Chapter 32
Rowan
here are you taking us?” I ask Mercer as he shuts the door to the
prison wagon we’ve been piled into. There are eighteen of us here
now. I’m trying to stay calm, as calm as Kai appears to be, but
everything inside me screams that being moved to another location is a bad
sign.
“Let’s not spoil the surprise.” Mercer clicks the door closed behind him.
The lights streaming in through the window becomes striped, like the bars.
Sitting beside me, Ellie squeezes my hand.
“They are taking us to an interrogation chamber,” one of the cadets,
Yokos, says from the opposite bench. He is biting his nails down to blood.
“Somewhere better equipped to get the codewords. I saw Hak hand off all
our tags to someone from town as collateral. Need a tag and codeword,
remember? Now they’ll be getting our codewords out of us.”
“Or turning us into dead bodies,” someone mutters.
“Enough.” Kai cuts off the discussion with a single word. He sits
comfortably in the corner, as if riding in an ordered carriage instead of a
prison wagon. “If they wished to kill us, they’d not bother moving us.”
“Is it just me, or does your lover seem bored with all this petty
speculation about our fate?” Ellie whispers.
“Not my lover.”
“Arch nemesis with killer abs?” she waggles her brows. “The amount of
effort you two put into not looking at each other is making me exhausted.
Seriously, what’s happening with you two?”
“Same game that happened with Logan and Kyrian.” I lean my head
back against the wagon, trying to ignore the way Kai’s proximity makes my
chest clench even now. “They have this way of sparking intensity, chipping
away at my defenses until I’m completely vulnerable. And then they leave.
Literally in the case of the other two. Kai shoved me off verbally this time,
but that’s just because we are actually chained up, so there is a limit to the
distance he can create. Anyway, I think we’ve bigger problems than my
fucked up relationship record.”
The wagon halts before a contingent of Eryndor military guards and the
mercs honestly tell them that we are in the prison wagon. Any other time,
our trip would end here, but the soldiers are under the commandant’s orders
to stay out of this for two weeks. A few minutes later the wagon is again
jostling along the uneven road, each bump and rut mirrored in the wooden
planks beneath us.
The motion, combined with me having now missed several days of my
tonic, is making me nauseated and I stare at a spot on the wall to try and
keep my rations in my belly. Yokos shifts restlessly on the bench opposite
me, his eyes darting between the barred windows. Probably trying to guess
where we might be going. The other cadets mutter amongst themselves,
their voices pitched low and tight, even Collin’s.
And then there is Kai. Long legs stretched out before him, arms folded
casually across his chest. With his eyes closed and breathing even, he looks
like he might be napping. Hells, maybe he is napping. The man somehow
looks equally lethal asleep as awake.
“Is that a facade?” Ellie asks, motioning her head toward Kai. “I mean it
has to be, right? No one can be that calm.”
“Honestly, I have no idea.” I try to take shallow even breaths. “Maybe
he’s trying to keep everyone’s tension from spiraling into desperate
violence. Or maybe he is just savoring basking in our collective misery. It’s
fifty-fifty either way.”
Ellie snorts.
“Both,” Kai says without opening his eyes and both of us stop
discussing him immediately.
We stop around midday and are allowed out to relieve ourselves and eat
rations. There are over a dozen guards around us, with more riding ahead
and behind, which seems overkill but successfully tamps down any
thoughts we have of rebellion. I shiver as the cold nips mercilessly at my
skin, but the cost of fresh air against the warmth of many bodies in a single
wagon is worth it. Especially now that my nausea has brought dizziness
along for company. Sometimes, I really hate my body. Most of the time,
actually.
Even when a certain pair of men were playing it like a tuned violin? I
blush through the memory only to find Kai Grayson looking right at me as
the worst wave of heat hits my cheeks.
He cocks a brow.
Gathering up my dignity, I shuffle over to him, the manacles around my
ankles rubbing against chafed skin.
He doesn’t acknowledge me when I stop beside him, just stands there
with his head tilted into the wind as if he is listening to its song. But just as
I’m about to spin away, he shifts his gaze to me and all my rational thoughts
take cover. I know it’s toxic, what Kai’s mere proximity does to my body,
and yet I seem addicted to it.
“What is it?” Kai asks. From his tone, you’d think I was interrupting an
important conversation instead of starting one.
“Have you given more thought to what I’ve asked?” I say. “About
Ellie.”
He spreads his hands and frowns, as if I’m slow of mind. It’s wrong that
his face stays beautiful even when he is being an asshole. “Isn’t the ideal
scenario playing out right now? Your friend is literally getting a ride out of
the commandant’s clutches without having to lift a finger for the trouble.
The farther our gracious hosts decide to take us, the better for her. Unless
her desires to desert have changed?”
Alright. Strangely, he does have a point.
My brows narrow. “Are you somehow behind this relocation?”
“I’d like to take the credit, but no. A fortunate coincidence.” He crosses
his arms, looking down at me from his greater height. “I am, however,
trying to ensure everyone keeps their asses in their seats and does nothing to
interfere with our progress out of town.”
