I stepped into the gloom. The room was around the same size as mine but sparser when it came to furnishings. I would have thought, being married, Peiter would have more of a feminine touch to his chamber, but this space was completely masculine. A dude’s domain from what I could see. The curtains were closed, and only the bedside lamp was lit.
Nera was a small, lonely figure perched on the edge of the mattress. “Conah already searched the room for clues. He didn’t find anything,” she said in a small voice.
“Oh, I didn’t come for that. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
She made a small sound of derision. “My life-mate is dead. How do you think I’m doing?”
Yes, stupid question. “I’m sorry, Nera. I wish there was some way I could take away your pain.”
She studied me for long seconds with her dark, unfathomable eyes, and then graced me with a small smile. “I do believe you mean that. Thank you, Fee.”
I walked into the room. “Look, do you need a hand with anything? Conah said you were coming for Peiter’s things. I can help you pack …”
She sighed and stood. “There isn’t much to take. Peiter wasn’t a materialistic demon. The things he cared for are at our residence in Tulah.”
“You didn’t live here?”
“No. This is a Dominus residence. Peiter stayed here.”
“But, I thought you were life-mates.”
“We were, but as a Dominus, Peiter’s place was here. He would visit me often and stay in Tulah for a week at a time.” Her smile was sad. “You’re a soldier now, Fee. And a soldier’s first duty is to the crown. His place is on the battlefield, not by the hearth.” She reached up to rub the back of her neck, and I caught a flash of a symbol in her wrist. “Thank you for your concern, but I’d like to do this alone.”
Her pain was like a dazzling beacon, drenching me with sorrow. My heart ached on her behalf. “Of course.”
I turned to leave as a shadow fell over me. A man stood blocking my path. He was slender and looked around the same age as Nera.
“Pan, you came …” Nera took a step toward the man.
The pain twisting my insides ebbed a little.
“Of course I came,” Pan said. “I’ll always come.”
They met in the middle of the room in an embrace that soothed the ache in my chest and brought heat to my eyes.
He stroked her cheek and brushed her hair from her face in a gesture that was almost too intimate. There was a mark on his hand too. I couldn’t quite get a good look, but if I was to hazard a guess, it was identical to the one Nera carried.
I left her to her memories and retreated into the corridor. My physical discomfort was forgotten beneath her emotional pain.
They had eyes only for each other, and being in the room felt suddenly wholly inappropriate.
I slipped away, and I doubt either of them noticed.
Conah met me in the lounge. “Fee, what happened?”
“Huh?”
He walked across the room and pinched my chin with his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to look up at him. “You’ve been crying.”
I blinked and sent tears skating down my cheeks. When the hell had that happened? “I didn’t … I wasn’t …” I took a shuddering breath, noting the weight of sorrow on my chest. “Shit. I was talking to Nera. She’s in so much pain.”
He reached up and gently wiped my tears away. “And now you feel it.”
There was no denying how miserable I felt. How lost and empty, and how pointless existence seemed until Pan had shown up and then … then that feeling had eased a little.
“What the hell is happening to me?”
“I can’t be certain, but I believe you’re experiencing a fraction of Nera’s emotions.”
“I don’t understand …”
“I think you may be able to pick up on what people are feeling by experiencing their emotions.” His brows shot up. “I think you may be an empath.” He released me as if contact burned him and took a deep breath.
“What? So, I can feel what other people feel?”
He nodded but didn’t meet my eyes. “Have you”—he cleared his throat—“noticed anything else? Any other emotions from … anyone?”
Oh, shit… back in the gym. The heat, the desire. It hadn’t been all mine. Well, this was awkward. Like being caught spying.
I shrugged. “Just stuff, here and there. Wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest.” Crap, change the subject, quick. “Who’s Pan?”
Conah looked relieved. “Pan’s Nera’s soulmate.”
“I thought Peiter was her mate?”
“Peiter was her life-mate. Pan is her soulmate.”
How many kinds of mates were there? “Has it got something to do with the mark they share?”
“You noticed that, huh?” He looked impressed. “I guess you are good at picking up clues.” He pushed his sleeve up to his elbow to reveal a mark of his own. “Male demons are born with a mark, and when they find their soulmate, he or she takes on that mark. So, some males have two marks. And before you ask, soulmates are rarely romantically involved. They can be siblings, father and son … You get the picture?”
“And Pan is Nera’s soulmate.”
“Yes. He’ll be a great comfort to her at this time.”
“But they never …” I widened my eyes. “You know …”
He pressed his lips in a thin line of disapproval. “If they did, then I’m not aware. What I do know is that Nera was devoted to Peiter and vice versa.”
I didn’t feel his annoyance, but it was evident in his tone and his expression. Shit. I needed to watch my mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You felt my irritation?” He looked surprised.
“No, I heard it in your voice.”
He looked relieved. “Oh, good.”
Wait, was he blocking me now he knew what I could do? “Have you put up a wall?”
