Chapter 9
Nine
Avalon
H ayle Taeme had fed me and put me to bed after my emotional breakdown. To thank him, I avoided him like he carried the pox over the next two weeks. Shame heated every inch of skin when I remembered him holding me like a child as I poured out my deepest, darkest secret. He now had something over me, not that it wasn’t common knowledge back home. But Rewill was basically another country to the people down here; I doubted the hushed rumor had made it all the way to the walls of Boellium.
There was a stolt in my pocket and a hound on my heels, and I wondered if maybe I was an honorary member of the Third Line now, with the amount of animal companions I had. My body felt stronger after being here for a month. A month of regular meals, rigorous exercise, and sweet sleep. I was basically a new woman.
However, a month was how long my loner mystique had kept away the other conscripts. As someone sat down opposite me at my table in the dinner hall, I kind of expected Hayle. Instead, it was the girl from the Twelfth who’d checked up on me. The one who had seen my boobs.
“Viana.” She said the word like I was meant to know what it meant.
“What?” I asked around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
Shaking her head like I was the ill-mannered one, she sighed heavily. “My name is Viana. You never asked. It’s kind of rude, if you ask me, considering I went to check if you still lived.”
“Avalon,” I replied. “And thank you, I guess?”
Viana plucked a bread roll from my plate, but replaced it with a muffin. “You need the sugar for energy. Everyone knows who you are, Avalon. Even if you weren’t the only Ninth Line conscript, you have one of Taeme’s hounds following you around at all times. It’s made you a bit of a topic of conversation..”
Great. So much for keeping a low profile and getting through this without making waves. “Not my choice.” I looked down at a grumpy Braxus. “Not that I don’t enjoy their company,” I told the hound, and he gave me a toothy grin.
Viana looked between me and the hound like I was nuts. “That shit right there is why everyone knows who you are. Also, why everyone is too scared to approach you. But I’ve got nothing to lose, and you look like you need a friend.”
I wanted to argue with her, but if I was honest, loneliness was hitting me harder than I’d thought it would. I’d always lived a solitary lifestyle, people avoiding me to stay out of the firing line of my father’s wrath. But I’d still spoken to the cook and my brothers and the maids. The stablemaster. The shepherd. They weren’t more than acquaintances—except my brothers, of course—but they’d helped stem the loneliness.
Purposefully isolating myself here had been different. I ate alone. Trained alone. Lived alone. And it was harder than I’d thought.
Shaking my head, I reminded myself of my goal. Get through this with no ties. I wanted to disappear after this. I didn’t want to emotionally connect myself to someone I’d lose all too soon.
“Thank you, but I’m fine. I like being on my own.”
Viana just raised her eyebrows at me. “No one likes being alone, Avalon Halhed. We aren’t made for that. But if you aren’t ready to admit you need a badass bestie, I’ll be waiting.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Or maybe you’re getting it on the regular from Hayle Taeme, so you really aren’t lonely. If that’s the case, though, you definitely need a girls’ night to tell me if the rumors are true.”
“Rumors?”
“That Hayle Taeme is hung like a horse. I’ve heard it hangs between his thighs like a third leg. Peony heard that he had to get special undergarments made to keep it contained, so people don’t accidentally clip it during hand-to-hand combat training.”
The hound beside me grunted, his eyes sparkling, and I wondered if he was keeping track of my conversations. He was a dog, though; there was no way he could inform his master that we were talking about his cock, right?
Looking at Braxus, I wasn’t entirely sure that was true. “I’m not sleeping with Hayle,” I told Viana softly. “I’m not sleeping with anyone.”
I’d never slept with anyone. No one would dare to defile the daughter of the Baron of the Ninth Line, and I’d never had any suitors, the way my sister Lenora did. Everyone knew of my father’s hatred—it was infamous up north. Ignoring my existence was a better way to get into his good books than asking for my hand.
“Yet I’ve seen how he looks at you,” Viana told me with a devious chuckle. “He’s imagining what you taste like between your thighs.”
I gasped, my face flooding pink. “Viana!”
The girl opposite me cackled even louder, drawing stares. “You Upper Elevens are such prudes. So caught up in your alliances and chastity and arranged marriages, you don’t know how to live .” She looked at me with pity. “When life is a struggle, you find your happiness where you can,” she said seriously, before her smirk reemerged. “Especially if it’s in an orgy, and you’re the meat in a Polus and Link sandwich.” She looked over her shoulder at two Twelfth Line guys.
They were looking better too; regular food had filled out their muscles, and their faces were less gaunt. Water that they could use bathing instead of just surviving meant that they were clean and handsome. And they were looking over at Viana like they wanted her to consume her pleasured screams.
I felt myself flushing just being in the proximity of that much sexual tension. “Good for you.” I wasn’t even being my usual sarcastic self. “Won’t one get jealous?”
She shook her head. “In Eelrood, between death and malnutrition, birth rates are down. It’s quite common to create family groups. Several men to tend to one family, one farm”—she gave me an exaggerated wink—“one woman.”
“And the Twelfth are all just… what? Having orgies down in the bowels of Boellium?”
