by Alex Lidell
The three hours Coal spent waiting passed swiftly, his heartbeat staying level even when Han finally walked out the Academy gate, the night breeze carrying hints of cayenne pepper toward Coal. Han wore casual clothing now rather than the instructor’s red, a soft white tunic tucked into fitted black pants, and tall boots. That white shirt would be easy to spot in the woods—and a pleasure to ruin. From his perch, Coal watched as the man chose one of the wooded trails instead of the main road and started down the path at a leisurely gait. With Han’s speed and the direction in mind, Coal jumped softly from the wall and cut through the woods, beating Han to the small clearing Coal had spotted. Crossing his arms over his chest, Coal leaned back against a thick oak and waited.
The smell of cayenne pepper announced Han’s approach even before the sound of his soft footsteps brushed Coal’s ears. Entering the clearing, the man spotted Coal and snorted softly, his blue-gray eyes filling with the same derisive loathing Coal had marked at the training courts.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Han asked.
“You left a girl chained to a dungeon wall.” Pushing away from the oak, Coal stepped toward Han. “River might have to swallow the horseshit you spew, but I’ve no intention to.”
“Are you here to fight me, Coal?” This time, Han actually laughed, his face crossing the line from handsome to cruel in an instant. “And here I thought you were just spanked for as much last night.”
Coal’s hand curled into a fist, Han’s gaze narrowing at the motion.
“You know…” Han’s tone changed, amusement disappearing. “On second thought, I think I’d welcome the exercise.” The shift of Han’s hips was the only warning Coal had before Han’s boot slammed into his ribs, the force of the blow lifting Coal into the air.
Coal’s back bounced off the very oak he’d leaned on moments earlier, the impact a distant thud. Rolling over his shoulder, he dodged the next attack, his senses coming into focus.
Han crouched in a fighting stance, his chest moving as evenly and slowly as Coal’s own. When Han’s lips pulled back to expose a set of bright white teeth, a guttural primal growl escaping from his chest into the forest, Coal knew that only one of them was walking out of the clearing alive.
And Coal little cared who it would be.
13
Lera
“I don’t like him,” I tell Arisha, hugging a pillow to my chest. Without Shade’s wolf in my bed, the mattress feels too large. The male has been gone two full days now—who knows how far he’s gone in search of the mysterious fae girl. Stars take me. “I don’t like the whole notion.”
“There are a number of hims that would fit logically into that sentence.” Arisha makes a mark in a study schedule she’s drafting, her wild brown hair uncharacteristically loose and brushing the parchment. We both know she doesn’t need one and is simply using the busy work as an excuse to stay in the room with me all day. Keeping me company as I recover from last night or keeping me out of trouble. Probably both.
“Han. And not only because he shackled me to a wall. Granted, that’s a pretty good reason too.” I try to sound nonchalant, though the memories still send chills over my skin. The heavy dread that had wrapped around me after Coal left seemed to have lifted for a spell but returned with a vengeance a few hours ago. A low, rumbling oppression stalking me from the shadows.
I rub my face. The fight with Coal, that’s what’s eating me. Just when I thought the chain linking our fears would link our trust as well, Coal looked me in the eye and informed me that our connection mattered nothing. That he didn’t want me in his heart, or soul, or life.
I glance at the darkness outside the window and light another lantern, my green silk pants and short-cropped top swaying comfortably. No gowns, no gray uniforms, not tonight. “Why is the man suddenly here?” I say, returning to the matter of Han. “Great Falls was never going to participate in the Trials—it’s all the veil’s doing to make a place for Tye.”
“It isn’t all that sudden, actually,” says Arisha. “Tye came over a month ago. Once that happened, Sage suddenly had both the notion and the means to make Great Falls a real player in one of the continent’s most important events. It makes sense that he’d start maneuvering to field a competitive—and royal—team. If princelings are competing, their throne-holding parents will come to watch. All because of Sage. The little worm is probably bathing in his future self-importance.”
“Maybe. But Han still appeared right after I ran into the Night Guard.” I rub my tightening chest.
