Chapter 32 Ashlyn
If I hadn’t been tired before the greenhouse, I was absolutely exhausted now. I wasn’t even hungry enough to eat, let alone with my dad, and I was tempted to cancel on him and just crash out early.
But then I entered the Grand Hall, and my heart plummeted through my stomach. Students were lined against one part of the wall, sitting as if on invisible chairs, some of them in tears from the pain in their legs. One student on the opposite wall was hunched over a trash bin, vomiting his brains out. What the hell was going on? What had these students done to deserve such treatment?
A group of students were precisely lined on their way into the Dining Hall, their hands raising in salute to the soldier guarding the entrance. I was suddenly glad I wouldn’t be eating in there tonight because I’d sooner kick that guy in the balls than salute him with anything but my middle finger.
Usually, the Grand Hall was a place of comradery and relaxation. Groups of friends would gather to talk, exchanging ideas, teasing and joking, and sometimes flirting. That was normal. Now, everyone was synchronized and dull. Their footsteps marched, happy conversations replaced by silence or canned responses to orders. Everyone looked scared, broken. One wrong step could get anyone into serious trouble, and all the rules were nearly impossible to follow.
My heart broke to see what had become of the school I’d come to love. And that made up my mind. Talking to my dad couldn’t wait, even if it came to nothing.
I spun on my heel toward the professors’ offices and began striding down the hall.
“Hey, you!” A bold male voice called, and I cringed with irritation as I came to a stop and turned around. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I fought the urge to tell him where he could shove his barked orders and on my best schoolgirl smile. “I’m Lieutenant General Summers’ daughter. He requested I dine with him tonight in his office. Would you like to escort me?” I held out a bent elbow like a fucking lady.
He looked down his long nose at me with narrowed eyes. “As a matter of fact, I would.” Rather than slide his arm through mine like a gentleman, he roughly gripped my upper arm and yanked me along with him down the hall.
Fire was scorching a path of destruction inside me, and I wanted so badly to unleash it on him until he was nothing but cinders. How dare he touch me like this! How dare he touch any female student like this—or male, for that matter. But I reined in my fury, knowing I could use this treatment to my advantage, or at the very least, a test.
We stopped in front of the door to Dad’s office, and the soldier slammed his fist against it three times. A few seconds later, the door opened.
“Geeze, Ashlyn, do you have to knock so—” My dad broke off when he saw my arm clenched so aggressively in the soldier’s hand. “What is the meaning of this?” he barked at the soldier in his authoritative dad tone, and I had never been so satisfied to hear, especially when it wasn’t aimed at me.
The soldier stiffened, visibly losing his confidence. “This girl claims she’s your daughter and has permission to dine with you.”
Ignaeus grilled him with a heated glare. “Then why are you holding her like she’s some kind of delinquent?”
I looked up at the soldier’s face with a smug smile, and he looked like he was about to piss himself.
“Well, I—uh—I just felt it was my duty to make sure she wasn’t lying, Sir,” he stammered, all the bark gone from his voice so that he now sounded like a frightened puppy.
Ignaeus eyes lit with a deadly orange glow, his outrage palpable in the suddenly humid air around him. “And your solution to that is to manhandle her like a common criminal? She’s a seventeen-year-old girl, and this is a school, not a prison.”
“It’s just—er—I mean, she—uh.”
It was all I could do not to fall to the floor laughing as he babbled like a brain-dead dickhead.
“Yes, she is my daughter,” Ignaeus hissed, swatting the soldier’s hand off my arm with a loud smack . “And even if she wasn’t, you have no right to treat any student with such disrespect. They are our future, and you would do well to remember that.”
The soldier stepped back, gave a frightened nod and a salute before scurrying back toward the Grand Hall.
I rubbed the skin of my arm where red finger marks were starting to appear. “Thanks.”
