by Alex Lidell
Katita steps back before seeming to realize she is moving. “I’d not realized the lady was ill,” she says with a tight bow to Shade. “I do hope it is nothing serious, Leralynn.” Clearing the way for Tye to walk to the treatment table near where I’m standing, Katita follows in his wake, her brilliant eyes flashing a silent warning to me when Shade can’t see. “Of course, not being a healer myself, I find such things difficult to judge, but perhaps Tyelor’s condition is the more urgent at the moment?” Katita says with unwavering politeness. “Would you agree, Lady Leralynn?”
“Coal, give me your boot knife,” Shade calls toward the side room, stepping aside as the door opens and a glinting dagger flies through, jamming into the wall. The hilt vibrates. Rolling his eyes, Shade pulls the blade free. “Sit down, Tye.”
“Actually, I can wait for Leralynn to be treated,” says Tye, eyeing the knife in Shade’s hand. Katita’s anger tinges the air with a bitter scent.
“Good stars.” Shade twists the knife for a better working grip. “I’m cutting your shirt, not you.”
“I worked that out.” Tye swallows the last word, covertly leaning on the table’s edge, the beautiful lines of his face tight with pain.
“I don’t practice medicine by democracy.” Shade’s patience snaps like a bow string, driving Tye’s mouth closed as he hops onto the table. Even Princess Katita finds nothing to add.
“What happened?” I ask, the world tipping just a bit when my gaze brushes the deformed line of Tye’s shoulder.
Tye’s eyes find a spot on the wall, his jaw tight as he keeps his face under control. “Bad flip,” he says, the words strained.
“Tyelor was training as per his usual schedule,” Katita injects, addressing Shade in a voice of authority on Tye’s regimen. “Though moving quite stiffly through the routine. The shoulder shifted while he was trying to catch himself after a double flip above the bar. Do you think he needs to warm up better from now on?”
“There isn’t a problem. I just didn’t account for how wet the bar was,” Tye says quickly. His voice drops, his face turning to Shade, whose knife is already slicing through his shirt’s fabric. “Shade. Please. Not now.”
My brows narrow. Trying to delay inevitable pain is my signature move, not Tye’s. In fact, the male usually takes the opposite tack. What the bloody hell is he up to, then?
Shade’s gaze sweeps from his work to survey the room. When his attention brushes my face, his voice softens. “Tyelor has a dislocated shoulder, Lera. He will feel better once I put it back into place, but it may look worse before it is better—and you already look pale as milk. Please take a deep breath and find a place to sit before you fall and I’ve another injury to deal with.”
“What is going on here?” River asks, letting himself in to take stock of the situation. His deep gray eyes flick to me, then away again just as quickly, unreadable. Shade cuts away the rest of the fabric, the remains of Tye’s shirt pooling on the floor just as River addresses him. “Tyelor, are you all right?”
“No.” I don’t realize I’ve spoken until the word has escaped my mouth. My hand tightens on the edge of Shade’s neat countertop, my eyes on Tye’s bared back. Emerald-green eyes meet mine and look away quickly. The real reason for Tye’s resistance to undressing now shows in sets of long livid bruises covering his corded shoulders. Bile rises up my throat. These aren’t marks from the same mishap that caused his shoulder injury, or from a sparring match. These are from a beating.
I turn toward River, eyes blazing.
The male lifts one brow in silent answer. Yes. I did that. Surprised, are you?
A chill that starts in the pit of my stomach spreads through my core, Tye’s morning visit replaying in my memory. Because of our going over the wall against orders, I was to see Coal this afternoon and Tye was reporting to River. For this. Because of me. Because I went over the wall and he came with me.
Throat tight, I step up beside Tye, laying a hand on his good arm. “I’m sorry, Tye.”
“It looks worse than it feels, lass.” Tye gives me a tight smile. I have to stop myself from cupping his cheek, running my thumb over his blanched lips.
“Liar,” I whisper.
