot hatred pouring off him, seething over this man he’d never met.
“I’ll find him,” he spat, his knuckles white as he dug his fingers into the dirt.
“Don’t,” she said, a strange feeling stirring in her gut. “I don’t want him found. I want him lost. Forever. I thought I was there, but…”
“Then I touched you, on your back,” he said, eyes shifting away from the rage to something softer. Something sad. “In the same spot.”
“You didn’t know,” she said, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “I didn’t either.”
CHAPTER 10 – HALE
When they returned to camp that night, he didn’t want to leave her. After seeing her like that… well he never wanted her to feel alone again. But she was stubborn. He knew it wasn’t practical, to think he could stay at her side forever, but right then he wanted to try. She finally had that annoying blonde bunkmate of hers kick him out of the tent.
He barely slept that night, her words rattling around in his brain. He wanted to find him, to destroy him. He wanted to abandon his post right there, walk back through the nearest doorway to Earth, and hunt that monster down. But leaving would mean leaving her.
And if truly she wanted nothing more than to just lose that memory to the depths, shouldn’t he help her instead of pulling it to the surface merely to watch this man drown? He was a soldier, he only knew how to do two things: fight, and protect. He had to do one or the other. If he couldn’t hurt that bastard, then he needed to help her. But, who was he to think he could come along and save her, make it right somehow? He rolled in his scratchy sheets, anguish gnawing at his gut until he finally passed out, the residual hangover forcing his eyes to close.
He awoke to a knock slapping against the canvas of his tent. It was Angeline. She was sending them on a test run, him and Keira, a one-night post, in the midst of an Elf crossroad.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, sitting upright. “She’s only been here a few days.”
“So have all the other new recruits. We’ve already lost one of them. We were sent a Diviner because we were meant to use her. She’s strong. She can help us.”
“Not if she’s dead,” he said, rising to his feet. He towered over Angeline physically, but he knew she wouldn’t budge.
“I know you won’t let that happen,” she said, “that’s why I assigned her to you.”
“Do you even have any intel? Any specific reason why it has to be tonight?”
“The first yellow leaves of fall will drop tomorrow, The Tower reported it back to me after I informed them of her vision.”
“The vision she had her first day when she read the Elf? The assault on the outpost at Bucks Lake?”
“Yes. That’s a safe distance to the North, if they keep to their plans. But if they
shift strategies, as they are known to do… We don’t have the numbers here to fight an army 50-strong, especially with how green the new batch is. I need to be sure they don’t turn this way.” Angeline shoved a map into his hands and told him the coordinates. “You’ll need to leave within the hour if you’re to make it there by dusk.”
“Dammit Angeline,” he grunted, snatching the map away from her. “That’s barely enough time to shit, shower, and pack.”
“I tried to tell you yesterday, but you were mysteriously missing. So was Keira Clearwater.”
“Yes, because I’m training her,” he said. That and acting like her new boyfriend at any given second.
“You know rumors always favor the juicier explanations,” she said, deliberately. “Just remember she’s your student. And people talk.”
“Goddammit, yes, understood. I’ll report back tomorrow. I need to pack now.”
Angeline smirked at him as she exited the tent.
He ran his hands over his cheeks in frustration. Dammit he couldn’t hide anything from her. How did she know about Keira? Was it because of last night? Did the blonde say something? Or did someone else overhear? Or did someone notice that she spent the night in his tent before that? Whatever Angeline had heard, Keira did not need that kind of attention. She was enough of an outsider already. Not that he himself was Mr. Popular. But for some reason, these types of rumors always targeted the woman ten times harder. He’d have to conceal his growing feelings towards her around the others, for her sake.
An hour later they were finally alone again, and he wanted to do anything but distance himself. Now that she’d shared the deepest, darkest part of her soul, he felt overwhelmed with the desire to see the rest of it. That black place was but one piece of her, one current in the vastness of the ocean that was Keira Clearwater. If she felt herself being pulled back into that harrowing trench, he’d be ready. He could be her lifeline.
“Pizza or burgers?”
“Pizza, but only if it’s straight pepperoni, otherwise burgers,” she said. “You?”
“I could eat pizza for every meal and never get sick of it.”
“How have you gone four years without it?”
“I only have to go in one-year stints. When Angeline goes on leave, she smuggles me back an extra-large 4-cheese from some place in her hometown. She says it’s my reward for not dying.”
“Not sure how she could possibly smuggle an extra-large pizza through one of the doorways,” Keira laughed. “You know, considering they are the size of actual, regular, standard doorways.”
“Okay, so maybe it’s not exactly contraband. She probably calls it smuggling so that I’m more grateful and in turn, obedient.”
Keira fell quiet for a moment.
“Hot tubs or hot shower—“
“So. Angeline,” Keira said, tilting her head. “Do you have a thing for her?”
“Uh. No,” Hale said, shifting uncomfortably. “She’s like a sister— well, maybe not a sister. Maybe like a cousin or something. Why?”
Keira shrugged. “I don’t know, I was just wondering.”
“Jealous?” he teased.
“No,” she laughed. That laugh. Fuck.
He was helpless. “There hasn’t been anyone really, I mean, occasional one-nighters here and there if that’s what they were looking for. But no one serious, not since…”
“Yeah,” she said, “same. To the lack of serious and to the occasional ‘one-nighters’.”
