My smile is slow, but the gleam in my gaze is undeniably eager. My heart speeds up, and I can already feel adrenaline pumping through my veins just begging for release.
“Alright, Spare. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Chapter 24
“WHOA,” I MARVEL AS I follow the others into a room that could fit the entire Syphons’ camp back in The Scorch at least five times over. “What is that?”
Aeson’s grin is cocky as he approaches the massive glass enclosure sitting dead center in the middle of the sprawling chamber. “That is our fully integrated bio-haptic training simulator.”
“The little one anyway,” Commander Ventis announces from behind us.
“Little?” I question with a raised brow.
“We have a bigger version in the south range that we use for flight combat training,” she tells me with a small dismissive shrug.
“Damn, how big is that one?” I ask with an impressed whistle.
“Big,” she answers simply.
Aeson’s Wing file in around us, some of them heading toward the bleacher benches on one side of the training facility, while others take up positions around the room to watch and guard from. My wonderstruck gaze drifts to rows of sleek, modern conditioning equipment, and when I look up, I notice a few observation boxes above.
My thoughts flash to the ragged, piecemeal facility we have back home and all the hours I’ve spent in it, training, bleeding, pushing myself. I’ve probably spent more time there than I have anywhere else, and I have the sudden urge to stamp my sweat and hard work all over this place and claim it for my own.
Dragons are covetous creatures. We collect, hoard, and squirrel away anything and everything that we find valuable. I don’t typically have to combat the innate drive to keep and claim since I haven’t revealed, but when the need to take and own hits, it takes no prisoners, and this place and everything in it calls to me. A few months training in a facility like this and I’d be back to the condition I was in before the Tainted took me.
“You’re drooling,” Aeson whispers in my ear, his sudden closeness jolting me out of my thoughts.
He tugs lightly at the end of the ponytail I just haphazardly threw up, tilting my head back until I’m looking up at him.
“If this place is doing it for you, Claws, wait until you see my private gym.”
His smile is impish and he releases my ponytail and taps his finger under my chin to close my mouth. I didn’t even realize it had dropped open.
I glower over at him, annoyed that I let myself be dazzled so easily. “Careful, Spare, or I’ll think you like me,” I taunt, needing space between us but not wanting to step back and make him think I’m retreating.
“Careful, Claws, or I just might.”
The asshole chuckles as he walks away to join Sondar and Farrow, and I discreetly wipe at my mouth, just to be sure nothing is there.
He’s good. I’ll give him that. I could almost believe he means it, if I didn’t know what was at stake.
The weight of someone’s gaze is heavy on my shoulders, and I look around to find Commander Ventis watching me intently.
“So how does this work?” I ask her, ignoring the prickle of warning at the back of my neck and instead studying the simulator in front of me.
“The system will take a few scans, and then it will run you through a series of maneuvers and drills to gauge things like your range of motion, the force of your hits and kicks, your bite PSI, things like that…”
“Bite PSI?” I question, taken aback. “Is that…a thing?”
One dark eyebrow twitches at my question, and I can feel the judgment radiating off the micro-movement. “We like to train for all actualities, which, for dragons, includes biting. However, we can list that as a disqualifier for your match if it makes you…uncomfortable.”
I watch the female warily as she confidently approaches the solid wall of the simulator. A seam appears, and then a doorway suddenly materializes, granting entry.
I don’t know why Ventis volunteered to help when Aeson told the others where we were going and what we were doing, but I don’t get the impression she’s my biggest fan. She’s not entirely prickly, but something about me is clearly bothering her, and I wonder if she’ll have the guts to outright tell me what it is or if she’ll continue to stew.
“Sure, no biting,” I agree distractedly as I follow her into the transparent enclosure.
Aeson and Sondar are already on the other side of the big cube, and a ribbon of curiosity about the scion and biting starts to wrap itself around my thoughts as I watch him. Quickly, I slam the door and then scurry away from that unwelcome stream of consciousness.
