Dungeons and Dreamers: Great Falls Academy, Episode 5

by Alex Lidell

  The sounds of fighting coming from the guards’ barracks at the base of the towering Academy wall pierce my immortal hearing, spurring my steps and thoughts. Coal makes no habit of fighting lesser warriors, not without provocation. And even then, his battles are swift and meaningful, not brawls.

  Or at least that’s how it used to be.

  “Stop!” a man shouts at me as I dart out of the hedgerow onto the edge of the wide grassy training yard. A half-dozen Academy guards are already spreading out to keep curious cadets away from the fray at the far end. Distantly, I can see a heaving mass of bodies in various states of dress—some shirtless and barefooted, some in full red uniform. Some wielding fists, others charging in with whatever they’d found at hand—from pitchforks to chair legs. It’s too thick to see Coal. “Get back to the dormitory right now.”

  Right. Ducking back into the fragrant green corridor, I rush along the thin walkway, sunlight dappling down through lush overhanging branches. This time, I emerge on the other side of the patrol, near the riding ring at the top of the training yard. A nearby guard catches sight of me and lunges with a surprised shout, but I roll over my shoulder to clear his grasp. Cursing sounds behind me, but the guards have no time to chase a lone runner, not with a smattering of the Academy’s cadets coming out of the woodwork to see what all the fuss is about.

  “Whoa there, lass.” Tye emerges suddenly from the corner of my vision and snatches me with the skill the guards lacked, his large lithe body swinging me in an easy circle. I curse and try to squirm free, but he holds fast to my upper arms. The male smells of pine and citrus and sweat, the wet patches on his sleeveless gray tunic speaking of active training. His hair is damp at the roots, a mess of fiery strands, and his green eyes are brilliant in the sunlight—and firm. Jerking his chin toward the barracks across from us, he shakes his head. “You don’t want to go anywhere near there. Trust me.”

  “Yes, I do.” I squirm out of his hold successfully this time. “But feel free to return to twirling around the wooden bar if you don’t want to help.”

  Cursing, Tye falls in step with me, jogging to the perimeter of the fight, which is partially obscured by a wall of observers now—guards, mostly, with a few instructors and stray cadets sprinkled into the mix. Over their heads, on the other side of the fray, I spot River walking away. “Where the bloody stars is he going?” Tye asks.

  With a shrug, I push my way through the watching crowd and take bearings, all my fae senses on high alert. It is a brawl. Shouting and a thick scent of fury fill the air, more and more men rushing in with whatever weapons they find underfoot. A rock. A piece of chair. Bare fists. In the center, Coal spins a wooden staff—which I think started its day as a broom handle. In spite of everything, Coal in battle is a breathtaking sight—his low blond bun gleaming in the sun, sleeveless black tunic revealing every flick and bulge of muscle in his arms and shoulders, beautiful, sharply carved face set in deadly concentration. His blue eyes glitter, cold as ice chips.

  The wood in his hands twists quickly enough to appear a solid circle, one that has already done untold damage. I wince at the sight of a half-dozen men writhing on the ground, one with bone sticking clear out of a broken forearm and what seems to be paper stuffed into his mouth. The several sergeants shouting orders to stand down are drowned out by infuriated grunts and screams, the downed guardsmen’s friends rushing with vengeance-filled cries.

  In contrast to the guards’ hot rage, Coal’s face is so cold and haunted that I am not sure the male knows where he is. As if having heard my question, the magic inside me stirs, flashing with images of shackles and despair and agony so vivid that my throat closes.

  “Coal won’t stand down,” I tell Tye quickly. “Not unless there is no one left around to fight. I don’t know where the hell River went, but stopping the guards is the only option.”

  Tye pauses for one more heartbeat, then curses under his breath as he nods, his lanky body shifting smoothly into a battle stance that makes me think of the tiger hidden inside him. Every muscle coiled, ready to spring into action, fierce green eyes speckled with silver in the sunlight. When he speaks next, the casualness in his voice belies the deadly warrior I know he is about to unleash. “You want right or left flank, lass?”

  “Right.”

