by Alex Lidell
Copyright © 2019 by Alex Lidell
Danger Bearing Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Credits:
Edited by Mollie Traver and Linda Ingmanson
Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Design
Dungeons and Dreamers
Great Falls Academy, Book 5
Alex Lidell
Danger Bearing Press
Contents
Also by Alex Lidell
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Also by Alex Lidell
About the Author
Also by Alex Lidell
New Adult Fantasy Romance
POWER OF FIVE (Reverse Harem Fantasy)
POWER OF FIVE
MISTAKE OF MAGIC
TRIAL OF THREE
LERA OF LUNOS
GREAT FALLS ACADEMY (Power of Five world)
RULES OF STONE
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
SCENT OF A WOLF
CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT
DUNGEONS AND DREAMERS
HIDE AND SEEK
ENEMY TYES
Young Adult Fantasy Novels
TIDES
FIRST COMMAND (Prequel Novella)
AIR AND ASH
WAR AND WIND
SEA AND SAND
SCOUT
TRACING SHADOWS
UNRAVELING DARKNESS
TILDOR
THE CADET OF TILDOR
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1
Coal
“I do miss the sight of that pretty, bent-over ass greeting us in the stable, but this will have to do.” The guardsman’s voice, reaching Coal through the thin walls of Czar’s stall, grated on his already dark mood. The clanking of metal bits the guards had been sorting earlier had sounded so much like the phantom scrape of chains that Coal had paused twice to brace his forehead on Czar’s shoulder and breathe through the flashes of pain and darkness. Shade had said time should snuff out nightmares, but time, plainly, had opposite plans when it came to Coal.
The one—the only—time the nightmares had quieted for two days was after Coal had coupled with Leralynn in the cave, the storm raging outside a harmony to the one exploding between them. Not a solution to be indulged in again, though Coal still held on to it in the privacy of his memories. But that was a month ago, and each day since, that precious lifeline thinned more and more.
Another man whistled. “You went and drew that yourself, Kreger? Quite handy with a pen when ’tis to your cock’s benefit, I see.”
Feet shuffled, and Kreger squawked indignantly, startling the horses. “Give it back, you bastard.”
“I will. But this beauty is meant to be shared. You aren’t the only one with an aching cock, you know.” The man laughed, raising his voice. “’Ey, Coal. I know you’re here. Come take yourself a look. If this doesn’t lift your mood, I swear you are a lost cause.”
Coal straightened from where he was cleaning Czar’s hooves—the stallion was liable to kick any of the stable hands who came within range, leaving his care to Coal alone—and looked out from the stall. Two stocky dark-haired guards tussled over a scrap of paper, the taller holding it out of the shorter one’s reach. The pair picked a poor day for it—not that there were many days now that Coal didn’t feel his leash on violence straining to the breaking point. Waiting for half a reason to escape.
“Give it back to him and leave for your patrol,” Coal called, though it was a waste of breath. Until the damn dance was resolved, neither bastard was going anywhere. Fine.
Hoof pick still in hand, Coal strode out of Czar’s stall and ripped the offending sheet from the taller man’s hand. Midday sun slanted in through the high windows of the immaculate stable, catching a corner of the parchment. Coal was halfway to handing the loot back to its owner when the familiar lines of a girl’s face, sketched in easy pen strokes, leapt out of the shadows, gripping his stomach. Unfolding the parchment all the way, he stared at the unmistakable mock-up of Leralynn, her legs parted open to reveal a wet entrance, swollen with need. An entrance he knew all too well. The drawing didn’t come close to doing it justice. Just as it failed to capture Leralynn’s heaving, pink-tipped breasts, the memory of which was well burned into his mind.
Coal’s hand tightened on the page, darkness hovering at the edge of his vision. “Do you have more?” he asked, his words a cool distant noise at utter odds with the hot rush of blood filling his ears.
Kreger’s bloodshot eyes narrowed for a moment. “Maybe.” He licked his lips, a hint of a smile creeping onto his face. “In my barracks. But it will cost ya.”
The darkness was tinged red now. “Take me there,” Coal heard himself say, his voice a cracking whip, his body already in motion.
2
Lera
Sunlight streaking through the window of River’s study illuminates my graphite slate, tiny specks of dust hanging starlike in the light’s beam. I try to concentrate on mathematics. I really do. But with River looking over my shoulder, one wide, callused palm braced on the back of my chair, and the other flat on the writing desk, I can’t think over the heat of his body, his intoxicating male scent. Woodsy, mixed with soap and a hint of the chalk we’re using. This close to him, I hear the phantom song of the violin all over again, the stars rushing across the sky as River twirls me through the Ostera waltz. One two three. One two three. One two three.
