Chapter 7
Rowan
idn’t expect you here,” I gasp to Kyrian.
“Mutual.” He gives me a less than amused look and swings off
me smoothly, laying out a would-be assailant with a dagger hilt
strike to the temple.
The brawl is over quicker than it had started, but with a great deal more
blood. At least half a dozen men are sprawled on the floor at Kai Grayson’s
feet. Most are dead or near its door. Anyone who can move is backing away
slowly, as if terrified of attracting the attention of the new apex predator in
the room. Kai shifts about, seeking the next person to cut down, but there
was no one stupid enough to keep fighting.
I push myself to my knees and Kai’s attention swings to me.
I freeze where I am.
If Kyrian was unamused, Kai is simmering with murder. I can feel it
right through his stone-like facade. Goosebumps race across my skin and,
despite a deep burning across my ribs and right breast, I’m certain that I
could sprint a mile just now—if that would get me out of Kai Grayson’s
sight.
Before I can accomplish any of that—or make a mess of myself trying –
Kyrian wraps his hand around my waist and pulls me the rest of the way to
my feet. He could be moving a rag doll around with all the effort it takes
him, and yet each movement is precise. Measured. Without looking at me,
he pushes me slightly behind him, his body a subtle wall between me and
the frozen fury that’s Kai Grayson.
No, not frozen. That’s too stable a word. The way all his muscles coil,
his whole body vibrating with violence, Grayson’s fury is the kind that’s
poised to explode at the slightest provocation. I don’t know what he is
looking for though, what the decision point between putting down his
sword and running it through another beating heart rests on.
“Grayson,” Kyrian—who most certainly does know what’s happening
in Kai’s head—says quietly. “You level, mate?”
Kai tears his gaze to Kyrian, some unspoken communication passing
between the two men.
“She’s fine,” Kyrian says.
Ignoring him, Kai takes a measured step closer to us, then another, until
he’s a mere handspan from Kyrian. And from me. Shadows writhe around
him, lapping at his feet. “Let me see.”
“She is fine,” he says again, not shifting from his spot.
It slowly dawns on me that Kyrian put himself between us not to protect
me from Kai’s wrath, but to protect Kai from seeing me.
“I heard you the first time,” Kai says. “Move and let me see.”
“Right.” Kyrian shifts out of Kai’s way, calling out orders to the room at
the same time. He rolls his r’s, his song-like accent coming out stronger
than before. “Everra one still here is gonna find elsewhere to be. Right
bloody now.”
Everyone who can scurry, does so. Catching sight of Ellie and Trish not
far from the backdoor, I desperately motion for them to get the hell out
before Kai or Kyrian catch sight of them. I see no scenario where the
commandant doesn’t have me strung up to the whipping post for this
excursion, but they can still escape that fate. I beg the gods to ensure they
do.
Ellie and Trish hesitate, but fortunately understand the truth of the
situation and do as I ask, melting away with the rest of the crowd. I breathe
a small sigh of relief, but that dies quickly as Kai Grayson steps right in
front of me and blocks out the world.
“How much blood have you lost?” he demands, voice hard as granite.
“Not as much as I’m going to now that you’ve caught me,” I mutter
before looking down at myself to assess the current damage. The moment I
do, though, I wish I hadn’t. My clothes are soaked with blood, drops of it
still spilling around the broken glass embedded in my side.
Shit. There is glass in my side. Cutting into me more every time I move.
Slicing through skin and flesh and… The pain I’d not been feeling until
now, suddenly lances through me.
Before I can lose my grip on myself—and on staying conscious—I
grasp one of the shards and yank it free.
Pain nips. The world wobbles, an all too familiar dizziness making the
room tilt on its side.
“Woah, lass.” Kyrian’s arm slides around me. He tucks me tight against
his side to prevent me from falling, his woodsy scent filling my lungs as he
moves my hand away from messing with the wound again. “Maybe you
don’t do that yourself, aye?”
Heat touches my face despite the chill nagging the rest of me.
Kyrian resets his arm for a better brace on me, clearly not trusting me
on my own. He is probably not wrong. Kai meanwhile watches with no
reaction whatsoever.