Viana just smirked. “You’re always welcome to come down to the Twelfth and find out.”
My cheeks pinkened, and I was trying to think of a way to say thanks, but no thanks , but I had the distinct impression that Viana was teasing me, especially as she continued eating with a stupidly large grin on her face.
A moment later, her face went slack at something over my shoulder, and I looked, almost unsurprised to see Hayle standing there. “Viana.” His voice was smooth and cool, like marble.
The girl from the Twelfth looked up at Hayle like he was some kind of avenging angel. “Mr. Taeme.”
I snorted, and he turned his gaze on me, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “Just Hayle is fine. I’m about to steal your dinner companion, so I suggest you move along.”
It was a clear dismissal, but I knew from experience, she wasn’t easily deterred. She looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. “I’ll see you later?” she asked lightly, and Hayle actually growled in the back of his throat.
He couldn’t know what we’d been talking about, right? He hadn’t even been in the dining hall with us.
“Avalon won’t be going to the bowels with you, Viana,” he said with so much certainty that I knew without a doubt, he’d been informed of our conversation.
I looked at the hound at my feet. Any doubt I might’ve had that he was sentient and aware, could follow along with conversations and was reporting back to his master, disappeared. Traitor, I mouthed, and Braxus just huffed and laid on his side, like he was exhausted by my humanness. I still reached down and scratched the fur at the base of his tail, so he knew I wasn’t really angry at him.
Looking up at Hayle, I narrowed my eyes. “Hayle isn’t the boss of me, Viana, so I’ll do what I like.”
Viana looked between us and stood. “I’ll leave you two to decide. Uh, it was good to see you, Hayle.” She stepped away, and behind Hayle’s back, she tapped the middle of her thigh, mouthing the word, Horse.
My cheeks were on fire. It took every ounce of etiquette training I’d ever had to wipe the horror from my expression and look up at Hayle dispassionately. “Is there something I can help you with, Hayle? Perhaps you’re here to reclaim your furry snitch?”
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound drawing the eyes of everyone in the room. Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Will you stop? ” I hissed.
He continued to look amused. “Why are you avoiding me?”
I screwed my nose up at him. “I’m not avoiding you.” Lies.
“I haven’t seen you in two weeks.”
“Classes are busy, I guess.” I stood, moving around him, carefully not meeting his eyes. Let everyone around us think it was deference, not that I was embarrassed that I’d been caught talking about his cock.
After taking my tray to the return spot, I almost sprinted from the dining hall, Braxus on my heels. Not far behind him was Hayle, eating up the distance with his damn long-legged stride, even though he wasn’t moving faster than a swagger.
Spinning on my heel, I waited for him to catch up. “Fine, I was avoiding you. I’d like it if you could respect my wishes and leave me alone.” I spun back around and strode toward the main building and the library. I had a reading list a mile long, but at least Instructor Perot had stopped calling on me in class. Our little heart-to-heart had obviously traumatized us both, because now, his eyes just skipped over me like I wasn’t even there.
That hurt too, in its own way, but at least I understood it.
Hayle appeared back at my side, the two hounds walking behind us. Sighing, I looked over at him. “I should have saved my breath.”
Shrugging, he kept up easily. “Probably. My mother always said I must have an affinity for a donkey, because I was a stubborn ass.” His smile was fond, and it didn’t take a genius to know that he loved his mom, and that she probably loved him.
I snorted a laugh. Man, what would it be like to have parents who loved you? “She sounds like a smart woman.”
“Doesn’t hurt that she’s where I inherited my stubbornness from, so if I’m an ass, so is she. I wouldn’t say that to her face, though. She could probably put me down without breaking a sweat.” Hayle reached out and grabbed my hand. “Wait a second. Look, Avalon, we can forget the beach ever happened, if that’s what you want. I won’t push you about it, though I think talking to someone about it might be helpful.”
He went on before I could tell him to mind his own business. “Do you know what I really want, though?” he murmured, stepping close until he was towering over me, his sparkling eyes hot with something I didn’t want to name. “What I really want is to invite you to a party.”
I knew the Upper Six partied hard. Sometimes, if I was at the base of the stairs that ascended from the atrium, I could feel the steady thump of drums, even if magic muted the sounds. But that wasn’t for the Lower Six, which included me.
“I’m not allowed at your parties,” I whispered.
“Who says? Vox Vylan? Fuck him. I’m inviting you, and I want you to come.” He said those last five words as a purr, and I could imagine him saying them, in a different time, a different place, making heat pool in my lower belly. “What do you say, Avalon? You can even bring your friend from the Twelfth.”
I wanted to say that Viana wasn’t my friend, that I barely knew her, but admitting to this man that I had no friends was just too embarrassing. “Uh, I’ll think about it?”
His grin made me lose my breath. It was bright and wide and heartstopping. “I’ll pick you up from your floor at ten.”
Before I could argue more, he was gone. I looked down at Braxus, whose tongue was hanging from the side of his mouth, as if he found this whole thing hilarious. “Don’t you laugh, buddy. You’re on my shit list.”
Turning from the library doors, I moved back to the stairs down to the dorms. Studying would have to wait. I had to find something to wear.