“Full-blooded troll and ogre fey have a primal hatred for each other. That hatred has passed down to the feybloods in the form of an aversion. But my parents took me in regardless. Ogre-tainted are rare, almost extinct.” He continued, “I was left at a supe orphanage, probably by my biological mother or father.”
I couldn’t imagine someone abandoning their child, but life was hard out in the real world, and for the lower feybloods, it was even harder.
“I love my adopted family,” Brady said. “I’ve never wondered about my biological parents. What about you? Since you found out Bryon wasn’t your bio dad, have you wondered who your biological dad might be? I mean, has your mother said anything more?”
I was thrown by the question for a moment, but of course, Brady no longer recalled Payne. A pang of sadness assaulted me at the thought that the man I loved wouldn’t get to know the man who’d sired me.
Just for now, though.
There’d come a time when I’d be able to share the truth with him.
Right now, I didn’t want to talk about my past.
I ran my hand over his hard pectorals and down over his abs. They tightened beneath my fingers, and desire licked at my chest. I was ready for him again. I went lower with my hand, grazing his hard length with my fingertips. Yeah, he was ready for me too. I leaned over him and licked his skin, salty and delicious. He fisted my hair as I licked down his abs, making a beeline for his groin.
“Fuck, Indie.”
I wanted to taste him there, to take him in my mouth and—
My ears pricked.
Voices downstairs.
“Shit.” I pulled away. “The others are back.” I kissed his mouth softly.
Brady groaned and sat up. “Later.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a promise, and I couldn’t wait.
* * *
Carlo, Lloyd, Devon, and Aidan had taken over the lounge. Carlo was making sandwiches, and Aidan was at the coffee machine.
Devon was sprawled on the sofa, and Lloyd was polishing a blade at the table.
They all looked up as Brady and I walked in.
Carlo sniffed the air, and Lloyd’s eyes widened. The moonkissed twins exchanged knowing glances, and then Carlo dropped his bread knife and clapped his hands.
“Finally, thank you,” he said.
“Carlo …” There was a warning tone in Brady’s voice, but there was also a smile hovering on his lips.
Carlo grinned. “Does this mean it’s official? You don’t have to mate with some rando?”
They knew?
Brady nodded. “Indigo is my mate.”
He said the words just as another figure entered the room. Hyde’s amethyst eyes widened in shock, and then his expression shut down completely.
“Congratulations,” he said.
A general air of discomfort gripped the room, and a light tension rippled over us.
“Awkward much,” Carlo drawled.
Aidan nudged him with a stern frown.
Lloyd set down his blade. “You have our rotation?” he asked Hyde, all business-like.
“I do.” Hyde held up a piece of thick paper. “Only a week. I also have your trial teams.”
Shit. The trials.
“It’s bullshit,” Devon said.
Hyde’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“The trials are a waste of time,” Brady answered for Devon.
“Then you should sail through them,” Hyde snapped. He turned and walked away. “Get to work. The mist won’t patrol itself.”
“Whoa, someone’s pissed,” Carlo said.
Yeah, and I knew exactly why. I touched Brady lightly on the arm. “I’ll be right back.”
I caught up to Hyde by the exit. He was standing facing the door, shoulders heaving as if he was trying to wrestle a huge emotion.
“Hyde?”
He stiffened. “Yes?”
“Um, Brunner asked me to give this to you.” I held out the envelope.
He turned to me and looked down at the paper. “You came here to give me that?” He bit out the words.
No. I’d come to see if he was okay, to be alone with him for a few seconds before he pissed off, but telling him that would be too painful. It would be opening wounds that we needed to let settle and heal.
I met his gaze evenly. “Yes.”
He practically ripped the envelope from my hand before opening it and scanning the contents.
“Larkin’s gone?” He looked up at me from beneath dark brows. “You saw him before he left?”
I cleared my throat. “So did you.”
The memory of his head between my thighs, his mouth sucking on my nub had my cheeks heating.
He took half a step toward me. “You let him claim you?”
Yeah, we weren’t discussing Larkin any longer. “I love Brady.”
His lips curled in a cruel smile. “You love him so much you almost let me fuck you a week ago.”
His words were like a slap, and then rage burned away the stab of pain. “Trust me, Master Hyde, I won’t be making that mistake again, but Brady understands me. He accepts the fact that I might love more than one man.”
Hyde’s mouth parted, and the harsh lines, the mean lines, softened. “Love?” He took another step toward me.
Oh, shit. His proximity was like a drug affecting my pulse and pushing it higher. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t want you?” He edged closer, and I took a step back. “Don’t dream about you wrapped around my cock?”
“Hyde.”
“Archer. Say it.”
My tongue ached to wrap around the syllables of his name. “No. We can’t do this.”
His jaw ticked, and the heat in his eyes smoothed to steel. “I know.” His throat bobbed. “One last time. Say it.”
Fuck, he was so close, his citrus aroma messing with my head and my heart. I closed my eyes and tucked in my chin and allowed his name to roll off my lips. “Archer.”
He drew a sharp breath. “Look at me. Look at me and say it.”
