by Alex Lidell
The whole Prowess Trials fiasco hangs on the one male who shouldn’t be competing in human games to begin with—Tye. If he withdraws, the whole thing just might collapse like the house of cards that it is, making my life—and the Protector’s Guild’s job—a whole lot easier.
And that makes getting him alone my number one priority.
Now, wedged between the thick branches of a shadowed oak, I rub my eyes and squint at the dark horizon. Crickets sing in the grass of the training yard, and down in the valley of Great Falls, a lone dog barks. No first rays of dawn to be seen, meaning I might finally be here early enough to catch Tye as he finds his way to the bathhouse before anyone sane is up. Unless the male has given up bathing at all, this is the only time of the day I’ve narrowed down the possibilities to.
Dong dong dong.
I jerk as the Academy bell calls four in the morning, cursing myself for having nearly dozed off at my post. The last thing I need is to actually have one of Coal’s nightmares while I’m up here and fall off a tree branch. Stifling a yawn, I focus on the outline of a male figure finally striding down the path to the baths. Tye’s large body and lithe muscles move with a feline coordination that send a wave of heart-squeezing familiarity through me. The slight slump of his shoulders and heavy gait, on the other hand, are nothing like the male I know. He looks exhausted—defeated. So this is what you’re like when you think no one is watching.
Stopping before the bathhouse door, Tye takes a deep breath and turns the handle, sticking his head inside before finally walking in. Ensuring that the place is empty? That’s my only explanation for his choosing this hellish hour to bathe at in the first place, but Tye has never been shy before.
Feeling only slightly guilty, I wait until my prey is well inside the door—and has likely had time to get himself undressed—before sliding down from the tree. Whatever slight guilt I feel over the intrusion pales beside the rising excitement of finally, finally having cornered the elusive rogue.
As a human, the capture might have felt entertaining. As a fae, the sensation of hunting and trapping is magnified manyfold, making my heart speed and muscles tingle with addictive energy.
Brazenly opening the door to the male baths, I breathe in the immediate moist heat of the pools, hear the gentle bubbling of natural springs, my memory unable to stop from brushing over the things Tye and I have done on their stone lips. Even as I stride forward, my thighs clench at the phantom feel of Tye’s hands brushing my skin with sinful lightness, his callused thumb parting my sex.
There is no sign of that male now, however, not in the muscled figure hunched at the edge of a large heated pool across the room.
“Tye?”
Despite having surely heard me coming, Tye doesn’t look up. Doesn’t even answer.
My nostrils flare delicately as I stalk closer, his pine-and-citrus scent mixing with the lavender soap and the slight sulfur tinge of the water. And copper. Blood. Tye’s blood. The irony of Shade catching me hurt only a few days ago isn’t lost on me as I stride to where Tye sits on a pool’s edge, a small tower of healer’s supplies laid out at his side.
“Stalking me?” Tye asks when I’m a few steps away. His normally lilting voice is even, emotionless except for the slightest tinge of annoyance.
“Avoiding me?” Walking around to see his face, I gasp. Deep rope burns cover the insides of his calves, thighs, and arms, and the small toe on his left foot is so discolored, I’m certain it’s broken. The injuries look even more lurid in the dim room, the torchlight turning his muscles and bruises into a deep contrasting field of shadows. On his upper body, the male’s right elbow looks larger than his left, more swelling around his shoulder hinting at recent dislocations. Beneath his mane of red hair, his usually bright face is tight, his green eyes dull, his freckles standing out against blanched skin. His silver earring is missing, and this, for some reason, is the thing that makes tears lodge in my throat.
Stars. In the week since Han arrived, he’s already shattered Coal’s arm and is well on his way to destroying Tye too.
Sitting next to him, I reach out to touch a bruised knee. Guilty as it makes me feel, perhaps the injuries will make urging Tye to step away from the Prowess team easier than I expected. Surely this isn’t what the male imagined when he started down this path.