“Word in the courtyard is that he’s well known—has been in Prowess for a decade. The royals…”
Arisha’s words blur. In the edges of my vision, the bedchamber flickers to a dungeon cell, to a forest, to whispering darkness all around me, night sounds making me flinch. My breath quickens, then catches, that shadow-stalking dread inside me uncoiling. Focusing. Getting ready to pounce.
“Lera? Leralynn.” Arisha is on her feet and, by the sound of it, has repeated my name several times by now.
“I’m sorry.” I blink my friend back into focus, her concerned blue eyes grounding me. “Sorry. I was just thinking… What is the veil going to do when Tye travels to the Trials? Is it going to be strong enough to convince a much larger group that he is—” I cut off, the wave of wrongness smashing into me strong enough to make my heart stutter with panic, a phantom scent of cayenne tickling my nose. Something is wrong. Very, very wrong.
I stuff my feet into my boots, barely seeing what I’m doing, and am at the window before I can form words from the onslaught of sensation. Not words—word. Just one.
“Coal,” I tell Arisha, though I know nothing more than that. Only that something is wrong. That Coal is in the middle of it. That Coal is ready to die.
The darkened Academy is a blur as I shimmy out the window, climbing down the outer wall of the dormitory with practiced ease. Only lanterns in a few windows and torches on the ramparts light my way, casting deep shadows everywhere else. The familiar dark woods lining the inside of the Academy wall greet me with a rustle of leaves and a scent of pine that I mark only in the periphery. I run without knowing where I’m going, except toward the eye of the gathered dread. What are you doing, Coal? I demand in my head, as if the male might hear my question.
My foot snags on a root, and I stumble, momentarily pulled back into the now. Back to some common sense. You can’t just blindly run through the darkness, Lera. Even if I’m right that the magic I share with Coal is guiding my direction now, rushing into an assault vicious enough to endanger Coal’s life is more likely to make me a victim than rescuer.
With a curse, I realize my common sense returned too late for me to have grabbed any weapons. All I have on me is a boot knife Coal once gave me, and that just because it was sheathed in my shoe to begin with. A knife. That’s all I brought.
I am considering returning for a sword when another wave of darkness slams into me, this one heralding a searing pain along my ribs. Leaning one hand on an oak, I force air into my lungs, breathing through the pain. You aren’t the one wounded, Lera. You are supposed to be the one doing the thinking.
Right. Shoving down the panic, I force myself to survey the sounds, my thought finally coming to rest on the Academy wall. Not a surreptitious route by any means, but it does offer both a good view and an easy path around the Academy. With my immortal sight, I’ll have a fighting chance of seeing something.
After a month of using the underground escape passage to get outside the Academy, it takes me a moment to locate a climbable approach. Hips flattened against the cold stone, I climb as quickly as I can find the scant grips and footholds. Rock scrapes my abdomen, my short top providing no protection against the stone. But even that is an advantage. A reminder of where my body is as Coal’s darkness swirls dizzyingly in my mind. Of which body is mine.
Clearing the top of the wall, I straighten to my full height. The cool air billows my silk pants, the fabric crackling in the night. Below me
, miles of wilderness and sheep farm and Academy grounds stretch in all directions, faintly silver in the moonlight. Nothing breaks the night’s silence but wind and an owl’s lonesome hooting. Where are you, Coal? Where in stars’ name are you?
I turn to the Academy first. It is busier than usual for this time of night, the Ostera break relaxing the rules. A pair of cadets holding hands are sneaking into the reflection garden. A few more scurry across the courtyard. At the front gate, the guards argue about something among themselves. Nothing to suggest the death dance going on in the flashes of darkness in my mind.
Twisting around, I face the woods instead—quite aware that the last time I went out there, I nearly got myself dead. Could that be what’s happening to Coal now? Did he run himself afoul of the Night Guard, not knowing what it is?
Even as I think it, I know that isn’t true. Coal isn’t battling for his life—he…he doesn’t care. The bastard doesn’t care one damn bit whether he lives or dies. That is why my heart pounds my ribs so hard, it’s a miracle I’ve not cracked the bone.
