24. Drakken
DRAKKEN
I ’d never seen Aelindor so pissed at me.
Over that fucking warlock.
Before Max had even finished his seventh lap, Frost—one of Aelindor’s aides—jogged toward him with a pair of new boots.
The warlock glanced in my direction, uncertain.
Frost said something, and Max nodded in gratitude.
Then, with his face all eager, he laced up the boots, puffed out his chest, and lifted his chin like a fucking peacock as he continued his run at the center of the track.
Aelindor had intervened. He was the only one who could override my decisions, but he’d never gone to such lengths for anyone.
Not until Max. Still, he kept the correction subtle—a slap on my wrist rather than a public undermining of my authority.
He sent the boots but didn’t cancel my order.
Max still had to run the full twenty laps.
Officers and cadets craned their necks toward the track, waiting for more drama. Expecting my temper .
“Get on with your training,” I barked, “or join Private Cadet Max on the track.”
No one spared the tall warlock another glance.
I was hard but never petty before. This boy witch got under my skin like no other.
My dragon was agitated as hell, too. And I felt sick to my stomach.
Whenever I was on the academy grounds, I couldn’t stop myself from seeking him out or demanding reports on him, asking trivial details.
If I didn’t know myself better, I’d say I craved him.
So when I spotted the warlock, I singled him out to punish him. To ease something unsettling in me, be it rage or hunger.
Now I was facing the wrath of all three heirs in the soundproofed war room at Greymantle. The command building was fortified concrete and warded steel, closest to the main courtyard at the south gate, flanked by the buttermilk-colored medical wing.
The underground room had no windows, lit by Stormglass sconces bolted to stone walls.
A long oak table dominated the center, ringed by two dozen chairs.
On it stood a three-dimensional tactical map of North America—all four kingdoms rendered in miniature, every strategic position marked with colored pins: outposts, supply lines, enemy strongholds, contested borders.
It was just the four of us behind the closed door.
“That wasn’t discipline.” Aelindor’s voice didn’t rise. It stripped bare, and the effect was worse than shouting. “It was an excuse to torture Max without openly beating him up. You’re better than that, Drakken. ”
My face darkened. My stomach soured. Why was he so protective of Max?
“Making him run that death track barefoot?” Nikolai hissed, disgust plain on his face. I returned the same. A vampire suddenly growing a moral compass? What a dark joke. “What was it meant to achieve, other than sending him to the medic wing for bleeding from the soles?”
“You went too far this time, Drakken.” Caspian glared at me. “Too fucking far.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” I said, restraining myself from pounding the table.
Not that it would pound any sense into the three of them.
“You know what ticks me off?” My voice grew harder.
“It’s not just the fucking soft spot you’ve all developed for this boy witch.
It’s like all three of you have a hard crush on him. ”
I let that land.
“He must’ve done something to you when you picked him up from that cursed land. Bespelled you. Made you vulnerable.” I held their glares. “That's why I had to step in. Someone has to think clearly around here.”
“Listen to yourself.” Caspian folded his muscled arms across his chest. “You’re full of shit. This has to stop, Drakken. I mean it.”
“Usually, I don’t agree with the wolf,” Nikolai said. “But we’re both agreed on this. Leave Max alone.”
“If it were any other soldier I’d disciplined,” I challenged, “would you gang up on me like this? Would you come for my blood over any other cadet?”
No one answered. I’d hit a nerve.
“What really went down between you and that warlock in the Scorched Wastes?” I leaned forward over the table.
“Is there something I need to know? Something changed in you the moment you brought him back. All of you started acting out of character.” I swept my gaze across all three of them.
“Don’t fucking tell me I’m paranoid. I deserve better than that. ”
We heirs were of equal rank. When I’d failed to convince any of them to file a detailed report on the encounter, I’d resorted to interrogating Max over and over for three days. Until Aelindor shut it down.
“You’re fucking paranoid, man,” Caspian insisted. “More so than ever.”
“You don’t even stick your dick everywhere anymore.” I wheeled on him. “Not since you developed a crush on that boy witch. You’ve even changed your entire sexual orientation for him. And I know for a fact you were straight through and through.”
“Since when is my sex life your fucking business, Drakken?” Caspian’s neck reddened. “You sending your spies to sniff around my quarters now? And when have I ever stuck my dick everywhere?”