He caught her glancing at him, but she turned away as soon as she realized he was staring back. His stomach did a weird little dance as his brain tried to process what it could mean. And what he could say.
“Keira?”
“Hot showers,” she said, jogging ahead, “those makeshift camp showers are the worst.”
They made it to the coordinates about 20 minutes before sundown.
“Crap,” Keira said, turning away from the setting sun, “do we even have enough time to find shelter?”
“Are you forgetting who you’re dealing with?” Hale said with a smirk. He strolled over to the side of a large boulder, a smaller one leaning against it forming a kind of shelf about 4 feet off the ground. The crevice between them was long, but tight. Just enough room for the two of them to lie down.
“This’ll work,” he said, waving at the space between the rocks.
“Do Elves have really poor night-vision and I’ve just never heard about it?” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.
“What? Why?”
“That spot is totally open, they’d just have to walk right by us and they’d see us.”
“Mage. Remember?” He grinned and waved his hand at the entrance. The opening vanished, replaced by what looked like solid granite.
“Fancy,” she mused, poking her finger through the illusion. “Could you conjure an imaginary four-post bed so we can pretend we aren’t sleeping in the dirt? My delicate body has been spoiled so by those 5-star deluxe cots back at camp.”
He chuckled at her and flicked a finger at the rocks. “I’ll do you one better,” he said, bowing. “After you, milady.”
She curtsied and brushed past him, her intoxicating scent curling in his lungs. Man, it was going to be hard to hold back, pressed in close, her body against his. He couldn’t help the wolfish grin that spread across his face at the thought.
“What?” she said, over her shoulder, pausing at the entrance.
“Nothing,” he said, “welcome to your first stakeout.”
“Thanks?” she said, biting back that cute smile.
He laughed to himself and shook his head, he was a goner. He dropped his hand to the small of her back to ushered her inside.
CHAPTER 11 – KEIRA
She slapped her hand over her mouth to muffle her laugh at the additional illusion Hale cast.
“That’s even fancier than a 4-post bed,” she said, looking up at the sparkling chandelier attached to the smooth underside of the rock overhead. It hung so low she had to walk right through it.
Hale crawled in after her, his broad shoulders barely squeezing through the entrance. “Anything for you.”
She could partially stand upright, if she stooped her shoulders and ducked her head. He couldn’t even crouch inside, only crawl, yet he insisted she let him roll out the blankets and set everything up.
She argued at first, but once he finished she had to admit he did a much better job with the small space than she could have.
“Were you like a bird or a large rodent in another life?” she asked, admiring the cozy little nest he’d built.
“Nope, just been in the field way too long. Come here, test it out,” he said, holding out his hand.
She placed her palm on his as he guided her over the lip of the blanket fortress.
He pulled her down next to him, thighs touching as they sat shoulder to shoulder.
Her lips parted involuntarily. Fuck he smelled so good, nature and testosterone, nothing less. The familiar tingle surfaced low in her core. She squeezed her legs together as if she could fight the effect he was having on her body.
“Pretty tight,” she said, “but at least this is better than when we both passed out on your cot.” The cot. That night. She’d learned his secret and now he knew hers. In two short nights, everything had changed. Tonight, would change it more.
Suddenly, sitting there, in that small space, she felt an unprecedented bout of claustrophobia. It was happening too fast, she was falling too quickly. It was just like it was before, when she first met Hunter.
What if this was exactly how Hale had seduced his first trainee? What if he’d bore his soul to Myra, opened up to her, and waited for her to do the same? What if he’d been charming, and funny, and patient with her? What if he’d built her a nest like this one?
“What’s wrong?” he said, handsome face crumpling in concern.
Fuck he was so cute. No. She had to focus. She couldn’t be vulnerable. She had to maintain the upper hand, he couldn’t p
in her down if she stayed on top of him. She couldn’t be weak.
“Why have you only had one-night stands?” she said, subtly shifting her leg so they were no longer touching.
He noticed.
He looked down at the new space between them, something stirring behind his eyes.
“I was scared,” he said, shrugging.
Big tough warrior was scared? That wasn’t the response she was expecting. “Of what?”
“Getting close to anyone,” he said. “I may not have been in love with Myra, not yet. But I knew I was on my way.”
“Why did you back off, why didn’t you want to get close?”
“I don’t know…” he said, running a hand over his face, “my mom left when I was five. She left to come here, to fight the Elves. I think I just thought that I had to be like her, to give everything I had to this fight. I’m a soldier, I can’t afford to think about the future. I have to focus on the now.”
“Oh,” Keira said. She didn’t really know what else to say. If all of that was true…
“I just realized something,” he said, laughing softly to himself. “That first day, when I was a jerk and refused to train you.”
“Yeah?”
“I was scared to take you on, afraid you’d just get killed. I was also pissed I was being overlooked to train the Mages. But now I see it probably also had something to do with my mom. She was a Diviner too.”
“Was?”
“Yeah, she died a couple years in. She was a Field Diviner. Just like you.”
Keira fidgeted uncomfortably. She wasn’t close with either of her parents, but she couldn’t imagine losing them either. It was a lot to process… yet, she was glad she knew. Still. Why was it that every time she tried to distance herself from Hale, she just got pulled in closer? Closer was dangerous. For both of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes to his hands, thinking of everything he’d held, and lost.
He exhaled and released the melancholy memories floating behind his yellow-green eyes. A small, hopeful smile grew on his lips.