  “It’s yours.” Tye’s unquestioning confidence in me sends a ripple of warmth through my readying muscles. With the discipline born of centuries of combat, the male waits patiently for me to get into position, marks our first target, and signals.

  We rush forward as one, scooping up the swinging guard and throwing him into the crowd, which at least has the sense to hang on to the thrashing man. One down, a dozen to go. My heart pounds, my breaths full and deep. Despite the silly amaranth dress, I feel right. Alive. Strong.

  The second guardsman we go after is swinging a pitchfork around, the erratic movement managing to clip Tye before he grabs the guard’s arm. “Behind you,” Tye tells me calmly, bending Pitchfork’s wrist hard enough to relieve the man of his weapon.

  I turn around in time to see a fist swinging toward my head. Large and muscled and too slow to compete with my immortal body. I parry the blow and shove the idiot against his friend, the pair tripping each other in a tangle of limbs. When I turn back, however, there is a new slew of attacks separating me from Tye. Some—the more intelligent half—seem to have pegged the pair of us as being on Coal’s side and thus viable targets; the others swing blindly at anything in their path.

  The scent of fury and sweat thickens the air, the men surrounding me blocking my sight. A few paces away, howls of pain and thuds of wood mark both Coal’s position and the growing casualty toll falling to his staff.

  A thick, mustached man with a bleeding brow snarls at me, launching himself forward.

  I step off his path and the man falls to the ground. Behind me, someone steps on the hem of my dress, the tug unbalancing me long enough that yet another idiot blunders into the mess, shoving me atop the original mustached man.

  The man roars with a fury that says his common sense is long gone. When he grabs for my breast, my own wits disappear as well. Baring my teeth, I lunge at the man’s throat—reining myself back at the last moment to sink my elbow into his nose instead. A spray of blood shoots into the air, splattering my dress and the sand beneath. I roll to my feet in time to find myself a new choice target, men separating from the sidelines to—

  A horse’s sharp whinny pierces the air. Dirt flies high from beneath a rearing stallion’s heavy hooves. A shout of warning races through the mob with the speed of wildfire as a familiar horse and rider wade through the fray. Making only marginal attempts to keep his stallion from stepping on anyone in his way, River rides right into the center of the crowd. He’s magnificent—and terrifying. His eyes are hardened steel, every angle of his face tightened in anger, his shoulders square under his crisp red jacket. The same men who refused to step aside for their sergeants’ orders and Coal’s deadly blows scurry like cockroaches from the horse’s hooves. Even Tye rolls over his shoulder to make way.

  Stars. Within seconds of River riding his horse into the rioting circle, the fighting is finished, Coal swinging his staff against empty air.

  The deputy headmaster’s gray eyes flash with thunder as he surveys the scene from his stallion’s high saddle. No fewer than two dozen guards, plus Tye and me, are in some state of disreputable dishevelment, a good portion of the would-be mob having some injury to show for the experience. I tense when River’s eyes brush mine, flashing with an icy fury that says I’ve disregarded the wrong male’s orders.

  Raising his voice, he bellows for three of the guardsmen’s sergeants, the noise making me flinch. The men stretch out before him so quickly, I’m not sure they’ve dared take a breath since their summons.

  “Everyone, take a knee, now,” River demands in the tone of a general who knows he’ll be obeyed—and is. Even Coal, his staff still in hand, stops swinging to kneel on the dirt. My body moves to
obey before my mind catches up to my motions, the power of River’s demand reverberating through every fiber.

  In a moment, the training yard rings with silence.

  Turning his horse back to the sergeants, River keeps his voice loud enough to be heard by all. “Take the injured to the infirmary. Everyone else can cool off in lockup until I say otherwise. No exceptions.”

  4

  Lera

  I flinch as a metal grating slams into place behind me.

  Tye is already striding forward into the large damp cell where the two of us have been relegated, broad shoulders relaxed under his gray tunic, which now has a long tear down the front. He looks down at it, snorts softly, and pulls the thing off, muscles flaring in the dim light. Having once been an active fortress, the Academy’s central keep has a dungeon serious enough to hold prisoners of a major battle. A pair of slits near the ceiling provide entrance points for sunbeams, the light drawing two sharp lines on the uneven stone floor. Our cell is about ten paces on each side, with numerous manacles bolted to the wall and hanging down from the ceiling.