Tye gasps, his face losing all color as Shade grips his shoulder and stretches the joint as if it were no more than a set of pulleys to be manhandled. With a sharp twist, the dislocated bones come into alignment and snap back into their sockets. Tye draws a stuttering breath. “That, on the other hand, felt worse than it looked.” He rolls the shoulder tentatively. “Much better. Thank you.”
“Shade?” River prompts.
“He’s all right. For now.” Shade glares at the shoulder as if personally offended by its actions. “I’d ban the Prowess Trials if I bloody could, though. Why do we have people risking maiming themselves over applause?”
“That would be my exit cue.” Tye hops off the table, both Katita and I converging on him.
“Let’s find you some willow-bark tea, Tyelor.” Katita shoves her body between Tye and me, trampling on my feet to stake out territory. Tye’s scent of pine and pain mixes with the princess’s rose perfume and the sharp tang of Shade’s workspace. In the firelit room, the deep purple of Tye’s welts look the color of sickening plums, and I twist to let River see the depth of my fury.
Katita’s foot shifts, catching the back of my ankle hard just as Tye starts walking toward the door. The surprise registers too late, my slow, exhausted feet bracing against the floor only to find Tye’s discarded shirt in the path. I feel myself going backward like an absurd doll, my hands grabbing anything within reach—which turns out to be Katita’s own tunic. The girl’s gasp does nothing to keep us upright, until Tye’s solid arms wrap both our waists, all three of us spinning about to get steady. For a moment, I’m certain the whole mess will end up on the ground, but my legs find solid footing just as River and Shade move in to lend their own support.
As we pull apart from the mess, the mix of irritation and embarrassment washing over churns into blood-chilling fear—for on the floor, in the center of the short-lived scramble, the dropped key to Mystwood now glints in the firelight.
17
Lera
Blood leaves my face. The spot against my back where the disk was tucked into the waistband suddenly feels empty. Cold. On the floor, the tiny clank vibrates against the marble as the uneven disk finishes its spin. The room stops, all eyes—even those of Coal, who has slipped in through the side door—focusing on the bit of metal. On the unspoken implication that it should not have been here.
The tiny streak of magic trickling from the disk settles around me. The males’ tense muscles say they feel the pull as well, even as they understand nothing about its vital purpose. The key to Mystwood. The way between Lunos and the mortal realm.
River snatches the disk from the floor, his gray eyes hard. Closing his callused hand around the amulet, River surveys Tye, Katita, and me with a searching glare that spurs my still heart into a drumroll. The very artifact River questioned Tye about a day past, now fallen amidst a tussle of students—one of them a known rogue.
Katita recovers first, her hands and chin rising as she looks at the silent force of menace River has become without moving a muscle. The planes of his face carved marble, his shoulders even broader, his body towering over everyone in this room without trying.
“Whatever you just picked up, sir,” Katita breathes hurriedly, “I assure you I’ve never laid eyes on it before now. I also submit that I’ve the funds to purchase any jewelry I might require, without resorting to theft.”
“I am inclined to agree, Your Highness.” The gaze River turns on Tye is ominous enough that Tye’s bruised back tightens in a reflexive flinch even as his beautifully angled face remains the same—just a hair short of bored. His silver earring glints insolently in the firelight, doing nothing to help his cause. “Tyelor?”
Tye rocks back on his heels. “Is that the trinket you’ve been searching for? As it happens, I was ju
st bringing it back to you.”
“With me, Tyelor,” River says quietly. “Now.”
“It was me, not him!” I cut off River’s path before he can take two steps to the door, my neck craning to meet the male’s gray eyes. Cold, hard eyes, the emotion behind them reined in so tightly that the air pulsates with tension. As the entirety of River’s attention settles on me, his woodsy scent and heady masculinity clouding my senses, his broad chest rising in slow, controlled breaths, I feel like the cub Shade called me, standing before an immortal king. My breath quickens, my fists tightening beneath spurts of anger.
“Lass.” The warning in Tye’s voice is so sharp, I’d need to be deaf to miss it. “You are a terrible liar. Don’t dig a deeper hole for yourself over misplaced good intentions.”
