The pain of every fracture is dimmed by the scorching agony of her healing gift as it knits me back together. I glare at the female warily when she slips a sheet of metal out of her leathers and throws it out of the ring. It isn’t large, little more than the size of my fist. She knew where I would strike her.
“Your teacher was Drakai, wasn’t he?” she asks, brows high on her forehead.
We both know it isn’t really a question. The female baited me into revealing myself in a manner worthy of applause.
“You should have told me when we were training yesterday,” she says.
“It didn’t seem relevant,” I say, my eyes on the floor of the ring.
“Krakenhisht,” she says. “You are more skilled than you led me to believe. Why?”
“It felt like a safe choice. Ever since the warship landed, all I am to every soldier I pass by is La’tarian. The enemy.” A small amount of truth to better hide the lies.
“But you aren’tjustLa’tarian. You belong to the general,” she says quizzically.
“I do notbelongto the general,” I say through clenched teeth, bristling at her assumption that because she’d seen me in his bed, I am the male’s property.
Her eyebrows hit her hairline, but she seems to accept my positionand every explanation I’ve given her when the tension leaks out of her shoulders. She swipes her hand along the side of her head, running her fingers through her hair, and looses a breath. Looking down at my hand, I flex it, then ball it into a fist to test its function.
“Why did the general call for Caden yesterday if you are a healer?” I ask.
“My gift only works on bone,” she explains, her eyes lingering on the fist at my side.
I catch sight of Awri running toward us, dressed in a full set of leathers, some of the melancholy already gone from her face. I step aside when she enters and takes determined strides toward Riah. The lieutenant doesn’t attempt to correct her form. She just stands in the center of the ring stoically, blocking every blow Awri throws as she releases whatever she has bottled up inside.
Once Awri is spent and her brow no longer pinched down in a forlorn frown, I take her place. It doesn’t take Riah long to get a truer estimation of my skill. She flows through a series of strikes and kicks I learned as a child. Each one I deflect is followed by another, slightly more difficult to evade, until I feel as if I am home, repeating my drills with Bront.
It’s a relief when Sera arrives with a basket of fresh fruits and a stack of thick sandwiches for lunch. Though it’s a feat to convince Riah to sit on the floor of the ring and join us for the meal. My tongue works around a mouthful of berries when an attractive male with long brown curls and blue eyes passes nearby. Awri and I share a smile when his lips curve up on one side and he winks at Riah.
“Your mate?” Awri inquires boldly.
Riah shakes her head, smiling at him as he disappears around the side of the stables. “Just a male I exchange pleasure with.”
“In what way?” I ask, blood pooling in my cheeks when they both look at me curiously.
“The usual way I suppose,” she laughs, before taking a bite of her sandwich.
She doesn’t seem the least bit deterred by my question, so I risk another.
“You said youexchangepleasure. What is it you do for him?” It isn’t until the words fully exit my mouth, that I feel how entirely awkward they are.
“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind about Xeyvian?” Awri asks, clearly surprised.
I’m not sure I want to go into detail explaining just how stupendously I’d fallen for Siserie’s deception or how she was the sole reason I denied him.
So, all I say is, “I’m not sure.”
“About which part?” Awri asks.
“All of it,” I say.
I mean every word when it passes my lips and in the same moment realize they aren’t true. Ihavereconsidered him and even though I tell myself it is all for duty, for my purpose, there is no denying my desire. Desire for myselfandfulfillment of his own. And why shouldn’t there be? It changes nothing.
“That’s a lie,” I admit, and Awri side-eyes me as she pulls a slice of cheese from her sandwich and pops it in her mouth. “I have reconsidered him.”
The words are a torrent, released from the dam of my mind as I explain everything. The moment I’d gone to accept him, finding Siserie, when he’d taken me to his chambers in the middle of the night, and when he’d learned of my run-in with the female the next morning.
“He told her he would bind her and ship her to La’tari?” Awri asks, gaping at me.
