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“But—” I begin, when glass shatters all around me, making me scream as I throw my hands over my face.
When I wake, I’m alone in the dead of night in Godric’s tent.
But an ominous feeling settles in my chest and won’t go away. Clutching the furs that are disheveled again, I commit every fleeting moment of my dream to memory before it slips through my fingers.
“I can’t take much more of this,” I huff as I lean over onto my knees.
Training with Ulara has been a distraction from my dreams, especially the one with Cain that had felt too real. But damn, the shifter knows how to be a nightmare all in herself.
Ulara stares down her nose at me, seemingly annoyed that I require something as disruptive as breathing.
Forgive me, Ulara, for I have sinned.
“You want to survive the games? Then you’d better stop emulating a dying racoon and learn how to push past this.” She crouches and stabs a finger into my temple. “It’s all right here, Liliana. In your fucking head. Get up.”
She blows her wooden whistle right in my ear, and I resist the urge to slap her.
Three. Fucking. Weeks.
Ulara has been my jailer and tormentor day in and day out with no sign of Godric until the evening. And even then, we eat dinner in silence before I crash out on the bed.
All because Godric is convinced that King Njord is going to run a new trial now that it’s headline news that I’m awake.
But nothing has happened.
No king.
No trial.
No Arwan.
Just Ulara and her stupid whistle.
Grabbing a fistful of sand, I throw it at her face and duck my head as I roll out of reach.
As I suspected, she grabs at me just as I move, intent on sending me into another ground maneuver, but I’m in no mood to be twisted into a knot today. All she gets is air.
And my shoulder pops, making me wince.
“Better,” she says as she brushes the sand from her eyes. “Let’s do that again.”
Holding my shoulder, I’m about to tell her to go fuck herself when a snap cracks across the training grounds.
There isn’t supposed to be anyone else here today, per Godric’s orders.
Except for a certain royal who doesn’t give two shits about orders.
Arwan.
I would be happy to see him. Anything to get out of another torture training session with Ulara is a good thing, but his grin is too wicked.
And he’s holding a whip, which he loops through his fist. What does he think he’s going to do with that thing?
“I’ll take over from here,” he informs her while he keeps his blue eyes on me. “Run along, little kitty.”
Kitty?
I glance at Ulara and take in the strange shape of her pupils. I’d never considered they were more feline in nature.