“Tye did not take your damn pendant any more than he forced me to go over the wall last night,” I tell River, ignoring Tye’s valiant defense. Stepping forward until the heat of our bodies mingles into one blazing furnace, I bear the full force of River’s steel-gray gaze and rigid jaw.
A voice in the back of my mind informs me that there is a more diplomatic way of conveying my point, that yelling at River is as safe as carrying an open flame through a hayloft. Yet, despite the the danger sizzling along my skin, I can’t make myself stop. River—my River—is somewhere in that thick-skulled head, and he needs to be put in his place. “You are better than your groundless accusations, Commander. So stop using Tye as a convenient whipping boy and ask some basic questions before you strut about showing off your bloody authority.”
The air in the room chills, everyone’s gaze suddenly on River and me. Katita makes a tiny noise, but even that is swallowed by the silence. My mouth is dry, my hands crossing over my chest. “I had your bloody trinket. So keep your damn hands—and your switch—off Tye and deal with me.”
The seconds ticking by in the ensuing silence grow heavier by the breath. Finally, River clears his throat. “Give us the room, if you please,” he says quietly, the words more menacing for their calmness. His voice carries the pure undiluted command that makes my body sing like a taut bowstring despite my own pulsing fury.
Princess Katita gives me a pleased smirk as she walks out at Tye’s side, the male looking back at me with worry-filled eyes. Coal’s and Shade’s gazes are unreadable as they follow as well, Coal only pausing to acknowledge an unspoken you and I still have business glance River throws him. Even once the door closes, River doesn’t speak, and I realize he is listening for the sound of departing footsteps. Making sure that we are truly alone.
“Would you like to try that again, Cadet?” River’s voice is ice.
“I’m not a cadet.”
“Good.” River holds his hand out toward the door, his very broad chest tight beneath a high-laced red shirt. The tightly leashed ire rolling silently from his strong jaw, his rigid straight spine, his woodsy masculine scent, make River’s quiet voice seem to echo from every wall in the room. The voice echoes inside my core well, igniting each fiber until my body feels too small to contain the pressure building inside me. River’s fingers flex. “Then this conversation need not happen. Allow me to escort you to the stable right now, Lady Osprey. I will have your things sent into town tomorrow morning for you to pick up.”
I don’t move. I can’t. I don’t want to.
River grabs my forearm, his grip iron hard. Painful. His breath comes fast as he invades every inch of my space, looming over me until there is nowhere to look but into his unyielding eyes.
My racing heart mirrors River’s own pulse, pounding hard enough that I can see the tic tic tic of his pulse in his neck, my immortal ears close enough to his chest to hear the booming strikes. Heat rushes through me, filling the cold void.
I go to pull my arm free of his grasp, but there is no give, no matter how hard I jerk.
“Start walking to the stable,” River orders. “Now.”
Leaving off fighting River’s unyielding hold, I raise my chin, showing River the canines he can’t see. My own need and power twine together, giving my voice a power it never had before the males walked into my life. Before they shaped me into a warrior. “You lost the disk. You accused Tye. You took a damn lash to a warrior who fought beside you last night. And now, you can’t wait to be rid of the one person who calls you to task.”
A flicker of a reaction too fast for me to read races across River’s face, the hard lines returning to stone in a fraction of a heartbeat. “Are you done?”
My fists clench at my side, the helplessness of it all boring through my core. Here in the world of Great Falls Academy, River can do as he wishes. No matter what I say, the moment I’m gone, he can take his tension out on my males. On the males—not mine anymore, not here. “And are you going to hurt Coal while you’re at it too? Maybe give him another scar or two, since he doesn’t have enough?” I swallow, choosing my last words to the male before I walk out of the Academy. “What the bloody hell happened to you?”
In the ensuing silence, I listen to the ringing of my own words, each hitting River’s chest as hard as it hits mine.
You happened, Lera. You did this.
Under the heavy weight of River’s beautiful, achingly familiar gaze, the truth unfurls so painfully in my gut that I can’t breathe.
When you broke that rune. When the quint split up.