Tye catches my wrist before I can touch his skin, the grip tighter than his usual playful tugs. “Don’t.”
“What happened?” I ask, staring unabashedly at his naked body.
“You wouldn’t understand.” He releases my wrist. “It’s not personal, Lera. There is a certain amount of pain and strain that comes with training for top-level athletics—things that look brutal to outsiders but are a normal part of elite training. To be blunt, I don’t have the energy to explain that to everyone who wants to gasp and criticize every scratch. Hence my preference to bathe outside other’s company.” He raises a brow at me, just in case I may have missed the implication that other’s company very much includes me.
I raise my chin. “I’m not others,” I say, refusing to grant Tye any distance. “I’m—”
“You are gawking,” he says flatly.
Yes, I am. I frown but don’t look away. Slipping off the edge, Tye lowers himself into the water. A few more moments and he will walk out of my reach unless I hop fully clothed into the bath as well and trail behind like a simpering admirer.
Crouching with my forearms on my knees, I drill my gaze into Tye’s back. “Wait.”
To my relief, the male pauses, though his coiled body says his patience is wearing thin. If I want to talk, I need to do it fast. And I’m not above bringing mating into the mix. Not if it brings Tye back to me and away from Han. “In the dungeon, we—”
“We played.” Tye’s emerald eyes flash, for a moment filled with the life energy I’m used to—even if it’s rooted in annoyance. “That was what we agreed to, lass. A distraction. I was honest with you then, and I am honest with you now. I need to go. Han doesn’t want us… He wants us focused on training. Nothing else.”
“Han is a sadistic ass who I wouldn’t trust to wipe dung off my boots.”
Tye’s sharp face tightens, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “No one is asking you to trust him. Or to like him. After Han refused to release you from the dungeon, I don’t blame you for despising the man. But he’s the one person who understands that I need to win the title. I’ve sacrificed too much—” He cuts off raggedly. “The Prowess Trials title is why I’m in the Academy in the first place. I don’t expect you to understand, Lady Leralynn of Osprey. Or approve. I do expect you to stay out of my way.”
I bite my lip, the seconds ticking. Then, in a moment of reckless abandon, I throw down my cards. “Pull out of the Prowess Trials, Tye. Please.”
Tye freezes in utter bewilderment, the warm water lapping his washboard abdomen and circling smoothly around his hips. For a moment, the only sounds are the bubbling springs and softly spitting torches. “Why in all the sky’s stars would I do that?”
I take a breath and straighten my spine, having only one last move to play. The truth. Or as much of it as I can manage without setting off Tye’s veil amulet. “Because you know there are things—magical, evil things—that prowl the Great Falls woods. You’ve fought them. Because keeping the ten kingdoms’ kings and queens out of the Academy—out of the blight’s reach—is the responsible thing to do. And you are the only one with the power to make it happen. Pull out of the Trials, and, without you, there is no Great Falls Academy team and no Trials on Academy grounds.”
Tye’s face darkens with an ire I’ve not seen before, his lively emerald gaze closing off to me with the finality of an iron grate snapping closed. With slow, deliberate steps, he walks toward the edge of the pool and looks me right in the eye, his heady pine-and-citrus scent now taunting me. He’s not mine—he may never be again. “Did you just ask me to throw away my life’s destiny to head off some wildly unlikely threat that’s fluttering in your imaginat
ion?”
“I asked you to use your power for someone beyond yourself,” I shoot back.
“Because I’m the only one who can stop the Trials?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Not Sage, the headmaster of Great Falls Academy, who is actually in charge? Not Han, who is training the team. Not the Prowess committee, which is making the final decision on venue. Not any of the royals, who are the only reason the Academy even cares about the competition? No, not any of them.” Tye braces both hands on the pool’s edge, looming over me, his glistening muscles vibrating with fury. “What you meant to say, Leralynn, is that I’m the only one you think can be manipulated to do your bidding.”
