Chapter 42
ISI
Just as expected, Trew had arranged for me to work with him during magical training.
“Means nothing to you, right?” Lexie said with a grin when we’d returned to the training hall after strategy class and Trew called out for me to join him.
“I’ll point out that he arranged for this, not me,” I said in a snooty tone, following it up with a grin. I’d barely been able to eat. Between feeling vindicated by what happened with Maddox and hoping that I hadn’t misjudged the situation with Trew, I could barely force food down.
“Go get him,” she said under her breath, nudging my arm with her knuckles.
I told myself this was training. Nothing more. Yet every step I took closer to him made my pulse betray me, pounding with a hope I’d spent too much time convincing myself was foolish.
He waited near the double doors, one shoulder propped against the stone like he owned the place. Which, technically, he did.
When I reached him, he straightened and spoke curtly. “We’re working somewhere else today.” No explanation, no smile. Just a statement that made it clear that arguing would be pointless.
I glanced back at Lexie. She lounged against the far wall, her grin much too wicked, her eyebrows doing a little dance that left no doubt what she was thinking. I narrowed my eyes at her, which only made her flap her hands in our direction.
Trew opened a side door and gestured me through.
I followed him down a hall, and he stopped at a door on the right, swinging it open and gesturing for me to enter ahead of him.
The smaller training room felt intimate in a way that prickled my skin. This room wasn’t made for armies or eyes on every move. It was made for close quarters, where glances lingered too long. I could already feel the heat of his nearness, even before the door clicked shut.
Stone walls still framed the space, but the ceiling dipped lower, crossed by heavy timber beams that caught the torchlight in warm streaks. The air hung with the scent of oil from the weapon racks, plus the faint mineral essence of freshly scrubbed stone.
Only a few weapons had been mounted here, shorter blades, throwing knives, a polished staff or two, each gleaming like it had been chosen deliberately, not just stacked in with the rest. A small cabinet had been mounted on the wall to the left of the rack, and a narrow mat stretched across most of the floor, its edges stitched with golden thread.
More light came from a pair of tall, arched windows set high in the wall, late-afternoon sunlight spilling through in slanted bars that warmed the mats and left the corners in shadow.
This wasn’t a cavernous, echoing space where every movement felt observed. This was contained. Private. A room built for people to train in without the distraction of an audience.
Trew closed the door behind us, the sound soft but final, and my pulse picked up despite my best efforts.
He lingered by the door a breath longer, his body close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him in slow waves.
Then he eased forward, the edge of a smirk pulling at his mouth, equal parts satisfied and infuriating.
His gaze swept over me, and the corner of his mouth didn’t so much twitch as tighten.
Like whatever he saw was making him think a little too much.
“Do you feel all right?” he finally asked. “Any lingering effects from the poison?”
I tried not to let the way he was watching me heat up my skin. “I’m fine.”
He stepped into my space before I could draw in a full breath. “Fine?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded far steadier than the sudden thud of my pulse.
The faintest smile ghosted across his mouth, wolfish and knowing, and then he urged me back until my shoulders met the solid stone wall. It was warm where the sun had touched it, but I still shivered.
“You look like a woman who found a touch of vengeance.” His palm flattened against the wall beside my head, boxing me in without crowding, though the heat rolling off him felt like a crowd all its own. “You look well.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered. “And delicious.”
I swallowed, my breath catching on the edge of a laugh. “That’s a new one.”
“Not really.” His voice dropped to a near-growl. “It gets truer every time I see you.”
The air between us pulled taut. I pressed into the wall and tipped my chin up in the unspoken invitation of someone who wasn’t about to back down.
He leaned in, his light, woodsy scent sliding over me, his nose brushing my temple. “You fought well. I adored how you dropped him to his knees. But if he’d caused you even a hint of pain, he’d be dead.”
“Let’s let him live for now. We need everyone.”
“We don’t need him.”
“Even him.”
He tilted his head. “Why? We could end this now.”
“Because…” How could I explain? “I lost my sister. He lost his brother.”
“Don’t pity him.”
“I don’t believe I do, not more than normal. But I turned her death into a need for vengeance, and he’s done the same.”
“You two are nothing alike.”
“In some ways, not. In others, we are.”
“Please let me kill him.”
My laugh snorted out. “If he touches me again, he’s yours.”
“Good.” Concern shadowed his eyes. “You’re sure you feel alright?”