I race along the top of the wide stone wall, letting the dread inside me act as a guiding light while my eyes seek any sign of disturbance.
Nothing.
Nothing.
There. My immortal sight catches on a small clearing along a side trail, two shapes moving too swiftly to be mortals circling each other in the darkness. My stomach clenches. Scrambling to the ground, I’m momentarily blinded by the trees around me, the bird’s-eye view from the wall giving way to dense, rustling forest. But I know these woods by now, know how to get to the center of the darkness that pulls me like a leash. Wiping my sweaty palms on my pants, I break into a run.
I hear the fight before I see it, the soft grunts of males mixing with the snaps of dried branches cracking underfoot. Coal’s metallic scent wraps around me, together with the sharp cayenne I’d smelled back in the room. And in the dungeon.
Han.
For some unfathomable reason, Coal is fighting with Han—and from what I saw on that wall, whatever the hell Han is, he isn’t human. Can’t be. I reach the edge of the clearing just as Han throws Coal in a great arc, my male landing hard on his back before rolling over his shoulder to escape the next blow. Coal’s movements are as crisp as always, a blur of black leather against the tree branches, but I know him well enough to mark the slight hesitations. As if Coal battles his own mind as much as Han’s limbs.
Which he very likely is. My hands tighten against the tree trunk I’ve stopped behind. Coal spent last night in a dungeon cell, the hours filled with terrors and ripped-open wounds. How many nights has it been since the male slept soundly, if the nightmares inside him roar fiercely enough to jump to me in the middle of a choke-hold demonstration with the whole class watching? With Coal keeping his distance from me, I’ve not realized how desperately the male’s darkness was suffocating him. How deeply he’s been spiraling down.
No wonder Coal welcomed a brawl—he needed the humans’ greater numbers to create enough of an opponent to siphon off the violence inside him. Well, Coal is certainly getting a worthy enough foe with Han. Too much of one for Coal’s present state, with his body, his mind, and his will to win all worn down to bare threads.
Crouching low, Coal sweeps Han’s legs.
Han jumps over the sweep, closing the distance to Coal. The male’s blue-gray eyes dim to obsidian, his smell spiking as he grabs Coal’s wrist. A grapefruit-size stone that I missed seeing Han pick up off the ground now flashes in his free hand. Then he brings it down onto Coal’s forearm.
The crack of bone as Coal’s arm fractures seems louder than a crack of thunder. Coal screams, the arm dropping to his side like a piece of heavy rope. In all the time since I’ve met my males, it’s the first time I’ve seen the warrior overpowered by a single foe. The first time I’ve seen him injured with no magic to mend the break. Coal takes a step forward, and stumbles. Falls to one knee.
Han grins, his muscles already coiling for the final blow, his eyes glazed with the feral gleam of a predator savoring the kill to come.
My thoughts stop. The world slows around me, each sight and smell reporting in full force. Tangs of pain and excitement scent the air, all wrapped in musky sweat. The too slowly moving leaves tremble in the breeze. Han’s boot takes aim at Coal’s head. One more heartbeat and Han will destroy my quint, shattering not just Coal but all five of our bonded souls.
Terror races through me. My magic bucks, throwing itself fiercely against its shackles with every ounce of my will. Once. Twice. On the third heave, one cord’s tip breaks through the hold, slicing through the cracking defenses of the mortal world’s wards. Like an invisible whip, the roaring orange fire cord—still pulsing with the recent strength of Tye’s mating magic—flails uncontrollably before slamming into the ground.
The ground bucks, the power reverberating wildly through every stone and tree root. I grunt as I land hard on my knees, the world’s speed returning to normal as the others lose balance as well. As Han sets his foot down to the ground, his gaze skids around the woods. Finding me.
“What—” Han starts to say.
But Coal is already up on his feet. Despite his limp arm, the male moves with more power than I’d yet seen tonight, placing his body between Han and me. “Osprey.” Fear fills his voice. “Run. Now.”
