31. Callum
CALLUM
She hung up the stars-damned phone.
She was fucking drunk, flying through the most dangerous district in Solis Quarter.
And she was drunk.
I slammed the phone down on the table with enough force that I heard the glass crack, frustration rising in me that I couldn’t ensure she was safe.
I rubbed at that starbound mark on my wrist more fiercely.
Ever since I’d returned to Aurum Quarter, the mark had been causing more issues than I believed it could.
There was a constant pressure at the center of my soul—a demand to return to Solis and claim Raelyna as mine.
To be there for her, to protect her. Not that I needed the starbound mark to want to go after her and ensure her safety.
She was mine, starbound mark or not.
But I couldn’t go after her . . . Not yet, at least. And every second apart was slowly killing me from the inside out.
“You okay?” Eleana asked as she watched me carefully from the other side of the war room. We had been scanning the displays, studying the minimal number of access points to travel safely across The Rift with a large number of soldiers.
“Yes,” I bit out the word as my fingers drummed against the table before I picked up the blade I’d left on the surface and began twisting it through my fingers. I sat back, leaning my head back against the leather and closing my eyes as I bit back another groan of frustration.
I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Her stars-damned smile, the brown curls that hung across her face, the scattering of freckles that danced along high cheekbones, the intoxicating scent of jasmine—
This time an audible groan fell from my lips as I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts.
The sooner this mission is complete, the better.
“All right, let’s go.” Eleana’s voice startled me, and I cracked an eye open to look at her cautiously.
“Go where?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She smirked as she stood up, turning off the display panels before looking at me. “Get moving, Blackwood,” she demanded as she turned on her heel and walked toward the sliding doors.
With a disgruntled groan, I pushed off the chair, following her out of the room.
Eleana didn’t slow her pace as we wound our way through the multiple levels of the Guild’s headquarters, going lower and lower in the building.
She was two steps ahead of me as we walked through the Guild, her fingers touching each scanner as we moved through the security clearance checkpoints.
We continued descending as we circled through the building, then reached the elevators that led down to the training pits.
Her fingers drummed against the glass paneling of the elevator as she pushed the button for the shooting range.
Silence filled the elevator as we shot down to the second lowest floor of the Guild’s headquarters, the elevator eventually chiming as the glass doors swiftly slid open.
“I should have realized you were bringing me here,” I said into the silence as we accessed the entry point to the high-clearance range near the basement of the headquarters.
Eleana stepped forward first, the scanners glowing as they scanned her, first for facial recognition, then for fingerprints, before the clearance lit in a green glow and the metal doors slid open for her.
I stepped forward next, the security system clearing me for entry before I stepped through the doors.
I grabbed a pair of headphones from the wall, flicking the channel to three, so that we could still hear each other as we walked into the range. I breathed a sigh of relief while I scanned my surroundings, noting that it was entirely empty.
“It was clear you needed a distraction,” she replied.
“And I’m not looking to go another round in the training ring with you when you’re in this sort of mood, so this was the only other logical option.
” She took her place along one of the lanes and began to load her firearm with ammo before she placed the gun on the counter and whirled to me.
“Talk first?” she asked as she folded her hands across her chest. “Or target practice first?”
“Targets,” I replied as I set my own pistol on the ledge, selecting a multiple-round target practice routine and punching in the coding for the targets.
The system whirled to life, and I could hear the targets clicking on the track as the program reset.
The lights in the range flickered in a series of flashes, and I turned toward Eleana.
“Ready?” I asked as I stepped into my lane, drawing my gun.
“You bet,” she responded, a grin spreading across her face as the lights flickered one final time and then the range went dark. I heard the faintest click before the first target flashed in the distance, and I took aim, firing after the target.
My mind focused in, blocking out any other noise as I tracked each target in the dark, firing one after another. When the buzzer finally blared and the lights flicked back on, I set my gun down, tugging the headphones off as I turned toward Eleana.
“I had you on the last one.” I shot her a devious grin as we waited for the scores to appear on the screen behind us.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But it took you a minute to get into the zone. I definitely owned you for the first few rounds.”
