My team remained around me, but I still felt like a ghost.
I wondered ifhe’dbe here, then told myself I shouldn’t care. That what happened between us, what we’dlethappen, had been a lapse. A flashfire sparked by the moment.
But my traitorous body refused to listen. My skin could already sense his proximity, my breaths shortening as anticipation shot through me.
I wasn’t ready to see him. Not with the memory of his lips still warming mine. My pulse still pounded at the thought of how gently he’d held me.
Scanning the room, I searched for him anyway.
“If I could have your attention.” Malcolm Reid strode out of a door along the right wall and walked over to stand in front of the group, his dark leathers scarred from use. His companion, a sinewy black ferret, draped lazily across his shoulders, its nose twitching.
“Congratulations. You survived,” Malcolm said, his voice rough. “This means you worked with each other. You cooperated rather than going out on your own. That is your first lesson. Those who made it this far learned when to lead, and when to follow.”
His gaze swept across the room and caught mine.
“Your training will be divided into three parts,” Malcolm said. “Combat in the morning. Strategy for two hours after lunch. Magical development after that.” He paused. “The third requires your bonded companion.”
He cast me another long look.
I met it head-on.
Someone snickered, and that same, isolated feeling swamped me all over again.
Maddox stood to my left, his arms crossed on this chest. “So you’re saying Jaxon died because he didn’t cooperate? My brotherhelpedeveryone.”
Malcolm’s head tilted. “Did he, or did he not leave his team for honey when he was supposed to be standing guard?”
Maddox flinched. “We were starving. It was ourleader’sresponsibility to keep us together.”
“Sometimes,” Malcolm said, “leaders don’tchooseleadership. They rise because no one else will.”
My stomach twisted.
Bryson caught my eye and nodded.
“Who are we training to fight?” a woman asked.
“Yes, good question, Pyra. Whoarewe training to fight? Anyone want to answer her question?”
“Other courts?” I asked.
“Possibly. But there’s a worse threat.”
How could that be possible? My father was gathering an army for a war.
“The Skathe,” Kerralyn piped up, hugging her journal to her chest.
Who?
“They feed on magic and leave only empty husks behind,” she said, glancing my way. “They’re multiplying.”
“Yes, the Skathe,” he said. “What else do we know about them?”
We all looked toward Kerralyn.
Color flooded her cheeks. “I don’t know much. But from my readings in the library where I essentially grew up… My mother worked there. You may not know that. But I spent many summers there between?—”
Maddox sighed, rolling his eyes.