“Yes,” he said. “And you should too. Trust me, knowing what others feel all the time isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not to mention the fact that it’ll drain you.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll need to show me how to stop.”
“Azazel is the best person for that. He taught me how to shield. Once he gets back, I’ll ask him to train you.”
“Please tell me he isn’t like Mal.”
Conah’s expression was unreadable. “He is nothing like Mal.”
I waited for him to continue. He didn’t. Awkward silence reigned. “Hey, aren’t we going to be late to the Academy?”
“Right. Yes.” Conah nodded. “We should go.” He held out his hands to me.
I took them, and the world splintered.
Chapter Sixteen
We materialized in a courtyard surrounded by three stories of gray stone building. Corridors were visible through ground floor windows and balconies on the upper floor. The courtyard was lush green grass, pretty pebbled paths, and neat wooden benches. Obviously, a prime spot to take a break, maybe eat lunch, but right now, there wasn’t a soul about.
“Classes are in session,” Conah explained. “Follow me.” He led me past the pretty benches and away from a tinkling fountain, obviously there to add an aesthetic air, toward a set of open glass doors and into the clinical-smelling building. Why did all schools smell the same? My stomach swirled with nerves as the distinctive smell brought back unwanted memories of a time I’d rather forget.
My stomach cramped.
“Fee, are you all right?” Conah was looking at me with concern.
“Fine, just … school isn’t my happy place. In fact, any kind of institutiony place isn’t my thing.”
“Liberatus Academy isn’t like a regular school. We cater to all ages from seven to twenty-one, many of whom live here during term time. There are no written exams. We focus on physical training and mental fortitude. There are a few basic classes where we cover history, math, and the written word, but those are mainly for the under twelves. Demons aged thir
teen and upward are focused on physical training.”
He led the way down the corridor, boot falls echoing off the walls.
“And what do you teach?”
He flashed me a wicked smile that stole my breath with its beauty. “How about I show you.”
Conah forged ahead, his stride long as he navigated the wide corridors. There was no time to peek into any of the classrooms, no time to take much in before we were climbing a set of stairs and entering a massive empty room. The ceiling was high, and there were no windows. The floor was a checker pattern of different colors, and there were strange patches of color on the walls too.
I arched a brow. “What is this room? What’s with the floor?”
“You’ll see.” There was a definite flash of excitement in his eyes as he climbed up onto a raised platform. “Up you get.”
He held out his hand. His fingers were warm and firm as they curled around mine, and then I was being hauled up. Our torsos met briefly, and an electric shock of awareness sliced through me, but Conah had already turned away and was busy at the desk that took up most of the platform.
Were his shoulders a little tense? Had he felt the jolt too? He desired me. I’d felt it. But he was blocking me now, and I was probably imagining things. I blew out a breath. No dwelling. If shit was meant to happen between us, then it would. Obsessing got you nowhere. I’d tried that with Lucas and look what had happened there. A big fat nothing.
I’d dated, of course, had the odd short-lived liaison, but nothing serious. I both craved and feared a serious relationship.
Conah slipped into the only seat on the platform and began tapping away at a cool ergonomic keyboard. There were three monitors all angled toward him. The screens flashed blue, and then an image of the room appeared on each one, but each image was from a different angle, and it wasn’t a video feed image. It was a graphic one etched onto a grid of green lines. Conah began tapping in numbers, and the image began to change. Buildings appeared, and obstacles sprang up. He continued to type commands until the room on the screens looked like a street.
The screen grew brighter as he worked. No, wait, the room was getting darker. I looked up to see stars above us, and fucking hell, there was even a moon. A soft whirring registered, and the ground below us began to shift. The squares on the ground flipped, and the walls began to move until the room wasn’t an empty room anymore. It was a replica of the street on the monitors. How could it all fit in this room? The sky seemed miles away but couldn’t possibly be.
“What is this place?” My tone was hushed.
“This is one of our training rooms,” Conah explained. “We have two. One that puts our trainees’ consciousness into a virtual environment, and this one, where their physical forms are entered into a danger zone we create.”
“Can they get hurt?”
“Yes. They can get hurt. But better to be hurt here than out in the field. This is the place for them to learn, to make mistakes, to pick themselves back up and try again and again. The system logs their successes and failures and allows them to identify their weaknesses.”
But what would they be up against? I opened my mouth to ask, but my question was answered when Conah brought up the image of a mouth on his third screen.
“You have a mouth?”
“Yes.”
“So, the students will fight that?”
“They’ll fight several.” He hit the multiply key and entered the number six. And then the mouths vanished.
“Where did they go?” I scanned the image on the monitor.
“They’ll appear in the room at random locations when we’re ready. They’re chipped so they can’t use their mouths to feed. But they can still attack in other ways. The cadets will need to hit the collars at their necks or get a chest blow to deactivate them using specially designed batons.”
The door to our left opened, and several demons walked in. A female and four males. They looked young, probably around seventeen or eighteen. The woman was petite, dark-haired, and dark-eyed with sharp features that gave her a ruthless edge.
The guys towered over her.