“I doubt it,” I bit back as my fingers drilled against the ledge, waiting for the results to appear.
“Okay, lay it on me,” she said as we waited for our scores to populate. “I haven’t seen you this out of sorts since your younger sister got sick, and that was nearly two centuries ago.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, El.” I rubbed at the back of my neck as I cut a quick glance at her. “It’s throwing me,” I said with a gesture toward the starbound mark on my wrist. The three interconnected triangles stark across my skin.
Past. Present. Future. All tied together.
She huffed a laugh as she looked at me. “You can’t be serious, Cal? ‘It’s throwing me.’ Seriously? That’s what you’ve got to say?”
I stared at the female incredulously. “I open up to you, and this is how you respond . . . ?”
“First of all,” she replied, “let’s get one thing straight. This”—she gestured toward me, gun still in hand—“isn’t opening up. Secondly, of course, it’s going to ‘throw you.’ You have a stars-damned starbound for fuck’s sake. What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe for the female I marked with to know that she was my starbound right away,” I stated.
“Okay, that’s fair,” Eleana responded. “But she doesn’t. And imagine the shocking surprise she’s going to get when she finds out she has a starbound mark. Or, better yet, imagine her frustration and anger when she finds out you knew the entire time and didn’t tell her.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I growled back.
“I don’t know, Cal,” she sassed. “But my first thought would have been to tell her the moment she found out you were a stars-damned spy.”
I sighed. “It didn’t feel like the right time. She had a lot going on.”
“Idiot,” Eleana replied. “That’s what you are . . . it would have been the perfect time.”
I rubbed at my neck as I picked up my pistol. “Maybe, but I was just starting to wrap my own head around things. This whole thing, it’s just—”
“For the love of Aeternus, you’re three centuries old, Blackwood.”
I growled in response, pulling the headphones back over my ears as the lights flickered once again, realizing we’d forgotten to look at the first scores as the next round of targets appeared, this time the marks being less visible than before.
I lined up my shot, firing my weapon as the first of the targets briefly flashed across the range.
Ten minutes and thirty-two seconds later, I was tugging my headphones off once again and turning to check the scoreboard from our first round.
“I w—” I was cut off as Eleana interrupted.
“You won by three milliseconds. That’s not much to brag about, so just save it until the end, okay?”
“Sore loser,” I muttered under my breath as I folded my arms and looked at her. “Look, I lost focus in the middle of a mission.” I shook my head, disappointed in myself. “I shouldn’t even be team lead after what I put Axel through on a scouting mission of all things.”
“For the love of Aeternus,” she bit out as she studied me. “It was one mistake in what . . . a few decades? We’re all fine. Axel’s not pissed at you, so why are you beating yourself up over this?”
I shook my head, rubbing at my jaw as I tried to organize my thoughts.
“I just . . . I feel like I failed. We were spotted during scouting. For the first time in three centuries, my face was captured on a surveillance system, and in Solis Quarter no less. We barely made it back in time, and the moment we set foot in Aurum, Elion was pissed. I left my stars-damned starbound back in Solis Quarter, when I knew how corrupt the Quarter had become. When I know that she’s a target for their king. ”
I ground my teeth as I looked at Eleana. “I left her there, knowing that we would be planning war. That we would be overthrowing her Quarter. And I just . . . left her.”
Eleana was silent for a moment, her eyes perceptive as she stared at me. “Well then, go back for her,” she said after a few minutes, as if it were really that simple.
I scoffed. “If I could, I would. But we both know it doesn’t work like that. Elion won’t call off an entire mission just because I’ve found my starbound. You know what he always says . . .”
“Yeah, yeah.” She sighed dismally. “The mission comes first. We follow the commands of Aeternus above all else. I know. But we’ll figure something out, okay?”
“Figure what out?” Axel asked as he stepped inside the range, looking between the two of us.
“How to beat your ass this next round,” I responded as he took the lane beside me, not wanting to continue spilling my heart in the stars-damned range.
“Fine, I see how it is,” he answered as the lights flickered, warning us the next programmed round would begin shortly.