By acting like there is nothing to worry about. Right. But there is more
to it. Kai isn’t telling me everything. But why would he? He’s never done so
before.
“So, us being hauled about in a prison wagon is nothing to worry
about?” I clarify. “Because just saying it aloud sounds stupid.”
“That is not what I said.”
“You said—”
“They are mercenaries,” he says briskly, like he is past done with this
conversation. “They are acting for their benefit, not ours. But this game
only lasts two weeks. Stalling for time works in our favor and gaining
distance works in Ellie’s. The rest is a calculated risk.”
I huff, the air coming out of my nose curling up in tendrils of steam in
the cold. Before I can say anything more though, there is a sound of a
branch snapping in the woods. I turn my head too quickly toward the noise
and the earth twists beneath me, as a fresh round of vertigo takes over.
Shit.
I widen my stance, riding out the few moments of spinning dizziness
until everything rights itself.
“Rowan.” In two strides, Kai closes the distance between us, his
steading hands gripping my shoulders. His glacial eyes fix on me, the
aloofness from moments ago replaced by a core-melting intensity. “What’s
wrong?”
I inhale sharply, struggling to weather the charge that his touch just sent
though my body. But Kai is as disorienting as the vertigo—and less
predictable. One touch, one heartbeat of having his undiluted attention
focused on me, and I can’t think straight. I wish he’d just pick a persona
and stay there.
“Nothing. All’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.” He moves closer, the tips of his fingers brushing my
cheekbone. “Your pupils are-”
“I said, I’m fine.” It takes every ounce of self-control not to sway
toward the magnetic pull he seems to have on me. I clench my fists, digging
my fingernails into my palms to keep myself grounded, and step away until
I am back at the wagon. I am not above begging for Kai’s help in getting
Ellie to safety, but I know better than to allow myself any closer to him than
I must.
The following morning, I wake to the sound of screaming.
My head pounds viciously, the migraine that started to keep my dizzy
spells company yesterday having intensified to near-blinding levels
overnight.
“What’s happening?” I ask, trying not to move around more than I
absolutely must on the cold ground.
Ellie’s face swims into focus beside me. Her eyes are wide and skin pale
as snow. “It’s Yokos,” she whispers. “He tried to run last night.”
I bite my lip, trying to focus on anything other than the spike in my
skull, and force myself to sit up as Yokos cries out again. I see him then.
Right in the middle of our makeshift camp.
He’s naked, strapped to a tree by his wrists, his ankles tied with rope so
taut it makes him wobble precariously on his feet as one of the mercenaries
lashes him across the back with a broad, bristling whip. The snap of the
leather cuts the air, followed by Yokos’s pained howls.
Mercer stands nearby with his arms crossed, his face drawn into a
blank, businesslike mask as the whipping continues. This isn’t amusement
for him. It’s just protocol. And it doesn’t stop until Yokos has no more
strength left to scream.
Tossing down the whip, the guard draws a dagger from his sheath and
plunges it into Yokos’s belly. It’s a death wound… but not a quick one.
“Breakfast has been forfeited,” Mercer announces to the group as Yokos
writhes weakly, begging for the quick death he is denied. “Everyone back
into the wagon.”
“Gods.” Bile rises in my throat as I fully acknowledge that the
mercenaries will, in fact, just leave him there.
The other cadets’ faces are a mirror of horror ripping through me. Even
Kai’s usual mask of indifference has slipped, revealing a tightness around
his eyes that speaks volumes.
“We have to do something,” I say to him, though even as the words
leave my mouth, I know how futile they are.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Kai replies, his voice low. Hard. “Except
learn from his mistake.”
I am quiet as we’re herded into the wagon, Yukos’s whimpers echoing
the ones I long to make. My head hurts. Badly. Kai is right—I need to learn
from Yokos’s mistake. He’d bolted on a whim and fear. We can’t do that.
But at some point, the time to fight will come and then, then I must be
ready for it. I spend the next hour carefully working on weakening my
shackles’ metal composition, stopping only when the shockwaves of pain
jolting through my skull nearly send me unconscious.
And when that happens, when I know I’ve reached my limit and it’s not
good enough, I finally acknowledge what I have to do.
When we stop next, I shuffle over to the man I’d promised myself I’d
never approach again.
“Collin,” I say quietly, my fingers touching his forearm. “I need your
help.”
Collin turns, his brown eyes assessing me with a knowing, familiar
look. “I know,” he answers in the same quiet tones. “I was just waiting for
you to ask.”
Relief and dread fill me in equal measure, but I’m out of options. Collin
has known me since childhood, has been helping keep me together since
both our magic first emerged. The daily tonic I’ve been missing was as
much his creation as the full fledged healer’s. If I have any hope of staying
functional, it lies in his magic. And I know he knows it.
“You’ll help me then?” I whisper. My heart pounds. “I know you’ve
been trying to keep your magic hidden and—”
“Shhhh.” Collin puts a finger to my lips, then takes my head gently
between his palms. “Of course I will help you. I will always help you, Ro. I
love you.”