“I’m not manipulating you. I’m…” My words fumble, the last of my hopes crumbling to dust. I take one last wild stab at reasoning with him. “What do you think Han and Sage are up to exactly? Why bring the Trials here to the edge of the continent when there are far grander cities and bigger arenas elsewhere?”
Tye snorts without humor. “I think the pair of them are using the fruits of my lifetime of training to parley a bunch of snot-nose royals onto a competition pitch. And I think I’m going to swallow it all with a smile for the chance to win. To break out of common poverty into a life that matters. A title. Land. The things that noble-born ladies like you take for bloody granted. Now, if you would kindly take your presumptuous arse out of here, I’d be much obliged.”
Without waiting for my response, Tye turns away—nearly falling into the water as his knee wavers for a moment before his body regains control of itself.
My throat tightens, my plans and hopes all drowning beneath the blood-tinged water. I rise to my feet—then pause, my eyes glued to Tye’s swollen shoulder.
Not all of them.
One last option suddenly looms before me, so terrible it steals my breath. An option that Shade taught me only three days ago. For a moment, with bile crawling up my throat, I consider walking out without the courtesy of telling Tye the horrid move I’m about to make. But at least I’ve enough shame to own my words.
The walls of the bathhouse close around me, the thick humid air we once shared with such pleasure now suffocating me. “I’m going to report you.”
Tye pauses, but remains with his back to me. “For what—bathing before dawn?” Despite the derisive snort that accompanies the words, the tension vibrating beneath them is as clear as a violin chord. “Do you imagine another set of bruises from River will make any difference?”
“Not to River.” My mouth is dry, my gut twisting with each word. I’m doing the right thing. For the mortal realm. For the quint. For Tye himself. I have to be, because otherwise, I’m as reprehensible as Tye is about to think me. “I will report you to Shade as an injured cadet.”
Tye turns, water running down the grooves of his muscles, the storm in his eyes darkening as he works through the implications of the words. The greatest threat from River may be a thrashing, but Shade can do the one thing Tye truly fears—bench him from training and competition altogether.
When Tye finally speaks, there is nothing of the male I love lingering in his voice. “You wanted to make yourself an enemy, Leralynn of Osprey? You have succeeded.”
11
Lera
I bolt upright in my bed, the deafening clank of shackles and the stench of pain still lingering about me. Air catches in my lungs, making breathing an effort of will. Beyond the window, sharply glittering stars fill the night sky, offering desperately needed proof of my being aboveground.
Swinging my legs off the bed, I brace my elbows on my thighs and cradle my head. My night shirt, a short slip of red silk that Autumn packed for me before I left Lunos, is damp with patches of sweat.
“You wanted to make yourself an enemy, Leralynn of Osprey? You have succeeded.” Tye’s voice pierces my newly freed mind, the loathing in the male’s face cutting as deeply as the whips from Coal’s night terrors.
I shudder. In my mind’s eye, Tye’s ire-filled face is replaced by Shade’s impassive one. He listened silently as I said the words that could end Tye’s imagined career, his gaze growing harder with each sentence. When I was done, he just told me he would look into it. And did not follow me as I ran toward the closest patch of trees to empty my stomach, my fear over what’s coming overpowered only by my grief at betraying one of my own quint-bonded males.
A small, pain-stricken growl escapes my chest. I’m out of ideas. Of options. Of hope.
“Lera?” Sitting up in bed, Arisha pats her table in search of her glasses. “Are you all right?”
Instead of answering her, I stuff my feet into my boots, knocking them against the floor to seat my heels.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I stand up. “I’m exhausted. I want to sleep. And Coal’s bloody nightmares are not letting me. So I’m going over to Coal’s damn bedchamber and waking him up.”
I need to fix something, or I think I’ll go insane.
Though a smaller voice inside me says I need to strike something, and Coal is the only available target.
Arisha pushes her glasses higher on her nose. “Are you certain that’s wise?”