As if. Even as Coal moves toward me, my hand is already on my boot knife, my fingers gripping the blade. The males may just have realized my presence, but I’ve known theirs all along. And I feel no hesitation as my eyes mark the broad target of Han’s chest. See it expand with drawn breath, the deadly muscles shaping the cloth. Imagine a painted target and take aim.
The lub-dub lub-dub of my heart is like music, setting the stage for the cry of a startled hawk circling the sky.
Han’s dark brows narrow at what seems a snail’s speed, his handsome face confused. Then a smile tugs the corner of the bastard’s mouth.
My arm whips forward, the knife soaring through the air.
Han’s amusement shifts to wide-eyed surprise, my knife flying with the speed of an immortal’s powerful muscles. The amulet heating around my neck might convince the bastard that he’d overestimated the knife’s speed, but if I end him, it would save my veil the trouble.
With no time to move out of the blade’s path, Han lifts his hand and…and snatches the dagger from the air. Blood pools around his palm, its coppery scent filling the clearing.
Stars. My eyes widen, my chest heaves, my muscles burning with energy. I grab desperately for the magic inside me, only to find the mortal shackles have recaptured the rogue cord of Tye’s power. I tug at the binds anyway, beads of perspiration slipping down my temples.
“I seem to have underestimated the allure of your cock, Master Coal.” Han takes my throwing knife into his good hand. “How fortunate you are to have comely young cadets throwing away their lives for you.”
Despite his useless arm, Coal crouches into a fighting stance with a growl, blocking Han’s path to me. Ready to fight for me in a way he hadn’t for himself.
But we can’t fight Han tonight. Not if we want to live. I swallow, my mind racing, groping for the experiences of the other males. River. What would River do now?
“You think you can kill both of us, Han?” I ask, pitching my voice across the battleground before either male can attack.
“Yes. Easily.”
Coal growls. I grab his shoulder, a silent order to stay put that he, by the star’s own miracle, heeds.
“I think you might be right,” I tell Han, raising my chin. “But you won’t. You came to the Academy for a reason, and you aren’t going to throw it all away to scratch a midnight itch.” I draw breath, the confidence I’m putting into my voice now seeping into my blood. Filling the very air around me. “The way I see it, Coal’s body alone could be explained away. But the pair of us together? After you’ve already shackled me to a dungeon wall? You’ll be answering so many questions, you’ll have no time f
or anything else. Plus, you’ve no idea who else knows I’m out here.”
Deep within the forest, a wolf’s howl shatters the night.
Han looks between us, thought rushing behind his blue-gray gaze.
Beneath my grip, Coal’s body is coiled and ready. If he is to leave this world, he will go out fighting for life. Which is already a victory, though not the one I’m going for.
Heartbeats pass in the night’s darkness. One. Two. Five. Then, Han twists the knife in his hand and tucks it inside his coat.
“As satisfying as cleaning out the Academy’s rubbish would be tonight,” Han says, “it seems I’ll need to wait a bit. Do me a boon and don’t kill yourself before I can have the pleasure.”
The relief washing over me is so fierce that I lean into my grip on Coal to keep from swaying.
Han’s eerie moonlit gaze jerks to me, a gleam in his eyes saying he’d seen my near stumble just fine. “I will see you back at the Academy, Leralynn of Osprey.” A smile that doesn’t touch his eyes breaks the handsome lines of his face. “I would try not to get yourself stopped on the way back. I hear the headmaster is unkind to wayward students. If that sort of thing bothers you.” Without waiting for my reply, he saunters off into the night.
14
Lera
I don’t dare take my attention off Han until the sound of his retreating footsteps fades from my immortal hearing, the forest’s creatures who went quiet during the quarrel reclaiming their domain.
In the distance, Shade’s wolf howls again, his frustrated song soul-shatteringly familiar. An owl hoots. Beside me, Coal maintains his fighter’s crouch, statue still but for the rapid rise and fall of his broad chest, his broken arm now tight against his ribs. Finally, seeming to mark the same change in sound I had, the male rises and has the audacity to glare at me.