Page 25 of A Cruel Kindness

Before I could think twice, I twisted my hands and dug my nails into his skin, which were thankfully still sharp and well-manicured. Soren winced, giving me the leverage I needed to hook my leg around his and roll us so that I gained the upper hand.

I also happened to gain a seat perched right on top of him. I lifted as quickly as possible, replicating the way he pinned me to the ground, with his wrists in my hands.

As Soren’s laugh dripped from his mouth, clapping broke out in the room. I stood quickly, launching off Soren like he was hotter than a lit stove.

Clearly, he was much more used to having a Match than I was. I guess his years of feeling a brotherly protectiveness and instant kinship with Carson made him able to weather the side effects better. Meanwhile I was a blushing mess that still felt every place his hands had touched me.

It took great strength to meet the eyes of everyone staring at me, looking at me like I had sprouted a second head. I knew it wasn’t something they would have guessed from the princess who had never been anything other than gracefully poised and perfectly well-spoken.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Williams said, his lower lip curled in an impressed expression. I liked him much better than Coporal Dulik. “We still have to run you through the rest of the drills, but I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

His eyes lingered for a moment, like he was viewing me in a new light. Right then, Soren popped up off the ground and took a step in front of me. His face had returned to that impassive expression, though there was a hint of darkness this time.

Without speaking, Soren jerked his chin towards the very far wall. I turned to find a wall full of computers, lined with a table with keyboards and tablets. “Survival evaluation, I presume?”

Soren simply grumbled and took off towards the computers. My feet started moving before I could tell them too, as if my body was tied to Soren’s with an invisible string.

Whether Soren felt it too, I wouldn’t dare to ask. All I knew was that through the next several hours of evaluations, from a mind-numbing series of tests to figure out whether I would be able to survive in the wilderness on my own and another round of weapons training, Soren stood no more than four feet away from me at any given time.

When I finished with knife throwing, something I was told mid-session was essential to protect against the wildlife of Muliterra, that were known to jump out at you in a mass of fangs and claws, Soren pulled me aside, right into the small, secluded hallway leading to another room.

The second my back hit the cool, metal wall, my hands went clammy. Whether from the proximity to Soren, or the fact that being alone with a man would be considered breaking protocol back home, I didn’t care to figure out.

Soren stepped close, as if he had the right to crowd me like this. He dragged both of his hands down his face, in an expression that seemed far too emotional for his usual style. “Who trained you?”

“General Anderson,” I said, watching as the words landed. He breathed out, one heavy breath that sounded oddly like relief. General Anderson was who trained Soren. The day after Soren got drafted, I walked right up to him and asked him to prepare me in case that ever happened to me.

For years everyone who was privy to my training—though it was only a handful of people—wrote my request off as a childish fear, nothing more than a sixteen year old girl’s passing anxieties.

Now it felt a hell of a lot like a premonition.

“Okay,” Soren said, breathing out again. His hands descended to his hips and he nodded while his eyes went slightly unfocused. “Good. Good.”

“Relieved I’m not going to drag you down?” I asked, a rare hint of sarcasm sliding into my voice.

Soren’s eyes shot back up to mine, the blue in them turning icy. “Not the farthest jump to make, Bell.”

I breathed in deeply, if not to avoid the way his use of my nickname hit me square in the chest. “We don’t know each other.” We barely did before. He was the older, more powerful son of the Emperor. At the time, I was nothing more than another Royal.

“I know enough,” Soren gritted out through clenched teeth. “Even more now.”

“That’s all you’ll get,” I snapped, my irritation breaking my commitment to speak calmly. “You have no right to leverage this Bond against me.”

I hadn’t intended to say that second part out loud, and for good reason. Soren’s nostrils flared in warning, and he took another step closer, pining me firmly to the wall. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”

Tell him. Trust him. The Bond’s voice was insistent, pressuring. I almost listened to it before I remembered that the Bond wasn’t strong enough to make me throw away my belief that the only person you could truly trust was yourself.

“We both have jobs here,” I said, evading his question and tilting my chin up in defiance. “Let’s just do them.”

Soren took his time evaluating me—standing in silence with his body pressed close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him and scanning my face, neck, and chest with his eyes. “I will find out your secrets all the same.”

“What?” I asked, smiling. My voice was soft, more of a prodding whisper. “You want to know my first crush? Find my diary and read it?”

Soren tsked, tilting his head to the side as he did it. “It was your mother’s guard with the floppy hair, and anyway, that doesn’t tell me all that much about you. I’m thinking a little deeper.”

“No, thank you.” My words were nearly trapped in my throat, it squeezed so hard in response to Soren’s words, to the low, caressing way he spoke them. A shiver ran down my spine, before shooting back up and landing in my hands, making them spark with the need to move.

Soren wasn’t deterred by my disagreement. “Come on. I know you well enough. Be nice and let me in.”