  At first, I think the accommodations are intended to hold many people at once and then…then I notice a hinged wooden table in the center of the room, a rack holding leather lashes standing not far away. Bile crawls up my throat. The guards didn’t throw Tye and me into just any cell—they chose the interrogation chamber. River chose the interrogation chamber.

  Clapping my palms over my mouth to keep from losing my breakfast into the dark spattered drain, I press myself into the corner. My breath quickens, drawing lungfuls of stale, moldy air that feels like it hasn’t been inhaled in decades—and it probably hasn’t. River’s ice-cold gaze pierces me over and over, mingling with the bruises I saw him leave on Tye’s flesh a month ago. With the violence I know he doesn’t hesitate to dole out.

  A new shiver grips my throat as I wonder if the room itself is River’s warning of what’s to come. The echo of a leather belt’s tiny whistle a moment before it lashes across my back fills my memories, Zake’s furious face towering over me. Morphing to River’s. Bile burns my throat anew.

  “Stop that, lass,” Tye says lightly, though he doesn’t look in my direction, as if giving me space to calm down. Whistling a lilting tune, he tests the grating, then perches on the torture table as if it were a bench set there for his convenience. “These are just accommodations. And not the worst ones either, so far as these things go.”

  Tye would know. At least the real Tye would, having spent a good deal of his life in and out of lockup before the quint magic’s call connected him to River and the others. Has this Tye’s veil-magic-spun life sent him into trouble as well?

  I swallow, trying to focus on that thought. On anything except where we are. What someone might do to us here.

  Soft footsteps tap the stone, then Tye is before me with a whisper of warm air, brushing a lock of my hair off my face. His beautiful sharp face and emerald eyes fill my vision—eyes that see more than I’d like. His silver earring winks in the low light. “Think logically for a moment, lass,” he says gently. “If someone intended to hurt us, they’d hardly give us access to weapons.”

  “Weapons?” I ask.

  Tye waves at the rack of whips before stepping away from me a little too quickly. Aside from teaming up in the fight, we’ve not exchanged more than a few words in the month since our coupling in the bathhouse. Tye has his reasons and I have mine, which doesn’t make missing my friend—my male—any less painful.

  Grabbing onto a set of chains hanging from the ceiling, Tye pulls himself up, his body perfectly taut. “These aren’t bad,” he says, spreading out his arms until they are parallel to the ground, every muscle in his bare chest and stomach coiling impossibly. The cross-like position makes me want to rub my shoulders, but Tye holds it with ease. Catching my gaze, he grins and flips himself over, landing on the stone floor with a flourish.

  I shake my head. “You are insane.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  I try to smile, to show some gratitude for his effort, but I can’t unsee horrid stone walls surrounding us. Can’t forget River’s furious gray gaze as he stared down at me from his horse. As if…as if I betrayed him. Took advantage of the tentative trust we’ve built, forged in secret study and shared moments, and used it as permission to disregard his orders. The male plainly regretted letting me glimpse his true self, hidden behind the mask of a commander’s coldness. And now, now he was ensuring I regretted it too.

  The worst part is that River is right. The Leralynn who stays meekly behind while Coal faces trouble, she never existed. Never would. The Leralynn I’d let River believe me to be is as imaginary as Lady of Osprey.

  Of course River wants vengeance.

  I glimpse the chains hanging from the ceiling again, so like those clanking in Coal’s nightmares, and swallow a lump. Coal. River locked him up too. Somewhere close by. The very last place Coal should ever be.

  Pressing my back against the wall, I slide to the floor.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Tye calls, sitting atop the table again. When I glance questioningly toward him, he jerks his chin at the stone beneath me. “Sit on damp stone. However long River decides to have us cool off here, it will be that much less pleasant in cold soggy clothes.” He pats a spot on the table beside him.

  “You want me to sit on…there? Where they question people?”