“Come on in, honey,” he urged, his tone now far gentler than only seconds ago. He ushered me inside and closed the door, leading me to his desk where two plates heaped with steaming food waited. “I’m so sorry about that, Ash. I will be having a talk with the soldiers on campus and make certain nothing like that ever happens again.”
I sat across from him and folded my arms. “To just me or all the other students?”
He looked down sadly at his food and sighed, but didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on, Dad. Have you seen what’s going on in the Grand Hall right now?” So much for subtlety, but I just couldn’t keep it in anymore. My temper had limits, and that asshole guard had bulldozed right through them.
“I know,” he said finally, not meeting my eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We’re supposed to be nurturing students, fostering their abilities and gently encouraging them to join the military. Instead, we’ve become a concentration camp, and it sickens me that I contributed to this.”
My eyes widened in surprise as I stared at him. After our last encounter, this was the last thing I expected him to say, especially without me having to dig it out of him. Looking at him now, he looked so much older. The wrinkles in his forehead and the corners of his eyes were deeper and etched with shadows.
“I trusted the general would have the best interest of our students at heart,” he went on. “But beating them into submission couldn’t be farther from that.”
I leaned forward, gathering my courage. “Well, why not stand up to him? Maybe suggest he go a little easier on everyone?”
He shook his head. “He’s my superior. He would merely brush off any such suggestions. And standing up to him? That would be suicide.”
“You don’t think...?” I bit my lip, reconsidering finishing the thought.
“Think what, Ashlyn? Spit it out,” he urged.
I looked down at my hands. “You don’t think General Dracul is using his abilities, you know, to influence your decisions, do you?”
Ignaeus studied me for a moment, his eyebrows drawn, and then realization lightened his face. “You mean those dragon hormones? No, I don’t think so. I’m too bullheaded for that, really. But I signed up for all this a long time ago. I’m contractually obligated to follow him, nothing more. Why do you ask?”
I couldn’t decide if that response made things better or worse. “Well, okay, if not you, do you think other teachers might be under his influence? Look at the way Celeste did a complete one-eighty on Caesar. They’d been loyal friends for years, and just when the general comes along, she up and turns her back on him? Seems super suss to me.”
He considered that for a moment, rubbing his chin between his index finger and thumb. “I suppose it’s possible. I did think her shift in loyalty was a bit strange. Though I wouldn’t say she seems any happier about the changes at this school than any other teacher.”
I didn’t have any classes with Celeste, especially now that music class had been canceled, so hearing that she wasn’t quite on board with Dracul’s regime gave me the tiniest bit of hope.
“Well, what are we going to do about that?” I asked.
He looked up at me through thick, furrowed brows. “What do you mean?”
“It sounds like none of the faculty likes what’s going on here. Surely, if you all took a stand against Dracul’s leadership, he’d have to change things.”
He shook his head, rubbing his forehead. “No. He’d just fire everyone and replace them with people he could easily manipulate, and those people wouldn’t care about the well-being of the students.”
I frowned, my gut churning at whether or not to mention the topic I’d come here for. This had already gone better than I’d hoped, and hearing that his obedience to Dracul was just about him doing the job renewed my faith in him. But…I still didn’t know if I could fully trust him. I didn’t know if even voicing the idea would put the final nail in the Dome’s coffin.
“Let’s just eat,” he suggested, picking up his fork. “We wouldn’t want the food to get cold.”
I frowned down at my plate as he began eating. The steak looked perfectly juicy, and the steam from the mashed potatoes smothered in gravy smelled delicious, but none of it did anything to spur my appetite. How could I eat when the world was going to shit around me? When my friends were being pushed to their breaking points?
Before I knew it, the words just lurched out of my mouth. “What if there was a power above the military?”
He looked at me curiously as he chewed his bite of steak. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said, pushing my food around with the tip of my fork. “Like a council. Made up of representatives from each shifter species—representatives that had no military interest.”