“I am.”
“I’m glad.” His mouth brushed the corner of mine. “Then I can do this without guilt.”
His lips captured mine. I felt his kiss all the way down my spine and in the heat that unfurled low in my belly. He didn’t rush; he coaxed, testing, giving me the option to push him away.
I didn’t.
His kiss was a conversation without words, urging me to trust the fire between us. I wasn’t ready to burn, but I was ready to feel the heat he had to offer.
When I leaned in, he deepened the kiss, one hand sliding from the door to curve over my hip, his fingers pressing enough to feel like possession. I latched onto his tunic, and the world ceased to exist.
When he finally pulled back, his mouth lingered over mine, his breath warm against my lips. His golden eyes searched mine for a moment before a faint, smug curve touched his mouth.
“Stop fooling around, Minx.” His gaze dipped to my mouth again like he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone. “It’s time to work.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, because my brain was still busy replaying the last thirty seconds in shameless detail. “I wasn’t the one—”
The smirk deepened. “Mmm. Keep telling yourself that.”
“Oh, sure, King Trewyn. Because your idea of ‘work’ never involves distracting me with that smug grin.”
“You adore that about me.”
I couldn’t deny it.
He moved toward the center of the room, already shedding the lazy lean for something sharper, more focused. Black training gear clung to him in ways that were criminal for a man who expected me to concentrate. Sleeves shoved to his elbows revealed the strong lines of his forearms.
“On the mat,” he said, not looking back, though I’d have bet every secret I’d ever kept that he knew I was watching him walk.
Gavelle had perched high on a beam, his ember-orange eyes locked on me with what felt suspiciously like judgment. His feathers caught the light in a smoldering shimmer, and every tilt of his head screamed predator.
I blew out a breath, stepping onto the mat and trying to summon the focus Trew seemed to expect of me. But the echo of that kiss still burned along my spine, stubborn and distracting.
I crossed my arms on my chest. “What’s this private training session about?”
“Your inability to light a candle on your best day.”
My spine went stiff. “Maybe I like darkness.”
“You like excuses,” he said, removing a small ball from the mounted cabinet and tossing it into the air, catching it with a lazy snatch, handing it to me. “We’re going to fix that.”
I arched a brow, tilting my chin toward Gavelle. “Easy to say when you’ve got a walking bonfire as backup.”
Gavelle made a sound in his throat, somewhere between a click and a soft cackle. I suspected he’d taken that as a compliment.
Trew’s smirk deepened. “He’s more than backup. He’s a partner. You’d know the difference if—”
“Don’t.” Flames licked across my cheeks. “If you’re about to say ‘if I’d bonded properly,’ I will throw that little ball of yours through a window.”
His gaze lingered on me for a moment too long. “I believe we’ll start with aim.”
The weighted ball was heavier than it looked, thick leather stretched tight over whatever they’d crammed inside. Trew took it back and set it on the mat between us.
“Your goal is simple,” he said. “Move it from here to the wall without touching it.”
“Simple, huh?” I narrowed my eyes at the ball. “Why not something reasonable, like turning it into a frog or making part of the ceiling collapse?”
“Because those things are much too complex for you,” he said pleasantly. “We start here.”
I wanted to howl.
Still, I focused on the ball, willing the spark of magic in me to stir.
It was there. It had been since before I snapped in front of my mother in the garden.
I could only describe it as an ember in my chest, too stubbornly dim.
I pushed at it, coaxed it, imagined tendrils of will reaching for the ball.
It shivered and wobbled. And then slid back into stillness.
Trew crouched beside it, his expression maddeningly neutral. “Again.”
Three more tries, three more sad wobbles. Gavelle tilted his head, flapping his wings. I was boring a bird—and probably Trew.
I blew out a breath. “Your hawk is mocking me.”
“He’s a cinderhawk.” Trew straightened without looking at me. “Mockery’s part of the package.”
I glared up at the bird. Gavelle blinked slowly, his gaze steady, as if he was agreeing with Trew.
Trew stepped in close enough that his shadow fell over me. He nudged my feet apart with his boot. “Your stance is making you work harder than you need to.”
I frowned. “Why does my stance matter with magic?”
“It just does.”
“You’re not doing this to get near me again, are you? Maybe steal another kiss?”
“You kissed me back.”
“Keep dreaming, King Trewyn. That was me acting passive, letting you kiss me.”