Stars, I’ve been so focused on how the males’ aloofness stings my heart and hinders the mission that I’ve given little thought to what the separation might be doing to them. Shade losing time. Coal sinking back into nightmares he can never escape, because he knows nothing of the truth. Tye, the highest caliber of immortal athlete, slipping on a simple bar. And River, the weight of the world still on his shoulders, trying desperately to hold things together—never realizing that it’s the quint he truly commands, not an Academy of human nobles that has existed without him for centuries.
If anyone has a chance of helping the males now, it’s a weaver. Me. And yet here I am, plotting my escape just when things are getting hard. Autumn might hold more answers than River right now, but leaving the males—already under the assault of the veil amulets—is too high a price to pay. They might not feel the quint’s magic, but it still takes a toll on their bodies and souls. A strain that will grow tenfold if we are apart. Stars take me. Quints don’t do well apart. I draw a shaking breath. In one frozen moment, I regret it all—my brash anger, lashing out at River in front of his subordinates and students. Even if I wanted to stay, it might now be too late. “River—”
“No.” The iron control River has held on to since our conversation started cracks to flaming ire. “You’ve stepped too far.” He snarls, releasing my arm, the loss of the connection hurting more than the grip did. River’s chest heaves, his nostrils flaring with short harsh puffs of air. “I suggest you make a very fast decision, Lady Leralynn of Osprey. You will either shut your mouth, go to the stables and ride the hell out of my Academy, or you will go to my study and experience firsthand the very discipline you find so objectionable.”
I halt, suddenly finding myself on the edge of a precipice I’d not realized I was climbing. River is serious. River, River is threatening to strike me. Naming the one cost that scares me to my core. Zake’s whip isn’t so far in my past that I don’t still feel it in vivid, excruciating color. If River does this, it will be his face I see in my nightmares. I swallow the bile already rising up my throat, together with the pleas I know Zake wanted from me and never got.
River snorts, reading my face. “That’s what I thought.” There is nothing kind, nothing understanding in his voice. “Get out.”
“No. I mean—” My hand closes around the fabric of my tunic, my voice hitching despite my best effort to still it. No, I won’t beg that River do something else, anything else. I’ll do what I’ve always done. I’ll survive. “I’ll accept the punishment for the disk, and whatever you intended for Coal too. But leave Coal be and don’t charge Tye with theft—he truly did nothing. Does that
sound fair?”
“What?” River blinks. “No.”
“But—”
“I don’t want you here.” The male’s shoulders spread like wings, his square jaw clenching with impatience.
A shudder runs through me, and for the first time, I have trouble meeting River’s eyes. “I thought it was Academy policy that cadets must self-select to leave,” I whisper. “Was I misinformed?”
“No. You were not.” River’s words are clipped, something between speech and a snarl.
“Then I am not withdrawing. So you must keep me on your books, by your own rules.” I speak on a single breath, fearing I’ll lose my nerve if I stop. “You can’t punish both Tye and me for stealing the same disk now, can you? And as for Coal, he thought I’d already quit the Academy before bedding me, so you can lay the entire blame at my feet.” I swallow. “If you want someone to break, break me. Take me. Not them. Please.”
This time, the silence settling around us is so loud, I feel as though the deep boom of a phantom gong vibrates through the room.
“I accept your terms,” River says, his voice slicing into me like a knife. “Come with me, Cadet.”
18
River
Good stars. River turned to the door faster than dignity dictated, but he needed to get outside. Away from Leralynn’s intoxicating lilac scent, which, together with River’s own fear and fury, made thinking impossible. The girl didn’t understand how River’s heart stopped when she claimed ownership of that damn disk. With Princess Katita in the room no less. A disk with symbols that could only be of the fae, that would have had a noose around Leralynn’s neck so quickly, she’d not have a chance to yell at the executioner.
A fierce, great-hearted, idiotically brave life snuffed out in a single snap. Like Diana’s.
Diana. Yes, her similarity to Diana had to be the reason Leralynn was getting under River’s skin, rousing every protective instinct he had. River really needed to quit mixing up a new beautiful auburn-haired cadet with the soul mate he’d lost.