Ignaeus swallowed and sucked at his front teeth as he considered, seeming intrigued. “It’s certainly an interesting idea. If there were something like that, Dracul would’ve never been able to seize control of the school the way he did.”
“Exactly,” I said with a burst of excitement. “The military shouldn’t be the highest point of power in the shifter world. We need an actual governing body.”
“I agree.” He picked his front teeth with his fingernail when sucking didn’t do the job. “But unfortunately, nothing like that exists.”
I hesitated a moment before voicing my next words. “What if it could?”
He considered it some more, clearly not realizing yet that I wasn’t speaking hypothetically. “I think it would be much needed.”
“So, you would support such an endeavor?” I hedged.
“Absolutely.” He finally dug the offended fibers from between his teeth and wiped his fingers on his napkin.
It was now or never. I had to be brave and just bite the bullet.
I folded my arms over the top of his desk and leaned forward, lowering my voice even though I didn’t think we were being overheard. “What if I told you such a council was already in formation?”
He paused right in the middle of cutting off a new bite of sirloin. When his gaze flashed to me, it was chilled with caution. “Ashlyn?”
My cheeks heated, my courage dying in my throat.
He narrowed his eyes at me, setting down his fork and knife, and my pulse began to race. “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
I swallowed to loosen my throat. “That depends. Can I trust you?”
His brows creased upward like I’d just hurt him. “Of course, you can. I’m your father first, and everything else second.”
The sincerity in his eyes touched my heart, calming its rapid beat, and I knew without a doubt that, even if he rejected the idea, he would absolutely keep it in confidence with me.
I blew out a breath. “Prominent figures from several shifter species have already come forward to volunteer as representatives,” I whispered. “And we’re waiting on responses from a few others. It has been suggested that you be the phoenix rep.”
Surprise and genuine humility smoothed his features as that all sank in. Could this really be happening? Did I really get through to him?
Then he cocked his head, his brows furrowing again. “Wait, ‘we?’”
My heart skittered in my chest. “Um, yeah. A few of us students have been meeting in private to get this thing going. We already have John Phalen to represent the weres and Queen Anali to represent the mer. Ma—er, a respected harpy who shall not be named as of yet, is considering taking the harpy seat on the council. We’re still waiting to hear back from the dragons, nagas, and kitsunes. And if Caesar ever comes back, I’m sure he’d gladly take the gryphon seat, seeing as he’s the last one.”
He stared at me intensely for a long moment, and I shrank as I feared I’d way overshared too soon. “You did all that?” But it wasn’t accusation in his voice. It almost sounded like…admiration.
“Y-yeah, me and some other students,” I replied nervously.
He shook his head, a smile inching its way across his lips. “Ashlyn… I don’t know what to say, only that I’d never been more proud of you—or more terrified for you. Do you realize how dangerous what you’re doing is?”
I straightened, determination filling in for my courage. “Yes, and I don’t care. It’s not in my blood to stand idly by in the face of tyranny and do nothing.”
Humility weighed down his eyelids, and he nodded. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But I can’t allow you to continue to do this.”
Panic struck my heart, and my eyes nearly popped out of my skull all over his mashed potatoes. No, no, no.
“Not by yourself,” he added. “Not without me to back you.”
I choked on a sharp inhale. “Wait, what?”
“If you’re going to stand up for what’s right, then I’m going to stand right next to you,” he professed.
Emotion flooded over me, and tears of joy and gratitude stung my eyes. “Oh, Dad. Thank you.”
“But, please, no more secret meetings without informing me first,” he cautioned. “If you were to get caught—”
“I know. And, okay. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“Good.”
For a long moment, neither of us said anything. We just sat there and smiled at each other, finally on the same wavelength, finally a team.
Eventually, we both started eating and fell into trivial banter, and I felt the safest I had in a long time. Ignaeus really was the man I always hoped he was. I just hoped I wasn’t putting him and everything he cared about at risk by bringing him into this.