This was some fucked-up foreplay that had the pulse at the base of my throat jumping and my heart crushing in a vise because it could never be. We could never go anywhere. We both knew it, but like idiots, we stood, mere inches apart, our hearts in our eyes as we locked gazes.
“Archer.”
He broke with a ragged sound, bracketed my face with his hands, and rolled his forehead against mine. “Fuck this, Justice. Fuck it.”
He released me abruptly and was gone, leaving me shaking with an overload of emotions and a sense of deep loss that only a shit load of time would heal.
“Justice?” Lloyd appeared in the main doorway to the barracks. “Suit up. You’re on patrol with me, and then we have team training at the fortress.”
The fortress where the wanker Henrich was. The Shadow Master who’d given me news of my friend’s death so callously.
Harmon …
Fuck, he should be here with me now. He shouldn’t be gone.
“You okay?” Lloyd asked.
“Henrich isn’t going to make an announcement about Harmon, is he?”
Lloyd’s mouth thinned. “I doubt it. If he did that, then he’d have to explain what happened and why. He would have to tell the knights the fomorians infected a knight and then dumped him back in the mist for us to find.”
“Yeah, which will lead to speculation about the fomorian motives, but that’s as it should be. The knights need to be aware of what’s going on. We need to be preparing for a possible attack, not focusing on a bloody trial.”
“Oh, they’ll have the trial set up in a day,” Lloyd said. “One of the newer knights told me what to expect.”
Okay, I was all ears.
“They dump us into sector three, and they release a pulse, a frequency that brings out everything that sector three has to offer. Our task is to survive and to do it as a team while making our way to the checkpoint in less than three hours. Ten points per team member. Si
“So, they don’t actually have to prepare anything?”
“Aside from planting the emitters that will blast the frequency to kick-start shit, no. They’re busy right now getting ready for a party. They call it a welcoming party for the new knights, but it kicks off the night before we head into the trials.” Lloyd pushed the door behind him open. “Look, there’s nothing we can do right now. Maybe once the trials are over, we can speak to Henrich about issuing an alert.”
“Venrick is still out there, and no one’s doing shit about that.” I shook my head as I strode through the door. “It’s like Henrich wants us to forget what happened. Like he wants us to pretend that the fucking fomorians didn’t waltz into our territory and take our men.”
Lloyd didn’t argue with me, and it was obvious from the set of his jaw that he agreed with me.
Only a week left till the final trials. Just as well because I was done with cadet status.
Twenty
A fucking obstacle course? Were they taking the piss? I stared at the course that stretched out beyond the hound paddock. To the right was woodland—thick trees that clustered together to block out the light—and to our left were the low, long buildings that housed the hounds.
Unlike the last time I’d been here, the paddock was empty. The hounds were probably in their stables. Jemima, the faeblood who ran the place, was also nowhere to be seen. Just as well, because the last thing I needed was her making googly eyes at Brady.
I glanced over at the stables and then looked up at Brady, who was standing next to me in full armor. Yeah, we were meant to complete the obstacle course in full armor carrying our weapons. He hadn’t shaved today and was sporting a sexy five o’clock shadow, which I wanted to feel rasping against my inner thighs. A surge of desire washed over me.
Damn. Get it under control, Justice.
Brady made a low rumbling sound in his chest. “Do you want to throw me off my game, Justice?”
Shit. “Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Have you visited Athos since the Rage attack?”
Brady smiled at the clumsy change in subject. “Twice, with an extra-large bucket of meat. He deserved a treat after what he did to help you.”
“Would it be okay for me to visit him from time to time?”
Brady looked down at me with a slightly bewildered look on his face. “Indigo, you can see him whenever you want. You’re my mate, and what’s mine is yours.”
My cheeks were suddenly all warm. I’d never been a blusher, but the last two days, since mating with Brady, I couldn’t seem to stop. The mating had added an extra layer to our relationship, one that made me hyperaware of his presence. I’d been able to locate him easily the past few days, and I’d even caught a flash or two of his moods. This was the mating bond, Brady had said. Stronger for him than it was for me, due to his ogre-tainted nature, but still. Like right now, there was a spike in my pulse that I wasn’t sure was entirely mine, and then Brady leaned in.
“You need to feed soon,” he said. “I want you to take my blood tonight.”
We’d be staying in the fortress dorms tonight, which meant a little more privacy, which meant a bed to fuck on.
The spike in his pulse, the spike that I could feel as if it were my own, had my fangs peeking out from my gums in response to his excitement. I slipped my hand into his and ran my thumb over the back of his knuckles.
I still needed to tell him about Kash, but right now wasn’t the time. This was our time to enjoy our new couple status, kick ass in the trial, and graduate to shadow knights. After that, I’d deal with my growing feelings for Kash and speak to Madam Latrou about quitting weaver class. I had a handle on my power now. A connection to the weave. The shit that had happened in Lunar Creek was probably a twist on my power, limited to that reality. Plus, if I wanted to speak to her about it, I’d have to explain how and when it had manifested.
Not an option.