They were all dressed in black and red. They even had weapons belts with black batons clipped to them, and shit, they all had their eyes fixed on me.
“Hello, cadets,” Conah said. “This is Dominus Dawn. She’ll be observing today.”
The female cadet was staring openly at me now. “So, it’s true. Dominus Peiter is dead.”
The guys murmured amongst themselves.
“We have a female Dominus?” one of the guys asked.
I didn’t like the derision on his face.
“You got a problem with that, Decker?” the girl asked.
The guy, Decker, glared at her for a long beat.
“Answer her,” Conah said. “Do you have a problem with female authority?”
Decker tore his gaze from the petite woman and fixed it on me. “Not in an academic setting, but out on the field, yes. Especially one who didn’t even know she was one of us. One raised as a human.”
Looked like news got around. But that wasn’t the issue, it was the way he said the word human as if it was a dirty word.
My hackles rose. “If you have a problem with humans, maybe you shouldn’t be protecting them. Maybe you’re not reaper material.”
Decker’s gaze flew to Conah in panic. “She can’t do that, can she? She can’t expel me.”
“No,” Conah said. “But I can.”
The female cadet made a sound of exasperation. “Fucking hell, Decker. Just apologize, and stop being a dick.”
But Decker had his eyes on me now. “I don’t have a problem with humans, I just think they’re weak, and I’m not sure how someone raised as one could be a Dominus.”
My smile was cold. “Ask the celestial power that chose me. Or do you question that too?”
His jaw ticked, and anger and frustration raced across my skin. “Women are ruled by their host of emotions, and there is no place for emotional decisions in the field.”
Well, that was a load of crock. “It seems to me the only person getting emotional right now is you.”
He grit his teeth.
I wasn’t done with him, though. “If emotions were redundant on the battlefield, then the government would have replaced the flesh and blood military with a bunch of robots. Emotions aren’t a weakness, they’re a strength; after all, aren’t they what make us different from the host of monsters we fight?”
Decker looked surprised. Maybe he was expecting me to bawl him out? But it wasn’t hard to pick up on the thread of anxiety simmering under his frustration. He was nervous about this class, and he was acting out.
But Conah wasn’t so forgiving.
“Speak out of turn again, and I will fail your ass. Being a reaper isn’t just about physical prowess, it’s also about emotional equilibrium. Get some.”
Decker looked like he was about to argue, but then he ducked his head. “Apologies, Dominus.”
Conah sat back down. “Let’s get this assessment over with.”
The cadets stepped away from the podium, and a shimmering blue screen like a forcefield cut them off from the podium and the exit.
The room descended into night. A nighttime urban landscape that seemed to stretch for miles. Fuck, this was clever shit.
The cadets walked into the streets.
Conah tapped a button on the keyboard. “And so it begins.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, the mouths were down but not without wreaking some damage. Decker had a leg wound and if not for the female’s assist would have lost his face to a mouth’s talons.
The corridors were once again empty when we made our way away from the training room. Conah was reflective, closed off as we walked side by side, and there was no way to get a read on his emotions. It made me realize how much I unwittingly relied on my ability to suss people out. According to Conah, it had been muted before the scythe found me, but it was still there all
those years, giving me an edge with people. What would life be without it? Would I have done as well?
We took a different route this time. Away from the corridors that housed the classrooms and into a part of the building that looked more relaxed and residential.
I touched Conah’s arm lightly to get his attention. “You could have shut the mouth down before it clawed a chunk out of Decker’s leg, couldn’t you?”
“I could have,” he agreed. “But what would that teach him?”
“You’re still pissed at him for what he said.”
“That attitude causes conflict, and there is no room for conflict in the ranks. We must respect each other and work together to survive. Decker is a promising cadet, but he has issues.”
He wasn’t just talking about the reapers’ role in the human world. This was more, but his closed expression and the firm line of his lips told me he wasn’t ready to speak about it.
He exhaled through his nose and then met my gaze. “There is a lot you’ve still to learn about our world, but not today. Maybe not even next week. The rest will come in time. For now, we must focus on your training and finding that dagger. They’re our goals.”
He turned a corner and then stepped through an archway into a massive lounge area. Children aged seven to maybe eleven or twelve sat reading books or playing board games. Several tea trolleys dotted the room complete with sandwich and cake stands.
Laughter and joy filled the space.
“Free time,” Conah explained. “The youngers get free time every afternoon. We don’t believe in overloading their brains with useless facts they might never use. Rather, we allow them to read and play strategy games, so they can learn to think outside the box.”
I slowed down by a small group of children. They couldn’t be more than eight or nine, and they were playing what looked like a dungeon strategy game. Pieces of paper with notes sat on the table, and neatly painted figures of orcs and elves dotted the board.
A messy-haired boy looked up at me with huge gray eyes. “Are you a new tutor?”
“No. I’m the new Dominus.”
His mouth popped open in shock. “Like Master Conah, blood of Lilith?”
Reaper Unexpected: Deadside Reapers book 1 Page 12