Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
DRAVEN
“What do you think this urgent announcement Bathara is summoning us for will be?” a man from the Iradine aggregate whispers to his friend as they pass by Draven unknowingly, who remains in the back of the room, draped in shadow.
“I don’t know,” the friend answers. “But I heard Bathara has not only gathered all the aggregates for it, but emissaries from the Three Kingdoms as well.”
“That’s odd, right?”
“Very.”
Draven is inclined to agree. Truthfully, he was equally as surprised when he noticed emissaries for both Rivara and Erandor Kingdom sitting in the crowd.
He hasn’t the slightest idea why they’re here.
Still, noticing their presence means Draven has chosen to remain as far away as possible, leaning his shoulder absentmindedly against a back wall with one ankle crossed in front of the other.
Master Cahlmon’s classroom is virtually a smaller version of the Arena, featuring a circular tier of seats with extended tables instead of benches.
The sprawling floor below—crafted with a mosaic collection featuring the different aggregate emblems—acts as Cahlmon’s lecture area, but it also acts as a large-scale fighting pit for students once the floor is pulled back by magic.
Draven glances across the room and finds Arden—captain over the Iradine aggregate—watching him.
Ever since he revealed just what he is capable of, with his veins turning black and his eyes glazing into dense obsidian orbs, both Arden and Nuha have maintained their distance from him.
Not like he cares—even if he’s always liked Nuha.
Besides, having Arden keep her distance from him makes his life a hell of a lot easier.
Draven rolls his head languidly in the other direction and sighs. He dreamt of Lyra last night, once his frustration from being unable to leave Bathara recently to search for her simmered down enough for sleep to even find him. It was such a vivid dream.
She was crouched down in a field of flowers.
Her lilac hair was loose and wild, and she waltzed through the field barefoot while clutching a wicker basket to her side, where she gently—reverently—placed an assortment of flowers, plants, and weeds to rest. She rose, spotting Draven, who stood behind her, admiring her in all her grandeur—the descending sun casting the most perfect golden glow behind her.
Gods, even in his dreams she was breathtaking.
After Draven woke up that morning, he was forced to sit dazed in his bed, piecing together the images of Lyra’s face from his memory, attempting to savor every beautiful detail.
But he couldn’t. Because how does one give an amateur a brush and expect him to suddenly paint a masterpiece?
Nothing his mind conjured could do the real thing justice.
For just a brief moment, Draven rests his eyes and allows himself to drift back into that dream.
With the basket still wedged between her forearm and her hip, Lyra strutted between the rows of colorful flowers toward him.
When she reached him, she looked up at him and smiled.
The gesture made her eyes crinkle slightly, and as wisps of hair blew into Lyra’s face, Draven knew he could spend eternity drowning in a lilac sea.
With her free hand, Lyra teasingly crawled her fingers up Draven’s chest. “It’s not polite to stare,” she teased.
Draven wrapped his arms around her waist. The gesture was automatic—without a sliver of thought. It was an action he marveled at, once believing he would never be capable of showing such affections and emotion. “And who said I ever claimed to be polite?”
“Would you say that makes you an unmannered brute, then?”
He pulled her more tightly against him, until he could feel her against his pelvis. Against the part of him that incessantly ached for her. “Oh,” he said, his voice low and thick with unchecked desire. “I can be very, very uncivilized.”
Lyra gazed at him through lowered lashes. “Is that so?” she hummed.
“It is.”
“Show me,” she demanded in a husky voice. “Show me just how indecent you can be.”
Draven moved. He didn’t need to hear anything else.
He plunged his fingers into her hair and tugged on the strands, exposing her neck to him.
He dragged his lips over her skin, sucking, kissing, and biting every inch between the crook of her shoulder and her jaw.
Then he kissed her. Devoured her. Lost himself entirely in the taste of her lips.
A frenzy of desire rushed through Draven, and though the bulge in his pants was nearing the point of pain, he didn’t care. He wanted to savor her. Take his time with her. Devotedly worship every single inch of her.
“Well?” she challenged once Draven relinquished control over her lips. “I’m waiting to experience the depravity of these manners I’ve heard so much about.”