In the wake of the Ostera celebration and during the ensuing liberty week that the Academy grants cadets, River has made good on his offer to tutor me through my lagging academics. Ostensibly, I report to his study to fulfill a clerk’s function—it’s far from protocol for the deputy headmaster to work one-on-one with a cadet, especially a cadet who’s one assignment away from flunking out of the Academy—and this arrangement has raised no eyebrows in the two days since we started it. In truth, my literacy and computation skills have left River wincing multiple times a day. Including now.
“How exactly do two and a half soldiers dig a latrine?” Taking the chalk from my hand, River leans lower to add his marks to the slate, his neat dark hair and clean-shaven jaw only inches from my face. From my lips. Focus, Lera. We may have avoided raising eyebrows, but I’ve discovered the real risk of tutoring: being so close to this version of River, one who’s not yelling at me or issuing a command, is wreaking havoc between my thighs. In just the span of a couple of days, these moments, whether I care to admit it or not, have become precious to me—too precious. I feel a warm finger on my chin, directing my gaze back down to the slate. “Pay attention.” River writes with the same crisp efficiency as he does everything, the muscles beneath his white silk shirt equally at ease working out mathematics as wielding a sword. “You need to remember what you are actually counting.”
I cut River a sideways glance, meeting his beautiful gray eyes with a quirked brow. “It might help if we counted something more pressing than latrine ditches,” I say carefully. The pre
sence of the Night Guard that I fought on Ostera night changes the landscape of the magic threat we are facing—as does the Night Guard’s discovery of my presence. There has to be a way of conveying as much to River without either triggering the veil amulet’s defenses or getting me thrown out of the study. “Such as the number of fighters at the Academy who can stand against magic-tinged foes.”
“Alas, you are counting ditches.” Straightening, River crosses his arms and gives the slate a meaningful look. One of the largest males I’ve seen in Lunos, he is downright overpowering in the mortal world, carrying the cloak of responsibility on his shoulders without ever tripping. Or yielding. His biceps and shoulders press tantalizingly against his shirt. In the warmth of the study, he’s hung his jacket over a chair and undone his top buttons, revealing the flare of his tanned pectorals. He’s become less careful around me as we’ve studied, caught up in his work, the strong planes of his face unselfconscious in concentration. With every cuff he loosens and shirtsleeve he rolls up, he becomes more distractingly beautiful. “If you spent half as much effort studying as you do trying to meddle in issues I’ve ordered the cadets to keep clear of, you might have a chance of passing your exams. Let us get back to it, if you please.”
Beneath the writing desk, my fingers curl around the smooth satin of the dress I chose for the day. The amaranth fabric is light enough to be comfortable while staying formal, while the long skirt and covered sleeves conceal the fading bruises and cuts of my encounter with the Night Guard’s blade. “Just tell me one thing—have you ever heard of fae pledging allegiance to Mors? They—”
“That’s enough.” River’s face hardens, his low, sensuous voice taking on familiar gravelly steel. “When I give a cadet an order, I expect it followed. If you intend to take up arms, you better get used to obeying your superiors whether or not you like their decisions. Do I—”
River cuts off, both our attentions sliding toward the door and the two sets of approaching footsteps beyond. The third set of visitors in under two hours. With the constant traffic coming into his study, I’m not sure how the male manages to get anything done. But he does. River has his competent fingers on the pulse of everything. Except the very mission we came from Lunos to accomplish.
By the time a knock sounds on the double doors, River is already there, waiting for me to cover up my work. I didn’t know it was even possible for someone to be so attentively considerate and bullheadedly frustrating at the same time. As I shove the last of my books into a drawer, River lets his visitors inside.
“Good morning, sir,” he says.
Hearing the honorific, I quickly rise to my feet as Headmaster Sage strides into the study, his signature wet cough, hawkish features, and gleaming bald pate arriving with him. Walking in beside him is a man I’ve not seen before. Tall and trim, he appears to be in his early thirties, with short black hair combed back from a pronounced peak and a sharply attractive face. His eyes, a stormy mix of blue and gray, survey River in a single glance before sliding across the room, brushing over me dismissively.
“River, allow me to introduce Master Han,” Sage says, waiting as the men bow formally to each other. “Han is a well-positioned Prowess trainer and will be joining the Academy’s instructor cadre to prepare Tyelor and the others for the upcoming Trials. He has been in the circuit for a decade now, and fielded more gold medalists than any other practitioner in that time. Han, Commander River is in charge of the Academy’s day-to-day matters. You and I will work directly, of course, but River can see to any special requirements you might have.”
“Your servant, sir,” River tells the newcomer politely, a flash of concern in his features that only I know him well enough to catch. He turns to look back at Sage. “I wasn’t aware that anyone but Tyelor intended to compete.”
