Chapter 3
“Again, cadet,” Gareth snaps, glaring at me as I slowly—and painfully—get to my hands and knees.
The sky is cloudless above us, and the ground precariously rocky beneath our feet. We’re training on the Precipice, a narrow jut of land surrounded by a steep drop.
“Jesus,” Josiah says under his breath, as he bends down to offer me a hand up. “What the fuck is his problem?”
My teeth clench against the pity I see in his eyes, the same pity I see in everyone’s eyes lately. In the week since I told Gareth how I feel about him, he’s done his worst to push me away.
“Let her stand on her own two feet,” he tells Josiah, swinging the long staff in his hand so that it whistles through the air. We’ve been sparring for nearly an hour, far longer than any of the other cadets in our squadron.
Bethany steps forward. “I’m ready for a shot, sir.”
“Not yet,” he says curtly, watching me as I release Josiah’s hand and stand.
When I draw a deep breath, a sharp pain arrows through my side, forcing me to bend over and hold my knees.
Gareth’s gaze hardens. “We’re all waiting for Cadet Annalise to decide whether or not she’s joining us for training today.”
The sneer in his voice is the final straw.
I tackle him with a shoulder to his midsection before I even know what I’m doing, my left wing curling around and under him to knock his footing loose.
We hurtle past the edge of the cliff and fall, spinning in a flurry of wings as the wide canyon rushes up on either side of us, swallowing us like a gaping mouth.
His body flexes against mine, big and hard and powerful, and I shove him away, hating my unwelcome physical reaction.
The craving is still there, an unappeased hunger that gnaws.
My wings flare wide to slow my descent, but the force of the wind is too great and the angle I’m falling is wrong. My wings bend back too far, shooting agony along my spine. I tuck and roll, my teeth grinding against the pain.
“Annalise!” he shouts, diving toward me in an ebony rush.
I plummet on my back; my wings wrap along my biceps and point upward, my hair whipping free of the ponytail that usually contains it. The air roars over my ears with hurricane force, screaming at me to slow down.
“Stay away from me!” I yell at Gareth, kicking out when he reaches for me.
“Damn it! Let me help you.”
Twisting, I change direction, tucking my wings in and racing toward a small ledge that bleeds into a cave. There’s scarcely enough room to land with the best of conditions, but I go for it anyway. Anything to get away from the angel who is slowly but surely driving me crazy.
As the rock-strewn outcropping rushes toward me, I force my body to relax, knowing I need to hit the ground with bent knees, followed by a quick rolling tumble. I am nearly there, my breath catching in anticipation…
Gareth slams into me from behind, crushing my back to his chest just before his booted feet hit the earth and we tumble into the hole in the side of the canyon.
We flip end over end. Wrapped in his wings, I’m cocooned against the impact until we hit the wall with bone-jarring force, knocking the air from my lungs. I lay dazed and wounded, shielded in soft inky down.
He groans and pulls me closer. For a moment, I let him hold me, too shaken to resist the comfort of his embrace.
Then he opens his mouth.
“Stupid girl,” he mutters, his lips moving against my throat.
I stiffen. “Let me go.”
He ignores me, his wings tightening as his hands slide over my belly. “Are you hurt?”
Goose bumps sweep over my skin despite the warmth of his body. “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. I heard something snap when you tried to fly.”
His words make me feel the burn in my right wing. “Get off me.”
“Don’t be so damn stubborn. Tell me where you’re hurt.”
“Where don’t I hurt? You’ve been kicking my ass all week!”
His grip eases. “Annalise—”
I break free, but when my lame wing bumps his, I cry out and recoil.
“For chrissakes,” he bites out, hauling us both to our feet with his hands at my waist. He pins me to the wall, my breasts pressed to the cool stone. His hips arch into the small of my back as his hands sweep over the upper curves of my wings, searching for injury.
His touch, so strong and warm, is heavenly. The soft brushes of his palms… the gently seeking fingers… the delicate pressure…
To my horror, a low moan of pleasure escapes me.
Gareth freezes.
My eyes close in embarrassment. How can he affect me so strongly without even trying? “Please,” I whisper. “Let me go.”
He doesn’t move for a long moment. Then his lips touch the nape of my neck. “Tell me where you’re hurt,” he murmurs, his breath warm and soft through the disheveled strands of my hair.
My fingers curl into my palms. “Right wing.”
His hands move along my primaries, prodding carefully. I whimper when he finds the spot that throbs like a bitch.
“A ruptured tendon,” he says quietly.
My head bows. I won’t be able to fly for months. I won’t graduate with my class. Hot tears slide down my face.
“Sweetheart.” His hands go to my hips, and he nuzzles against me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” I can’t bear his sympathy. “Just go away.”
“I have to take you back.”
“Send someone else.”
His fingertips dig into my flesh. “As if I’d let anyone else carry you.”
I absorb that, try to process it. But it’s impossible to think with him surrounding me, his chest heaving against my wings. “Gareth…?”
He makes a low, soft noise. “You shouldn’t say my name.”
The rebuke goads me to push back against him. He groans and leans harder into me.
I feel him then, thick and hard against the small of my back. His arousal startles a gasp from me.
“Give me a minute,” he says hoarsely.
Confused, I try to turn my head and look at him.
“Stop wriggling!”
I stare out the opening of the cave, at the world beyond the cliffside. A world in which Gareth looked at me coldly when I told him I loved him and said, Do us both a favor, keep that to yourself.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I complain.
“Shut up, Annalise.”
“When did this happen? Just now?”
He begins to pull away. “We’re not talking about this.”
“The hell we’re not.” I turn the moment I can, and find myself facing the same hard-faced instructor I know so well. “Do you want me, Gareth? Or do you always get a hard-on when you fall off cliffs?”
“Don’t forget your place, cadet.” He straightens, his composure restored as if it’d never been shaken. “You need to report to the infirmary.”
“They’ll cycle me,” I tell him quickly, needing to reach him again before we return to the world that keeps us apart. “You won’t be my instructor anymore. I could rejoin another squadron—”
“You’ll still be a cadet.” Gareth shakes off his splendid wings, sending dust billowing into the air.
“At least I won’t be your cadet.”
“Oh yes, you will.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I’ll ensure it,” he says harshly.
“Why?” Tears of frustration burn the back of my throat. “I don’t understand you! Why are you fighting this so badly? We could have—”
It hits me then. Those odds of ending up in his squadron. The process of standing with the other recruits and awaiting the random selection of squadron number.
“You cheated the system!” I accuse. “You did something to get me assigned to you. And all this time I’ve been so angry at fate for giving me the wrong squadron number, and it was you! You’ve put the legion between us!”
His words lash out like a whip. “You’re too gifted, Annalise. They’ll exploit you to the fullest extent. You need to be better than you think you can be. Tougher, more lethal. You need to be as ready as it’s possible to be.”
The burn spreads to my chest. “You said the other instructors were equal to you,” I remind him. “But you don’t trust them with me, do you? I’m too important to you.”
“You’re important to the legion as a whole.”
I step toward him, my hands extended imploringly. “Why won’t you say it? Would it be so terrible to admit that you care about me?”
“That’s enough!”
Gareth and I jerk in guilty surprise as Rebecca lands on the outcropping and strides into the cave, her silver wings reflecting light in brilliant spots along the dark rock walls. Her glare is so fierce it glows eerily, causing my stomach to knot.
“This,” the captain growls, “stops now.”