Draven practically growled like a wild animal. He hooked his arm around her waist and laid her gently on her back.
But nothing about what Draven did next was gentle.
Now on top of her, he ripped her shirt clean in half, tearing it from her body and exposing her perfectly rounded breasts. He wasted no time bringing his mouth to them and letting his tongue—
“Draven? Stars to Draven?”
Draven squints an eye open and finds Kiran watching him with a smirk on his face and a small notch in his brow.
“What?” he practically growls.
Kiran’s smile widens. “You wouldn’t happen to be having inappropriate thoughts about a certain someone, now would you?
I mean, not when a very mysterious yet important announcement is about to take place.
” He flicks his eyes down toward the bulge Draven feels pressing against the seam of his trousers.
Draven lets a low hum rattle in the back of his throat and resists the urge to adjust himself. Even he can admit letting himself fall so deep into last night’s dream probably hadn’t been the best idea.
Kiran laughs at him.
Draven turns his attention away from his brother just in time to catch a glimpse of Marcella and Gray as they enter through the double doors and descend down the stairs toward an empty table.
The corner of his mouth tugs up at seeing Marcella back in her classes.
She was absent for months, and Draven knows the Masters were beginning to lose their patience.
He slides his eyes to Nightenjoy next, noting the way his arm hovers just so behind her, fingertips grazing across the small of her back.
Draven chuckles quietly to himself, refolding his arms and shaking his head.
He watches them a heartbeat more, imagining Lyra wedged between the two of them, her arm looped through Marcella’s as her head tips back with laughter. It makes his heart both swell and ache.
Gods he has to find her soon. He must. Even if it means renouncing his position as Captain and facing his father’s wrath so he can wander all of Solaya without restraint.
Yet just as quickly as the thought comes, it is overturned with another.
One where his father holds his favorite bargaining chip over Draven’s head, using it to make him submit to his will.
And as long as his father has that, Draven will never be able to fully do as he pleases, which includes leaving the academy behind to dedicate all his time and resources to his search for Lyra—a fact which has nurtured a constant, bitter anger inside him.
Kiran snaps Draven from his thoughts once more. “How unfortunate,” he drawls through a frown, crossing his arms. “A blizzard just blew in.”
Draven rolls his eyes at the theatrics just before Finlay reaches the two of them. “We need to talk.”
“Well hello to you, too, dear brother.” Kiran’s sweetened tone is wrapped in thorns.
Finlay shoots him an admonishing look before squaring his shoulders to Draven.
“Listen, there’s something you need to know about the upcoming announcement.
And before I tell you and you threaten to murder me, yes, I knew the action was happening, but no, I had no idea they were planning to conscript—”
A resounding boom clamors off the walls, followed by a three-pitched harmonic chime signaling everyone to be silent and in their seats.
Master Cahlmon struts out from the door leading to the center of the platform, followed by Josiah, Master Strithmore, and of all people, his fucking father, Tynan Dalmar.
Draven feels both Kiran’s and Finlay’s stares on him. Yet he glances only at Finlay, his focus snagged on a particular word. “What do you mean they were planning to conscript someone?” His eyes narrow. “And conscript who, exactly?”
Finlay slides his eyes to Kiran, pleading lines creasing around his gaze. “This is not going to be good…”
Master Cahlmon addresses the room. “Students. Emissaries. Thank you for joining us. To discuss why we have gathered you here today, I will be turning my classroom over to the Keeper. Please, give him your undivided attention and listen with an open mind.”
Josiah steps forward, and Master Cahlmon inclines his head to him, receding back a few steps to stand in line with Tynan and Master Strithmore.
“Thank you, Master Cahlmon,” Josiah begins.
“It will come as no surprise to you when I say, in light of the recent attack, Bathara finds itself with an unprecedented shortage of numbers, both in students and active Jurafen. It has long been Bathara’s tradition to allow our Jurafen and other military personnel from across the Three Kingdoms to observe our third and final test in our esteemed entrance exams. And it is that very tradition which resulted in so many of our numbers being clustered together in one place, creating the perfect target for our attackers.
Because of this, difficult questions had to be asked, demanding difficult answers. ”
Josiah pauses, and Draven can see the visible tension his shoulders carry.