“Ro?” The last person I expect to see here, rushes through the open
common room door and skids to a halt. Collin Chambers, sword drawn and
eyes as large as ale steins, surveys the carnage as if he can do something
about it now. “What are you doing here?”
“Bleeding,” Kai answers before I can.
Collin sheaths his sword and starts toward me, which sends relief mixed
dread through my veins. On one hand, Collin might be my one chance to
escape the azure twins, at least temporarily. On the other hand, I can already
see the rebuke in his eyes. There is a reason we never invited Collin into
Lifeline.
Kyrian’s hold on me doesn’t loosen at Collin’s approach, while Kai
steps into my friend’s path, effectively stopping him a couple paces away.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Collin.
“Squad leader.” Collin proudly motions to a pip on the collar of his
uniform. I didn’t think Mother would go that far. She would never have for
me. “Grayson ordered all the leadership to take a stroll through Doverly.
Just in case conscription gave people tempers at all.”
Of course he did.
Collin puts his hands on his hips, his lips pursing as he takes in every
inch of my bloodied clothes and pale skin. His nose is still swollen from
where Kyrian had broken it three days ago, making him resemble a jester,
especially with his red enchanter uniform. “What did you get yourself into,
Ro?”
“Get the hell out of here, Chambers,” Kai orders. “Not your circus.”
Collin gives Kai an incredulous look. “But I can help. She’s hurt, and
I’m a healer. And a squad leader.”
“Yerra not her squad leader.” Gripping the back of my knees, Kyrian
pulls me up against his chest in a bridal carry, falling in beside Kai as the
pair head toward the main hall.
Everyone with a brain gets the hell out of their way. Everyone without a
brain is already dead.
I grit my teeth together and try not to whimper from pain or die from
humiliation. It’s an equal battle on both fronts. “Where are you taking me?”
I ask.
Kai stops at the innkeeper’s desk and unceremoniously helps himself to
a set of keys beneath an unoccupied pegboard sign. “Room four.”
Not exactly what I meant.
“Chambers,” Kai calls over his shoulder as he leads us toward the stairs.
“You are still here.”
“I am.”
“Then you are now head maid. Get this shithole cleaned up.”
I swear I can hear Collin seething all the way up.
A few minutes later Kai opens the door to a less than savory room four.
It’s decorated in faded puke yellow, with upholstery that looks like it houses
whole families of many legged creatures. Frowning in disgust, Kai kicks a
wooden stool toward Kyrian, who sets me on it with more care than I
expect.
“Why exactly did you give that moron a squad?” Kyrian asks Kai.
“Someone whined to leadership.” Kai gives me a look that’s a mix of
distaste and piercing assessment, as if he knows I might have spurred that
request into motion. “If Commandant Ainsley wants a dead squad, who am
I to argue?”
“Don’t underestimate, Collin,” I say. “He is an asset to any squad.” I
don’t know why I’m arguing with Kai. I can’t seem to make good life
choices around him. Especially when it comes to keeping my mouth shut.
“And yet it didn’t seem that you and your friends invited him to join
your little escapade today.” He gives me that glacial look again, the one that
chills my blood. “Or did I miss something?”
The chill spreads from my blood into the pit of my stomach. He saw
Ellie and Trish. My heart pounds but I manage a blank stare, as if I don’t
know what he is talking about. “I was alone. Maybe things would have
gone differently if I wasn’t.”
Kai’s hand drifts to his necklace, his thumb rubbing over a small
iridescent pendant that same way it had during formation. “We don’t have
all night,” he tells Kyrian. “Deal with the alchemist.”
Kyrian crouches in front of me and pulls out a dagger, balancing the
blade on his knee. For a fleeting moment, his assessment of me turns cold,
as if he is evaluating an enemy combatant he’d rather be questioning than
helping. Then his cocky irreverent mask is back in place.
“Ye look worried I’ll cut off your fingers instead of your shirt,” he says.
“Am I right to be?”
