by Alex Lidell
“There.” My voice comes out in a low whisper as my gaze falls on Coal. With black pants hanging low on his lean hips, the warrior is bare to the waist, his deadly muscles sliding beneath his skin as he demonstrates a takedown. The tattoos spiraling down the groove of Coal’s spine dance as if alive with each shift of his weight. The deadly precision of that beautiful body takes my breath even now—mine, and that of the five other female students who watch the demonstration from the sidelines with similarly still chests. “That is most certainly Coal.”
“You are late,” the male in question calls over his shoulder as Arisha and I approach the corral. Takedown complete, Coal’s attention lingers on the other students as they pair off to practice it themselves. That done, the warrior leans sideways against the fence, his arms crossed over his chest as the morning sun sculpts the hard lines of his face to menacing perfection.
“Good morning,” I say quietly, the sting of Tye’s greeting still shooting down my nerves. My gut clenches as I await Coal’s reaction, the screaming voice in the back of my mind a reminder of how wrong everything has gone.
Coal turns at the sound of my voice and rocks back on his heels, something unreadable in his shockingly blue gaze. “I realize you’re new, but I imagine you did learn to tell time before stepping foot here?”
I tense. Wait. Hold his eyes, my mind pleading for some sign of recognition. Some signal that he knows me. Knows us.
Nothing. If my body responds to the familiar danger that always vibrates inside the warrior, Coal sees nothing before him but a fresh-faced cadet.
Ice grips me at the chill in his gaze. His utter indifference to my existence.
Dipping my eyes, I trail them along Coal’s body. With his shirt off and torso bare, I should be able to see the veil amulet if I know what I’m looking for, if I can conquer my body’s instinct to look away from the rune-carved disk. Starting at the center of the eight hard squares of Coal’s abdomen, I move my eyes along the grooved midline of his body. Up between his wide pectorals. Out along the sharp collarbones—bloody stars, I’ve strayed off course.
Forcing my eyes back to Coal’s midline, I trace the groove again, refusing to look away. My head pounds, the need to focus elsewhere so palpable that it makes breathing difficult. A ringing starts in my ears, the sound and pressure growing more painful with each fraction of an inch my gaze climbs.
I dig my nails into my palm. Look up, Lera. Up. A little more.
It takes me a moment to realize that I’ve reached my target because there, at the hollow of Coal’s sternum where the amulet should be, nothing hangs at all. Instead, my aching eyes trace the outlines of a circular tattoo with an ornate pointed pattern, the exact size and design the amulet would have been. As if Coal’s body somehow absorbed the magical artifact. My heart pounds, recalling the flat lay of Tye’s shirt. Stars.
“Am I inconveniencing your daydreaming?” Coal’s voice snaps like a whip, drawing my attention back to his face. Cold blue eyes weigh me—and find me wanting. Just like when he first saw me all those months ago in Zake’s barn. “What is your name?”
Arisha curses under her breath, quietly enough that a human wouldn’t have heard.
“Creative, though not physiologically possible, I believe,” Coal tells Arisha, his brow cocking toward her quickly paling face. No wonder these students are terrified of River and Coal—when you’re up against preternatural fae senses without knowing it, there’s nowhere to hide. “Feel free to improve on that model as you take two laps around the Academy.”
“That’s over f-five miles,” Arisha stutters.
“Fair point. Three laps.” Coal’s focus returns to me, his tone as hard as I’ve ever heard it. “I asked for your name, Cadet.”
9
Coal
“Leralynn,” the new student standing before Coal said, pronouncing the name as if it should mean something to him. In her early twenties, the young woman was stunning enough to stir Coal’s cock, her shining auburn hair and large brown eyes reflecting the misty dawn rays. Ethereal, that was the only word for her. Even beneath an ill-fitting uniform she must have borrowed from Arisha, the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips held the attention of every male in the training corral. Which had no right to bother Coal, though it did. Leralynn cleared her throat. “Or Lera. Or mortal.”