Carlo joined us, flipping a dagger in his hand. He tucked it into a thigh holster when he reached us. His hair was sleek and brushed back off his face today. Looked like he’d shaved down the sides of his head to neaten up the mohawk, and the indigo blue glinted in the sunlight strikingly.
He pouted and scanned the course up ahead. “Looks like fun.”
“Would be for you,” Devon said. “You hardly weigh anything. Pulling your body weight over that wall isn’t going to be hard.”
“Ah, stop bitching, big guy,” Carlo said. “I’ll give you a hand. Or maybe a finger?” He flipped Devon off.
Devon bared his teeth, but it was all in jest. The mood was light today; the course, which the knights called training, was nothing. I could take these fucking obstacles in my sleep.
“This can’t be right …” Brady rubbed his chin.
More cadets appeared around us. Where were the knights who were running the training?
Lloyd appeared to our left, jogging around the side of the stables to join us. He’d cut his golden, floppy hair much shorter into a look that was more Hyde than Lloyd. It made the chiseled planes of his face stand out, and his ice-blue eyes pop.
“Heads up,” he said. “Stables are empty. Knights AWOL. Something is off.”
A horn cut through the air, and then a voice we all recognized blasted over our heads.
“Cadets, welcome to final training,” Henrich said.
Where was he? I glanced about, but there was no sign of him. Hidden speakers? But there was no electricity up here at the fortress. A prickle of awareness ran over my skin, and the weaver thread at my solar plexus pulsed. Magic. They were using weaver mojo.
“Tomorrow, you take the trial,” Henrich said. “Tomorrow, you prove yourself worthy of being a knight. But today, you are prey. Today you will be hunted by your own. If you’re caught, you will be penalized, three points taken off your final score for tomorrow.”
What? What the fuck was this?
Carlo made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat.
“Don’t let your team down before the trial has even started,” Henrich said.
A murmur of dissent rippled over the cadets. Every face showed signs of annoyance and disgruntlement. Henrich was taking the piss. He’d used us cadets as mules the past term and run us ragged. We’d gone through attacks, both fomorian and magical, and now he was shoving more tests on us? Like continuing with the fucking trial wasn’t enough. Like bringing it forward by a month wasn’t enough. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this obstacle course was for the knights’ entertainment. Hunt the cadets for sport and then party, because, yeah, their celebration kicked off tonight and ran through the whole day tomorrow.
I’d passed through the kitchens on the way out and seen the mountains of food that were being prepared.
Were we just a way for them to build an appetite?
No.
There had to be more.
The knights served a valuable purpose. They protected the human world from an awful threat, and with the fomorian threat growing, Henrich had to know how important it was for us to be on alert.
A horn went off, and then hounds exploded out of the tree line to our right, ridden by knights garbed in black.
For a moment, no one moved, and then Brady tugged my hand, and we were off.
* * *
We were halfway through the course. Hounds at our heels, knights whooping as they lashed out with whips designed to shock and incapacitate. Brady, Carlo, and I ran neck and neck across the field—an open stretch of land littered with deliberately placed fences and naturally formed rocks. The lush tree line loomed up ahead. More obstacles would be hidden inside, no doubt.
A bellow behind me was followed by a triumphant cry. Another cadet down.
Shit.
Lloyd was ahead of us, and Devon and Aidan were a few paces behind last I’d checked. We’d gravitated toward each other, running together. We were a team naturally, not just on paper.
The tree line was getting closer, and the scent of earth and mud hit my nostrils.
I knew that unmistakable smell. “Bog up ahead.”
Fuck, we needed to slow down to avoid the boggy ground. If we barreled straight in, we risked running straight into the mud, but then that was what the knights were expecting.
“Hard right.” I waved an arm at the cadets to our left. “This way.”
Some listened and turned with me, while others continued straight ahead, either too caught up in the moment to adjust their trajectory or simply not wanting to heed my warning.
Lloyd adjusted his trajectory. No question. He must have smelled the bog too. We ran as one, moving away from the smell, which told me the bog was now on our far left. Good.
The tree line swallowed us, and then gloom descended over us. The aroma of nature closed in, and bracken crunched under our boots as we ran through the forest, leaping over fallen logs and ducking to avoid branches.
And then there was silence.
Wait? Where were the hounds? Where were the knights? The distant cry of cadets who hadn’t listened to my warning about the bog drifted through the trees toward me.
From there, the knights would be able to pick them off one by one.
Saying I told you so helped no one right now.
Our pace slowed as the forest thickened around us. A thin mist hovered above the ground.
“We must be on the cusp of sector three,” Brady said.
The fortress was the first and last line of defense, and part of the land touched on sector three as it curled around the back of the fortress. If we’d come this far, then the course was almost over. But the way forward was a tangle of angry branches and vines.
I pulled my sword from its holster, ready to hack at the thickest vines, to cut a way through. Lloyd was already at it. Carlo came abreast of me to my left and started hacking away. Brady did the same to my right.
“Fucking bollocks,” Carlo snapped. “How the fuck does this help us with sector three?”
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