Kyrian smirks and I hate how even that small gesture transforms his
face from captivating to breathtaking. “What good would a fingerless
alchemist do me?” Giving no warning, he pulls the shards of glass from my
side, moving so quickly I don’t even have time to jerk away before it’s
done. Then he spins his blade with a flourish. “Now for the fun part,” he
says, cutting away the remains of my shirt off—together with the chest
binding beneath it.
Whatever dignity I have left pools somewhere around my feet. I don’t
know where to look as my breasts suddenly fall bare for the azure twins to
see. The right side is bloody but the left peaks in the cold, and I can see
Kai’s gaze drifting to it.
“Pig.”
He lifts a brow. “You want me to pretend you don’t have nice breasts?”
“I want you to pretend to be professional.”
“Like you were while absconding without leave to stroll the slums in
the middle of conscription unrest?”
“In my defense, I forgot this was conscription season.”
“Your defense is stupidity? Seriously?” His face flushes with anger.
“Give me your kit, Grayson,” Kyrian orders before Kai can say more on
the subject. Their pecking order is definitely a fluid kind of thing. “And get
over here to hold her still. I don’t need to stick myself while stitching her
up.”
Kai unbuckles the med kit from his thigh and tosses it to Kyrian, then
prowls behind me. His hands are warm on my skin, the calluses from
weapons training scraping along my ribs lightly as he wraps an arm around
my middle. When he pulls me against him, the heat of his body seeps into
my back, just like Kyrian’s warmth caresses the naked skin on my belly.
Kyrian adjusts where he crouches before me, face so close to my breasts
that his breath brushes over the nipples each time he exhales. His eyes
brush my skin without a hint of lewdness, but plenty of close assessment.
The pressure of his undivided attention caresses my skin.
My thighs clench, ignoring my brain’s very firm instructions to not
admire the two warriors sandwiching me now. Cocooning me in their
power. And probably planning what sort of punishment to dole out since
their first choice, killing me out right, isn’t allowed. If I know anything
about these two, it’s that they are dangerous.
“Four stitches should do it.” Kyrian says, shifting my breast around in
his hand for access. I tense and Kai’s grip around me tightens so much it’s
hard to draw breath. At another’s hands, the motion might be cruel, but
Kai’s hold exudes confidence and experience that are at utter odds with a
cadet, no matter how well trained he is. A heartbeat later, when the bite of
the needle comes and I have no place to thrash, I understand why he grips
as hard as he does. Tears prick my eyes but I don’t let them fall. It’s my last
defense of my dignity and I’m holding onto it.
Kyrian works quicker than any healer I’ve met. Like Kai, everything
about him says he’s done this before. A dozen times maybe. Or a hundred.
Or more. Or maybe I’m just in pain and imagining things.
“Done.” Kyrian breaks the final thread and rises, Kai immediately
releasing his grip on me. I cross my arms around my chest, careful of the
new stitches. Good as Kyrian is, I don’t want to experience that again.
“What now?” I ask.
“Now your squad leader escorts you back to the barracks and puts you
under guard,” says Kai.
“Under guard?” I sputter, almost dropping my hands from my chest.
The remains of my shirt are now bloody fabric strips that wouldn’t cover a
cat.
Kai pulls his shirt off over his head, proving that he looks exactly like
how I imagine he would. Each defined muscle flows into the one beside it,
creating an ultimate agile predator now towering over me. With wash-board
abdominals now bare, it takes all my willpower to not follow the thin trail
of coarse blond curls from where they start below Kai’s belly button down
to their natural conclusion. He rumples his shirt into a ball and throws it at
my chest. “Put this on.”
“What about you?”
Kai’s nostrils flared in exasperation. “I’m less likely to attract attention
walking back to the Spire naked from the waist up.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I mumble, my face heating when I realized Kai
heard me. I quickly pull on the garment, which reaches all the way down to
my knees and still carries the warrior’s warmth.
Kai’s gaze lingers on me in another unreadable assessment, then snaps
to Kyrian. “Get her home, put a guard on her door through morning. Then
bring her to the commandant’s office for punishment after evening
formation.”