“Mortal?” Coal echoed, the word singing to him even as the two dozen cadets of his training cadre laughed at the joke.
Lera wasn’t laughing, though. She just stepped closer, the lilac scent of her making Coal’s head swim. “It’s a nickname a good friend once gave me.”
Coal pushed back from the fence, stepping far enough away to let the chill air clear his senses. “Your friend isn’t here. Neither are your parents, your servants, your nursemaid, or anyone else who cares.”
Hurt flashed across Lera’s chocolate eyes. The young woman had plainly been expecting a different reception. All the new students—with their high-class upbringing and powerful family names—did. River thought shattering that particular illusion as quickly as possible was the humane approach. Coal little cared whether it was humane—he cared that it was efficient. In the five months since his assignment to Great Falls, half the students assigned to Coal’s team had decided to pack up and go home within a week of arrival.
From her bewildered expression, Leralynn would be joining the departing ranks soon enough. With luck, she might complain about Coal before leaving. Make the headmaster finally decide that Coal was more trouble than he was worth. Then River would have to let him leave, go back to the far coast, where Coal could lick his wounds in private. If he was lucky, maybe find some new war to fight in—there was always one conflict or another with islanders. Coal had no business teaching—let alone teaching noble brats who were not much younger than his twenty-seven years, yet seemed to have lived not the quarter of the life he had.
Coal’s attention returned to his newest headache, whose mere presence was already making half the male cadets in the corral trip over their own feet. Yes, the boys had not yet learned the dangers of women.
“Well, mortal, do you see the three dozen stones in that corner?” Coal jerked his chin toward a pile of rough, watermelon-sized boulders arranged into a neat pile. The limestone from which they’d been cracked had a chalklike feel, the grit having an uncanny way of rubbing skin and getting under clothes. “Move them to the next corner over. And then the next.”
A muscle in Leralynn’s jaw ticked.
Arisha moved slowly away from them in the corner of his vision.
Coal moved closer, invading Lera’s space, seizing upon the embers of anger sparking in the girl’s eyes at what she no doubt saw as unjust punishment. Anger was good. It made Coal’s point for him. He wasn’t her friend. Didn’t want to be her friend. And given the painful effect Lera’s mere presence was having on his body, the sooner she walked out of his world, the better. Coal clicked his tongue. “And once you do that, move them to the next. Do you think you can remember all that without a clerk’s assistance?”
“I’ll endeavor to keep track of so complex a routine,” she said, her voice quiet but not weak. Despite barely reaching Coal’s shoulder, Lera held her ground when larger men would have retreated, the heat of her body an answering blow to Coal’s challenge. Small and fierce and somehow unafraid of him. “I’ll do it all twice if you leave off Arisha. She was only late on my account.”
Stars take him. “Make that offer after you finish the circuit,” Coal said, returning to the other students, who’d opportunistically stopped drilling and now watched the show with unabashed curiosity. Or, in the males’ case, watched Leralynn. A glare from Coal set that to rights before he tossed his voice over his shoulder. “If you finish in time to be of any use to your friend, that is.”
Instead of an answer, Coal heard the scrape of stone on stone as the small cadet heaved the first burden into her arms. And then the second. The fifth. The tenth. By the time she’d moved the load one co
rner over, Coal knew he’d made a strategic error: making Lera haul stones about was a punishment, but implying that her speed would determine another’s fate was a challenge. How the bloody hell was he to have guessed the small spitfire would rise to it?
Even with his back to her, pretending to watch the sparring pairs before him, Coal could hear Lera’s labored breathing, see the tracks in the sand where her balance faltered as she hurried faster than was wise. Stars, she was going to injure herself if she kept it up. And there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do about it now except to witness the gambit he himself had set into motion. This wasn’t about the punishment, or even Lera’s friend—not really. Coal had greeted Lera with an opening volley designed to drive her away, and the bloody woman was calling him on it. And winning. Two dozen students in the corral before him, and Coal couldn’t get his attention off the one walking the perimeter fence—and doing so faster than a girl her size had any right to be.