  “If it’s the sitting you object to, I can think of something more interesting,” Tye drawls before stretching like a cat, every hard square of his abdomen on magnificent display. “You know, most females would consider themselves fortunate to be locked up in a dark room with me and no other entertainment to be had.”

  Heat floods my face. Having already risen before the bastard finished his sentence, I plot a course in the opposite direction from him, into the farthest, dankest corner of the cell, where the scent of mold is most cloying. The thoughts and sensations flooding my mind make actual thinking difficult, but I do anyway, taking stock of where I am—of how abruptly my mission has ground to a halt. Just this morning, I was plotting my next Night Guard reconnaissance outing with Arisha and Gavriel’s help and looking forward to another tutoring session in River’s heady presence. Now the latter is furious with me, Shade is prowling the woods, Coal is locked up with only his demons for company, and Tye… Tye is playing games.

  Damn the male. He flirts on reflex, unable to help himself, but I know he has no plans to follow through. Even after a month of little contact, the intensity of our coupling in the bathhouse still turns my insides to molten heat each time I trespass on the memory. I was naive to think I could bed the male, enjoy the sheer physical pleasure of it, and walk away without scorching my soul. The connection is too strong, the wound too painful to keep ripping open. Not when I know that this Tye’s priorities lie solidly with his precious Prowess Trials, while mine are solidly elsewhere.

  My hands curl into fists. It isn’t fair how easily a few words can undo a month of hard-won calluses. How the dungeon walls can leave Tye unscathed but insist on closing in around me.

  “That wasn’t amusing, Tye.” I quicken my step as if there is anywhere to go, only to trip over a manacle. The metal ring clatters across the stone floor, the sound raking my nerves, sending echoes of pain and darkness reverberating through me. Making me flinch as if branded.

  As if I’d heard it before. Been held captive before. Been questioned and punished and made to scream—I cut myself off with a jerk. Coal. He has been held before, not me. It is his flash of memory that gripped me just now. His nightmares that will only get worse the longer River maroons him in the dungeons.

  Yet, it’s Coal’s fear as much my own that’s stealing my breath just now. And yet, the knowledge doesn’t make the darkness any less crushing.

  I don’t realize Tye is moving until he’s beside me, his strong arms pulling me from the corner I’ve somehow burrowed myself into. Before I can blink, I’m gathered against his warm,
hard chest, wrapped in his citrusy scent. His warmth surrounds me, making my muscles relax on instinct.

  “It was a little amusing,” Tye says impertinently, even as he strokes my back and head like a kitten. The smooth touches along my hair fill me with safety. With a sense of now to stand against the phantom memories I shouldn’t have. Tye’s knuckles brush my cheek. “I know, I’m a horse’s arse.”

  “Yes, you are,” I tell him. But stars, I want you anyway.

  5

  Tye

  Tye was a horse’s arse. And he well knew it.

  Despite Lera being oblivious to it, any male with a cock would thank his lucky stars to be locked in with her, Tye being no exception. Her deep brown eyes confused the senses, her hair a fiery auburn silk that positively begged a man’s fingers to get tangled up in it. Worse still, he knew what it felt like to be buried deep inside all that lilac-scented warmth. A fact of which his lower body was painfully aware. But that was no excuse for even hinting at the many things he wished to do to the lass.

  First, Lera had made her preference for Tye’s staying away quite clear. And second, she deserved better than him under any circumstances. Tiga’s death was proof enough of that. And yet being near Lera made Tye feel alive, like fog lifting from the world to reveal all the colors and smells.

  He breathed out slowly, willing his body to settle despite Leralynn’s intoxicating lilac scent. Worse still, standing this close to her, he could smell the slight hint of the lass’s misguided arousal. That sweet musk alone had his cock pulsing hard enough to make the room spin.

  Tye forced his hand away from Lera’s soft skin, bracing on the small of her back instead. Her amaranth dress, in tantalizing tatters from the fight, felt smooth and cool beneath Tye’s touch. The fabric fell perfectly over her curved hips and full breasts, though the bright cloth would look even better pooled on the floor, the lass’s creamy flesh bent over that wooden table, her legs… Tye shifted his weight, trying to evict his cock’s thoughts from his mind. “Go sit down, lass.”