It’s such an understatement that I almost snort. “Of course it’s not. But I’m certain that it is the only bloody thing I can do something about. And if all I get out of the mess is one night’s sleep, I’m ready to take it. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“The logic of blaming Coal for his nightmares aside, in what world do you imagine it would be a good idea for a cadet to sneak into the instructors’ wing of the keep in the middle of the night? Much less dressed—undressed—like that?” Arisha waves at my bright red slip.
I frown. “I’m not done dressing yet.”
“So…you put on your boots for the sake of walking two feet to your clothing chest to get pants?” She coughs and points to her ears. “Also…”
Right. The amulet. I would have forgotten to put it on.
Giving Arisha a glare that she in no way deserves, I remove my boots and pull on a gray training uniform over my night shirt. Not glamorous, but practical, as is the pinned bun I wrangle my sleep-tangled hair into before clicking the amulet into place. The heaviness settling over me is suffocating.
Finally dressed, this time appropriately, I stalk to the door only to stop with a hand braced on the doorframe as my common sense—or at least Arisha’s—finally registers. “There will be hell to pay if I’m caught in the instructors’ wing, won’t there?”
Arisha cocks her head in serious consideration, a move that’s so classically her, I almost want to laugh—though it would make me seem even more insane. “At the very least, River is going to pull you from Coal’s class. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you were back on stable duty until the end of the millennium.”
I tip my face back, weighing the situation in my fatigue-ridden mind, then turn and scramble out the window instead of using the door. Being careful with my paths, I can do—continuing the sleepless nights, I can’t. It’s not sustainable. Not for me. Maybe not for Coal either.
I stay to the trees for as long as I can, the fresh scents of pine and damp grass bringing me fully awake. Then I cut into the keep and let myself into the library with one of the keys Gavriel made for our group. Walking between the stacks of books is eerie without the others here, the words and knowledge seeming to watch me as I head to the back door and out into the sleeping corridor beyond.
Trailing my fingers along the stone walls, I work my way through the dark keep, the occasional scurry of a castle cat and all is well calls from guards the only sounds to break up the night. I rush through the pools of torchlight and linger in the shadows. It isn’t until I’m into the instructors’ wing that the full weight of what I’m doing settles on me. There is no explaining my way out of this if caught now.
And if I’m not caught? I’m not sure how I’m going to explain myself to Coal either. Whatever happens, it can’t be any wo
rse than the disaster with Tye. Or maybe it can. I’m too tired to think. To truly contemplate that quiet voice that says I’m provoking a fight just to have something other than reality to focus on.
The wide, tapestry-lined corridor looming before me is intimidating for its openness. For having no alcove or deep shadow to hide in. Identical oak doors line both sides of the hall, intricately worked candleholders above each entrance casting overlapping shadows onto the elaborate red-and-gold carpet. At the very end of the corridor, the largest door belongs to River’s sleeping chambers, Headmaster Sage having apartments elsewhere in the keep. Despite River’s tendency to work late into the night, there is no light escaping from beneath the door. The male is either already asleep or in his study at the top of the tower.
I run my fingers along the engraved nameplates, making my way deeper into the forbidden den. Master Erik, history. Master Briar, mathematics. Coal is close. I can feel the male’s turmoil agitating my own. Master… My throat tightens. Master Han, Prowess Trials. I recoil from the sign, ending up on the other side of the hallway. Mercifully, Coal’s name catches my eye a heartbeat later.
Stopping before the door, I take a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart enough to think. To give my sanity the benefit of one last chance before stepping forward. The scent of polished wood and melted candle wax fills my lungs, but brings no clarity with it.
Somewhere close, a cat trots along on soft feet—but otherwise, the hall is quiet as a crypt, the thick walls muffling the room’s sounds.
This is it. Now or never.
Turning the knob, I push on Coal’s door.
Nothing happens. Locked. Of course Coal would lock his door. Knocking it is—softly at first, then as loud as I dare in the hall. Although the surrounding stone entombs the rooms in silence, the sound still makes me jump.