Arisha of Tallie—who belonged in a sparring ring about as much as a tabby cat belonged in a choir—was just finishing the first of her three laps when Lera planted herself in front of Coal, standing so close that he took an involuntary step back. The girl’s sweat carried a sweet lilac scent, tinged with a bit of a copper tang. Blood.
He tensed, the smell spurring his heart to a gallop that took all his self-control to rein in.
“I’m finished with the first circuit, sir.” Leralynn told him, her brown eyes aflame. “If you allow Arisha to return to the corral, I’ll get started with the second. And if you wish, the third after that.”
Grasping Lera’s slender wrist, Coal twisted it palm up. The calluses from what looked like weapons training were intact, but the skin on the sensitive middle of the hand was rubbed raw. Shallow but painful wounds that roused every protective instinct in Coal’s body to the surface. Which made no sense. “Your sleeves are too long.” Coal’s voice was flat. “If you were smart, you’d have pushed them down to cover your hands and prevented this.”
“I presumed the point of the exercise was to make me miserable, so thought I might as well be efficient about it.” Lera’s fingers curled over her palm. “Now, are you going to hold up your end of the deal…sir?”
Coal strode into Shade’s infirmary office, slamming the door hard enough to make the wooden frame shake in protest. “I want out,” Coal said without preamble, his blood simmering as it had since morning training. “I’m a soldier, not a bloody nursemaid for noble brats.”
“Do you?” In his neat white shirt and leather vest, long black hair pulled back, Shade looked every inch the civilized officer—though Coal had fought beside Shade for enough years to know the man was a vicious warrior when the situation called for it. Still, Shade seemed as content here at the Academy as when he, Coal, and River served together at the coast, fighting the hordes of islanders wanting to gain a foothold on the continent.
“I was unaware that you ever wanted to be here,” Shade said with a hint of amusement as he rose from behind his desk and walked around to perch himself on its edge. “So, you see how the absence of the desire now fails to make an impression on me.”
“I’m not here to make an impression.”
Shade’s strange golden eyes strayed to the door, likely assuring the lock was engaged before speaking—this time in a low voice. Shade was a friend, yes, but also Coal’s military superior, a fact that Coal sensed was about to be brought up. “You are here because you were one bad night away from doing something stupid,” Shade murmured. “To put it bluntly, King Zenith invested too great a fortune in your training to let you get yourself killed in some suicidal outing. Until you’ve worked out…whatever is going on in there, Lieutenant, you aren’t going anywhere.” He gestured toward Coal’s head as if it were a messy barracks.
“It’s worked out.” Coal crossed his arms. In the five months since Coal had come here—since Shade and River had forced him here—things had only worsened. The nightmares. The flashes of darkness and groundless fear. Images of a woman who was never real to begin with, yet whose loss bled him raw. Coal’s spine stiffened. He was a soldier. He needed to fight, not sit shackled behind high walls. “I’m fine, Shade. What isn’t fine is this made-up world of Great Falls Academy, where brats play at soldiers and generals, safely away from anything that might actually take their lives. I want no part of it.”
“I see.” Shade’s words barely touched the air before the man was moving, his body low, his hands snatching at Coal’s unprotected elbow.
Coal shifted his weight, his mind waking to the fight. Twisting away from Shade’s opening attack, he crouched low, his breath even as his eyes took in the room. Lunging forward, his hands cut Shade’s knees out from under him, sending the dark-haired warrior to the floor.
Shade fell smoothly, rolling over his shoulder to reclaim his footing. Chest rising with deep breaths, he bared his teeth, his feet light as he circled Coal. With a soft growl, the man lunged forward again, this time ducking under Coal’s arm to grab his wrist. With a force few people had, Shade slammed Coal’s arm against the wall, his strong grip a living restraint.
Coal’s stomach twisted. The world rumbled in his ears.
Giving no reprieve, Shade captured Coal’s other wrist, forcing both against Coal’s sides.
