After we finished, I followed my team out of the dining hall, still warm from their laughter. Halfway down the corridor, the air became charged, like the moment before lightning struck.
Trew stepped out of an alcove, falling into pace beside me without a word. Our shoulders almost brushed, the heat of him a dangerous temptation.
“Glad you ate well, Minx,” he said, low enough that only I could hear. “You’ll need your strength for tonight.” His mouth curvedenough to make my cheeks burn, like they had when Lexie teased me this morning.
Before I could demand he tell me what he meant, he strode away, leaving me standing in the hall with my pulse tripping over itself and Lexie’s smug voice echoing in my head.
Oh, he’ll notice.
42
ISI
Just as expected, Trew had arranged for me to work with him during magical training.
“Means nothing to you, right?” Lexie said with a grin when we’d returned to the training hall after strategy class and Trew called out for me to join him.
“I’ll point out that he arranged for this, not me,” I said in a snooty tone, following it up with a grin. I’d barely been able to eat. Between feeling vindicated by what happened with Maddox and hoping that I hadn’t misjudged the situation with Trew, I could barely force food down.
“Go get him,” she said under her breath, nudging my arm with her knuckles.
I told myself this was training. Nothing more. Yet every step I took closer to him made my pulse betray me, pounding with a hope I’d spent too much time convincing myself was foolish.
He waited near the double doors, one shoulder propped against the stone like he owned the place. Which, technically, he did.
When I reached him, he straightened and spoke curtly. “We’reworking somewhere else today.” No explanation, no smile. Just a statement that made it clear that arguing would be pointless.
I glanced back at Lexie. She lounged against the far wall, her grin much too wicked, her eyebrows doing a little dance that left no doubt what she was thinking. I narrowed my eyes at her, which only made her flap her hands in our direction.
Trew opened a side door and gestured me through.
I followed him down a hall, and he stopped at a door on the right, swinging it open and gesturing for me to enter ahead of him.
The smaller training room felt intimate in a way that prickled my skin. This room wasn’t made for armies or eyes on every move. It was made for close quarters, where glances lingered too long. I could already feel the heat of his nearness, even before the door clicked shut.
Stone walls still framed the space, but the ceiling dipped lower, crossed by heavy timber beams that caught the torchlight in warm streaks. The air hung with the scent of oil from the weapon racks, plus the faint mineral essence of freshly scrubbed stone.
Only a few weapons had been mounted here, shorter blades, throwing knives, a polished staff or two, each gleaming like it had been chosen deliberately, not just stacked in with the rest. A small cabinet had been mounted on the wall to the left of the rack, and a narrow mat stretched across most of the floor, its edges stitched with golden thread.
More light came from a pair of tall, arched windows set high in the wall, late-afternoon sunlight spilling through in slanted bars that warmed the mats and left the corners in shadow.
This wasn’t a cavernous, echoing space where every movement felt observed. This was contained. Private. A room built for people to train in without the distraction of an audience.
Trew closed the door behind us, the sound soft but final, and my pulse picked up despite my best efforts.
He lingered by the door a breath longer, his body close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him in slow waves. Then heeased forward, the edge of a smirk pulling at his mouth, equal parts satisfied and infuriating. His gaze swept over me, and the corner of his mouth didn’t so much twitch as tighten. Like whatever he saw was making him think a little too much.
“Do you feel all right?” he finally asked. “Any lingering effects from the poison?”
I tried not to let the way he was watching me heat up my skin. “I’m fine.”
He stepped into my space before I could draw in a full breath. “Fine?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded far steadier than the sudden thud of my pulse.
The faintest smile ghosted across his mouth, wolfish and knowing, and then he urged me back until my shoulders met the solid stone wall. It was warm where the sun had touched it, but I still shivered.
“You look like a woman who found a touch of vengeance.” His palm flattened against the wall beside my head, boxing me in without crowding, though the heat rolling off him felt like a crowd all its own. “You look well.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered. “And delicious.”