Nikolai shot Caspian a look of fake sympathy. “You’ve earned your reputation, wolf. Dark version of Casanova.”
I didn’t tell them that I had my own fucking shit to deal with.
I was a big male with a healthy appetite, but ever since I’d interrogated the boy witch, my sex life had gone downhill.
I couldn’t get hard for any woman I brought to my quarters.
Not even Delia, my most frequent bedmate, could fix it.
She was the best I’d ever fucked. Knew her way around men.
But she couldn’t sate my beast. No one could.
We’d given up on finding our true mate a long time ago.
But since Max’s arrival, my dragon had become restless. Agitated at the warlock’s presence. Maybe the beast sensed dark magic in him, on top of the cursed witch blood. Or maybe my frustration was rubbing off on it. I’d never turned Delia down before. Now I avoided her entirely.
I had no doubt that fucking warlock had cockblocked me.
I spread my palms on the oak table. “Man to man. What’s so special about this warlock that the three of you came after me for making him run laps?”
“If he isn’t so special, why do you keep going after him?” Nikolai’s velvet voice cut like a scalpel. “Why single him out, obsess over a nobody recruit you look down on? He’s so far beneath you. Shouldn’t you stay in character and just treat him like an ordinary cadet?”
“He’s a threat!” I pounded the table this time. “No matter how small, a threat is a threat. And that warlock is no small danger. We all know what damage a sleeper agent can do.”
“You only see what you want to see,” Nikolai said. “Tunnel vision. You’re always like that.”
“Name-calling now?” I sneered. “Throwing mud at me to knock me off your trail, aren’t you?”
Caspian, Nikolai, and I started talking over each other. Our voices rose. Insults escalated. The vampire and shifter didn’t even get along, yet here they were banding together against me.
This is lame, my dragon told me. I’m taking a nap .
Cued by the beast’s savvy observation, I swept a finger between them. “When have we ever fought over a woman?”
Caspian frowned at me. “Never. Why would we fight over a woman when there’s plenty of fish in the ocean?”
“Exactly.” I tried to sound more patient and less exasperated. “We don’t even argue over any woman, yet all of you jumped down my throat just because I mildly disciplined a cadet?”
Nikolai narrowed his red eyes at me. “Did you say mildly?”
I ignored his snide remark. “Can’t you see what’s wrong with this picture? I’m the only one immune to Max’s witchcraft, and I’m trying to take measures to protect all of you from yourselves since you can’t fucking do that anymore.”
“Your arrogance has no bounds!” Caspian fired back.
“I see your point, Drakken,” Aelindor cut in. He was always the final voice, like a blade slicing through ropes. “And thank you for caring. But for the sake of peace among us, just leave Max alone. That’s all I’m asking.”
My jaw clenched so hard I had to fight not to grind my teeth at the heir who was more than a brother to me. The one who’d saved me and mentored me since I was an orphaned kid with scales and rage and nothing else.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Aelindor,” I drawled. “He’s in my academy. I won’t allow the corruption to spread. One bad seed spoils the entire operation. He’s already doing it, starting from the very top.”
Caspian and Nikolai traded a dark look that said I was a jerk .
“What do you plan to do to Max, then?” Nikolai asked in his soft, dangerous voice. “Since you’ve already made up your mind about him.”
“Whatever it takes.” I let the words fall like rocks. “Until I’m certain he poses no threat.”
Aelindor closed his eyes. Inhaled. When he opened them, they glowed silver-blue—the Fae’s true light surfacing through the mask of composure.
“I can tolerate almost everything you do, Drakken,” he said, and his voice had never been this cold. “But Max is off-limits. He asked to be a soldier, so we enrolled him. If you don’t want him in your elite school, I’ll remove him myself.”
A pause.
“But hear me clearly. Harm Max, and this alliance between the four of us is over.”
Silence struck the room like a detonation.
Shock registered first, a cold blow to the center of my chest. Then hurt sank into my bones like sharpened ice.
Aelindor had never threatened to shatter the alliance.
Not during the worst years of the war. Not when we’d buried warriors by the hundreds.
Not when we’d disagreed so violently that Caspian and Nikolai had drawn weapons on each other.
Never.
But one warlock had changed everything.
“I see.” I forced my voice to remain steady through the wreckage. “The warlock really got to you, Aelindor. He’s an even bigger threat than I thought.”