“A fact that I intend to change shortly,” Han cuts in before Sage can answer. His cool, velvet-smooth voice sends an uncomfortable ripple across my skin. “As Master Sage and I have discussed, athletics is one of the world’s greatest unifiers. With the royal offspring of all ten of the alliance kingdoms together, fielding less than a full team is a mistake. And with the Academy’s strong physical preparation, I feel confident I can adapt interested cadets to be competitive in the less exotic events—unarmed combat, swordplay, perhaps archery.”
Sage nods along eagerly to Han’s speech. “I recruited Tyelor with the notion of returning the Academy to the Trials, and Han will move on that vision. Not only will this weave the royal-born cadets together, but it will bring their parents together as well.” The hungry glint in Sage’s eyes betrays the honors he already imagines being showered upon him in the wake of victory.
I make a small noise, the pen in my tight hand suddenly breaking with a loud snap. Sage didn’t recruit Tye—the veil did. And now the little man is turning that kernel of warped memory into a continent-sprawling affair. So much for Lunos not interfering with the humans. I don’t know what this new direction means, but it can’t be good.
For the first time since walking in, Han’s eyes swing to meet mine straight on. Though there is nothing but guarded greeting in the man’s gaze, its contact makes nausea tickle my throat, my magic churning in its mortal shackles.
“Was there something you wished to say, Cadet?” Han inquires.
River shoots me a look that makes any retort dry up immediately, unease swirling in my stomach. Tread carefully, his gaze says. If River is nervous, I’d be a fool not to listen.
“No, sir.” I answer quickly, pulling the reins of my self-control tighter still and staying silent for the rest of the brief visit.
“What do you make of Han and the Prowess plan?” I ask River a few minutes later, once the study is free of visitors but for their lingering scent. A sickly musk for Sage and something sharper, like cayenne pepper, that crept from Han’s muscled body.
“My opinion on the matter was not sought.” River motions for me to bring out my books, ready to return to the fascinating calculations of ditch digging. Any sign of worry in his sculpted face is gone, back behind that thick, impenetrable curtain. “Neither was yours.”
“Doesn’t stop us from having one.”
“It stops me from discussing it with you,” River says, that stern voice returning, storm-gray eyes unreadable. No matter what I do, each hour since the forbidden kiss on Ostera night is turning the male more and more formal the moment we stray from academics, his inner sense of student-teacher etiquette on high alert. I almost wish it didn’t happen, for the wall it’s erected between us—but then I remember his warm, velvet lips on mine, the press of his hard body, the soft gravel of his voice in my ear as he led me through the dance steps, and I wish I could spend another eternity in that moment.
Shade, on the other hand, has gone missing altogether since our moment in the woods, having sent a note of intention to spend several liberty days off Academy grounds. My chest clenches with the certainty that my male now prowls the woods, desperately searching out a mate who isn’t there. I know how he feels, which only makes my worry for him greater. Without Arisha and Gavriel finding me when I first arrived here, giving me a sense of purpose with our nightly missions, I might have gone mad with loneliness weeks ago.
My heart squeezes painfully. One male is looking in the wrong place and the other is two mere steps away but refusing to look at all.
“Leralynn.” River’s sharp snap jerks me from my thoughts. Adjusting the rolled-up sleeves to perfectly creased perfection, he throws a pointed look at my empty slate. Right. Latrine ditches and soldier halves.
This time we manage a full half hour without interruption, River leaving me to struggle through a set of calculations while he catches up on his own work. When the next set of approaching footsteps sounds, however, River barely has time to jump out of the way of the swinging door, much less properly greet the liveried visitor.
“Sir!” Rabbit, having streaked in like a small dust vortex, smashes into River’s thigh and bounces off. Panting, the boy ja
bs toward the window, his narrow chest heaving. “A brawl. A real big brawl,” he says between gasping breaths. “With blood and shouting and everything. By the guards’ barracks.”
“I don’t imagine a brawl by the guards’ barracks is going to last very long, Rabbit.” River’s voice is battle calm as he shrugs into his red wool coat, fastening the buttons with precise, economical motions. “Do you know which cadet chose such a brilliant location for a fight?”
“None, sir.” Rabbit shakes his head vigorously. “It’s Master Coal against a dozen of the guards themselves.”
3
Lera
A faint humming has started in my head as I try to make sense of Rabbit’s words, River’s study growing distant.
“Stay here, Leralynn,” River orders. He takes one more heartbeat to hold my eyes, a heartbeat he can’t spare, just to press into me the importance of what he’s saying. “That isn’t a request.”
Knowing better than to argue, I keep my eyes trained on my studies until the sound of River’s and Rabbit’s steps fades from earshot. That settled, I rush down the stone steps and streak through the hedgerow separating the academic quarters from the training pitch. Worry for my male casts all thought of rules or repercussions aside, his name ricocheting through my mind with each whoosh of blood through my temples. Coal. Coal. Coal.