The rumbling in Coal’s ears turned to roaring. The air seemed to flash, like lightning striking through the night, and the stench of pain and fear and blood from a dank prison cell vibrated through each fiber of his body. His heart raced, beating so hard, his ribs felt the impact. His muscles tightened, powerful and ready, his eyes widening to take in the slowing world he was about to destroy.
Because he would destroy it.
Pressing his shoulder blades into the wall for purchase, Coal speared his heel into his assailant’s chest so hard that he felt ribs crack.
His captor flew backward, crashing into his own desk and sliding to the floor. Wood splintered, black ink spilling across paper, mixing with the thin stream of red blood dripping from the bastard’s cut brow. Shade’s brow.
Coal swore. Dropping to one knee beside his friend, he slid a hand behind the warrior’s back, easing him into a sitting position. “Are you insane?” Coal demanded, loosening the top of the man’s jacket to help him breathe. “No. Don’t move about.”
Drawing a hissing breath, Shade wrapped his arm around his ribs, his yellow gaze piercing Coal’s. Anyone less trained would have ended up with a broken neck, but Shade knew how to take a fall. Had known what was coming before he ever attacked.
“I will give you your medical clearance to leave when you can tell the difference between friend and foe—whether or not they are trying to restrain you.” Shade’s voice was tight with pain as he pressed his sleeve against the bleeding gash on his brow and frowned at the stain. “And River is fully with me on this. We’ve known each other for ten years, Coal. If you won’t tell us what the hell those bastards who held you prisoner did to you, then find someone else to talk to. Until you figure this out, you are not going anywhere.”
10
Lera
“Come. You’ll feel better after you eat. Maybe.” Shepherding me along, Arisha leads me into the dining hall, where high-backed cushioned chairs surround ornately carved wooden tables, each seating groups of four to eight quietly murmuring students. The shining marble floors reflect grand crystal candelabras hanging from the vaulted ceiling, the candles unlit in deference to the sun streaming in through tall, spotless windows. Fine woven runners in rich reds and blues mark the pathways between tables. The gray uniforms look as out of place here as ball gowns in a stable. “The dining hall is informal the first half of the day,” Arisha explains, “but we dress up for dinner.”
I nod, not trusting my voice. My breaths come heavy still, my muscles trembling from fatigue. My fae body will heal faster than a human’s would, but I still hurt. The physical pain is the least of my worries just now, though. Like Tye, Coal didn’t recognize me, didn’t so much as glance my
way the entire time I worked. Not an act. Where does that leave our mission, then? Do the males remember why we are at the Academy at all? Does River, our commander, remember?
Something went wrong after we parted ways on the forest path, and until I can get one of them alone, I have no way of knowing the extent of it. I shiver, remembering Coal’s icy gaze. No connection, no attraction, not even a curiosity. As if what I believed were unbreakable bonds of love are nothing more than a trick of magic. A house of cards that, with that magic’s disappearance, has simply collapsed.
Finding an empty table, Arisha motions for me to sit while she fetches two portions of hearty porridge and heels of steaming fresh bread, relief at training’s end hanging around her like a cloud. Even after Coal allowed her to stop running, Arisha had done poorly in practice, tripping over her own feet so often that Coal finally set her aside to work basic punches against thin air. She’d fallen doing that too.
“Coal always goes hard on new people,” Arisha says, pushing the bowl closer to me. “Don’t take it personally. Though maybe negotiating with Coal on my behalf wasn’t exactly the best strategic move.”
I blink, forcing myself to concentrate on her words. “I was the one who made you late. You were kind to wait for me when I—when we met Tyelor this morning.” I lean closer to the porridge, letting the warm scent ground me, and realize suddenly that I haven’t eaten a real meal since our noon break yesterday. Somehow, that feels like days ago. A different lifetime in which my males surrounded me, jesting with each other, running a hand over my hair or lower back on their way past. My throat tightens. “Fair is fair.”
“Not here.” Arisha’s freckled cheeks tighten. “In fact, once you know your way around better, you’d be better off not sitting with me at all. Everyone knows the physical training will force me out sooner or later, and you should be working toward better alliances.”