Chapter 46 Koa
koa
. . .
Resist and Endure’s final sucked.
Hunting locked us one-by-one in a coffin-small room with no windows, no time, and no magic.
It was total isolation, and the air tasted recycled.
Then, the drills wound up: stress loops, pain-echoes that weren’t real but made my muscles seize anyway, spells that scraped marrow from my bones until I felt like they were hollowed out.
Three rules Hunting drilled into us this quarter played on a loop in my head:
Time your heartbeats.
Don’t give them anything classified.
Breathe.
I counted my heartbeats until numbers got slippery, and then, I started over.
When Hunting finally opened my door, I walked out steadily. I tried not to show how much isolation fucked with me because that was only a taste of what my dad must’ve been dealing with these past fifty-one years.
“Passed,” Hunting murmured.
My passing meant our entire squad moved on to quarter three; Hawk was told he was on thin ice, though.
Hawk ran up to Rune before we cleared the classroom. “I tried,” he told her. “I really tried to pass.”
“Try better,” she said, bluntly. “You can, so do it.”
He wilted.
I fought back the same smile that Zuko and Slater wore.
I hated the way Hawk had been looking at her ever since she wouldn’t leave him behind during that final. It was like he worshipped her.
Rune walked between Slater and Zuko as we spilled across the bridge. They laughed at something she had said.
Envy flared in me, but I tried to swallow it down.
Dimitri fell in step on my other side. We didn’t look at each other. We didn’t have to. I could see the jealous little twist in his aura that matched mine.
“Annoying, isn’t it?” he murmured.
“Deeply,” I admitted.
Something soft, red, and lacy smacked Zuko in the face.
We stopped walking.
Zuko blinked, tilted his head, and plucked a thong off his nose with two fingers. “What the fuck is this?”
Darian strolled up wearing a smirk. “A gift for the two idiots that think she’s into you,” Darian drawled. “You should really give up. Rune and I already fucked.”
Rune laughed. She laughed so hard, she bent over, holding her stomach. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and Slater joined her.
Zuko lifted the thong to his nose, inhaled, and made a face like disappointment. “Dry,” he announced. “Not hers. No midnight orchid scent with that undeniable sweetness. No…anything.” He flicked it back at Darian’s chest. “Congrats on owning laundry.”
“Not to mention that she doesn’t even own red panties,” Slater chuckled, as he wiped a tear from Rune’s cheek as she caught her breath.
A red flush climbed Darian’s neck. “She’ll be begging for my dick,” he gestured between his legs, “because I’m a drake, so you know it’s huge.”
Rune’s eyebrows shot up in genuine shock. She couldn’t stop laughing again. “Uh, you’ve never actually gotten me wet. I mean, yeah, it’s big. Big enough to hurt since you couldn’t get me turned on.” She tilted her head toward Zuko. “His is big, too. Pierced eight times, and my name’s on it.”
Zuko’s grin turned positively feral. “You hear that?” he sing-songed. “She soaks my tongue and my—”
“Language,” Dimitri said dryly.
“I mean, I did fake it throughout our entire relationship. So, I can see why you’d think you had something.” She bit her lip to hide a laugh.
Slater threw an arm over Rune’s shoulders and stage-whispered, “Venom baby, that’s a damn crime. You deserve endless orgasms for putting up with that jackass. Let’s do that for you tonight.”
“You don’t even have to ask.” She smiled up at him.
Darian took a step as if he was going to grab Rune, and I lost it. I moved without thinking, planting myself in front of Rune.
Heat rose up my spine as my phoenix flames licked over my body.
Jesper appeared from nowhere, grabbed Darian by the biceps, and yanked him back.
“What the hell happened?” Jesper snapped at him.
Darian started laughing, something without humor. His eyes shot to Rune, and he pointed. “She’s a fucking slut! She’s a tease and a liar, and she—”
Jesper said nothing. He just punched him in the face.
Once.
Darian fell back, knocked out cold on the grass.
Jesper turned to Rune immediately. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, breath a little tight. “Thanks.”
Jesper’s jaw worked. “Your body is yours. No one dictates what you do with it. Even if he’s my cousin, I’ll kill him if he hurts you. Just tell me.”
“I’ll tell you,” she assured him.
Zuko was still smiling, but there was nothing nice in it. “If he comes at her again, I’ll do worse than kill him.”
“Same,” Slater said.
“And me,” I added. Heat licked my palms.
Dimitri didn’t bother adding his words. He just glared holes in Darian’s passed out form.
Jesper nodded once before glancing at me. “Koa, Sabine’s in the headmaster’s office. She asked for you.”
My stomach dropped. “Now?”
“Now.”
“My mom is?” Rune’s brows furrowed as she looked over at me. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Jesper answered for me. “She has a question about his family’s past is all.”
“See you later?” she asked.
I nodded and followed Jesper to Lake Bloodwyne’s office.
“Do you knock that asshole out often?” I asked, pointing my thumb behind us.
“Never.” His jaw tightened. “But when he said that about Rune, I—”
“Lost it?” I finished, shrugging. “If you hadn’t done it, I was going to.”
We walked into the office, and the sun knifed through the high windows; dust motes looked like floating constellations.
Sabine stood at the table with a folder open. “Supernaturals are going missing faster,” she told us. “We recovered one. He’s a centaur. He says humans grabbed him, took his blood, ran tests, and dumped him at the edge of Fate Hollow.”
I blinked. “Alive?”
“Barely.” She slid a photo across the table. He was bruised, riddled with needle marks, and a powder substance crusted at the hairline. “Blood extraction,” Sabine went on, her voice tight. “The same procedure described on your father’s system fifty-one years ago.”
The room blurred. “He didn’t have anything to do with that,” I mumbled. “Humans planted it. They were in our house; they knocked us out with tourmalyke. They framed him. You bought it.”
Her mouth thinned. She’d heard me say it before. “I’m giving you a chance to clear his name. You in?”
There wasn’t air for a second, but then I sucked in a lungful of it.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “I’m in.”
“Good.” She tapped the folder. “Jesper, you and Koa will work together on this. I trust you to monitor him. Koa, you’re going to go undercover soon. Jesper will be your contact if anything ever goes wrong.”
My heart slammed against my ribs, and I couldn’t remember how to fucking breathe.
This was the chance I’d been waiting for ever since the council had fallen for the humans’ evidence.