His head tilted to the side, a vicious smile splitting his lips. “Oh, little mage, you’re going to pay for that.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Caulder
Rumlock stood with his hands on his hips, glaring off in the distance as I approached him on the training grounds. He’d summoned me to collect Bechora, though he hadn’t said why he’d sent for me rather than a healer.
“Good, you’re here,” he drawled without looking in my direction.
“You summoned me, Rumlock. Of course, I’m here,” I replied.
He tilted his head to where Bechora lay sprawled on her back in a starfish pose on a scorched training mat. “She won’t move. Been there since class ended. Figured she’s your problem anyway.”
I tilted my head, studying the half-demon. While it wasn’t obvious that he wasn’t fully fae to anyone else on campus, I’d known immediately, my inner dragon alerting me to his presence on my first day as an instructor. What he was, left me curious about his choice of words. His true kind held a grudge against the Fae king, so he wasn’t inherently my enemy here, but demons loved to meddle.
“And why is it that she’s my problem and not the healers?” I pressed.
Rumlock shrugged. “Ain’t injured.”
“You can’t handle a simple disciplinary issue, so you chose to bring in the current head of her house?”
Rumlock shrugged in response before moving toward the far end of the field, where his small office was tucked away. “Just get her off my field, Thrackborne,” he called out over his shoulder.
I watched him for a moment longer, trying to puzzle out why it felt like he knew something more than he was letting on, before finally turning my attention to my tiny mate. She hadn’t moved from where she was sprawled out on her mat, the slight rise and fall of her chest the only indication she was simply pretending to be dead.
Closing the distance between us, my eyes scanned her entire body in search of injuries Rumlock had missed. The scent of charred foam and leather was thick in the air around her, but it lacked the metallic tang of blood that would have indicated she was wounded beneath her training gear.
“Are you injured, Ms. Knight?” I asked, unable to identify any reason for her current position.
“Only my pride,” she groaned, tossing an arm across her eyes.
“So, this is just a ploy to miss our session? You thought you’d simply lie here and all would be forgotten?”
Bechora slowly removed her arm from her face and propped herself up on her elbows, glaring at me. “No, Mr. Scowly. I thought I might lie here and wallow for a bit before I had to come to your office and discover just how much more inadequate I am as a mage.”
“You’re not inadequate, Ms. Knight. You simply haven’t—”
“Right, not the least bit inadequate. That’s why that fucking vampire was able to mark me, and then when I finally got a scrap of power to fight back, even that didn’t matter. He slung me around the mat like a ragdoll, dodging every flame I tried to throw at him,” she ranted, collapsing back to the ground as her hands waved angrily in the air. “He even had the fucking nerve to smirk about it. The smug asshole.”
“Marked you?” I asked, latching onto that part of her story. My dragon pressed forward, causing scales to ripple along my skin, incited at the thought of someone else laying claim to my mate.
Bechora continued to rant, not acknowledging my inquiry. Before I was even aware I’d done it, I’d lifted her into my arms,bridal-style, and clutched her as close to my chest as I dared with her still-flailing arms. The action didn’t seem to faze her as she let out a string of colorful curses toward the unknown vampire. The urge to tip my head toward her and sniff in hopes I’d catch the scent of whichever male she ranted about was only stymied by the need to jerk my head out of the path of her constantly moving hands, lest I be hit.
“I should have never been brought here, let alone forced into a combat class,” Bechora continued as I strode toward the training pit exit with her still in my arms. “Why the hell is combat class even a thing? It’s not like we’re being trained for a war or anything… Wait, are we being trained for war?” She bolted upright in my arms, her hands clinging to my shoulders, her face so close to mine I could kiss her. “You didn’t snatch me from work just to make me into a soldier, did you, Mr. Scowly?”
I couldn’t help it—the look on her face that was clearly meant to intimidate was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen. My head tilted back, and a loud laugh boomed from my throat. I could feel my tiny mate jostling in my arms with the way the laughter shook my chest.
“No, there is no war,” I said finally, causing her to relax her hold on me and sink back into my arms. I wanted to ask her if she felt how natural it was for us to be so close, but I feared drawing her attention to the way she settled into my hold. “The class is a holdover from the early days of the academy, when this realm was wilder. Long before the Fae king took the throne, there was a time when species fought for dominance, and then they had to fight to hold their ground against the realm itself.”
I paused, continuing to carry her into the forest on Academy grounds meant to give the shifters a place to roam. “I suppose for a while, though, the course was made for generating soldiers. There was a long and bloody war to claim and tame the realm. After that, I can’t say for certain why the course was kept in the curriculum, only that it was.”
She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and crossed her arms over her chest, settling into silence. I let myself revel in the fact she still hadn’t seemed to notice that I held her as we moved toward a clearing in the woods that I often sought out when the need to shift and be alone overtook me. I hadn’t intended to bring her here, not at first. After reviewing the few student records that seemed relevant to her case, I’d planned to use my dragon fire in my office as a way to boost the ambient magic and hopefully hasten the filling of her empty well. The second my dragon had her in our arms, the plan changed.
“Where are we?” she asked, noticing that we’d stopped moving.
“The forest on campus,” I replied. “I have been looking into your little void problem, and I think I have a solution.”
A smile split her face. “Really? That would be awesome, maybe we can fix me, and I can go kick Dreadgrave’s ass.” She shifted her weight and froze. “Did… did you carry me here?”
