Chapter 25 Avery
AVERY
For the rest of the week, I didn’t see Cash or anyone in his quad. Commander Moss or Ward Gale himself covered most of our training sessions, and they even sent Kit out to lead a few of our morning runs.
Our trainers were allowed time off over the long summer, but the timing was suspicious.
The Blackwell Quad didn’t tend to use their relationship with Ward to curry favor in the program—they wanted to be at the top because they’d earned it, something I’d known about them from the beginning—but when it came to me, I didn’t doubt they’d stooped to tattling to Ward about what Alex and Jared had pulled.
When I asked Heath about it, he just smiled innocently, dropped a kiss on my hair, then went right back to expertly slashing his saber at the pell in front of him.
We also continued to play with our formation as a quintet unit.
Heath ensured that no matter the shape, I was on an edge, whether it be leading the charge or working from an outside corner.
We even tried our old rectangle, but instead of me, Heath stuck Elijah in the middle, where he spent most of his time just looking pretty and throwing the occasional dagger.
If his beast was ever to erupt from the center of our group, it meant things had already gone to shit and the formation was out the window anyway.
It would be a fun surprise for all involved.
Things were coming together. Heath tried not to act smug about it, and I tried to allow myself to genuinely enjoy being a part of this particular quintet without guilt or resentment.
Ward had all but guaranteed my spot in the Guardians when I graduated from Proteus. All I had to do, as he’d said, was survive, and my odds of doing so were astronomically higher with Heath, Aiden, Wyatt, and Elijah by my side.
They were the best in our class by a mile, and they cared very much whether I lived or died.
Once I’d decided to let go of the anger, it was easier to be pragmatic about it all.
As I contemplated all of this, my tiger flicked her tail, radiating a rather obnoxious I told you so.
I’d found a peaceful spot on the little beach on the lakeshore and was setting out my supplies for the Moon blessing.
The July Full Moon fell on a Tuesday, so I had to handle this one at camp rather than from the comfort of home.
Ward had given me special dispensation to be out of bed after lights out. The man had slotted me into the “females he didn’t say no to” column, and I wasn’t going to complain.
The Moon was big and gorgeous tonight, her brilliance reflected in the dark, glassy surface of the lake, as though our celestial goddess was blessing me with double the love.
I took a moment to soak in the frothing river of magic as I sat in a meditative position on my beach towel, both my swords and Ian’s katana laid out in front of me.
Ian had arranged himself in a similar position ten feet to my right, his apothecary supplies scattered around his towel.
I had no idea what he was up to, but he’d brought a ceramic mixing bowl, a mortar and pestle, pouches full of herbs and powders, and who knew what else.
Brody perched on a nearby rock, an adoring smile on his face as he watched Ian work.
I pushed my hair out of my face, then closed my eyes and hummed softly, twirling my etching needle between my fingers.
There was the Moon’s magic, swirling brightly alongside the beast soul within me.
In my mind, I dipped my fingers into the current and prepared to channel that power into blessing my blades to kill wraiths.
Soft footsteps padded though the sand behind me. A gentle breeze caressed my face, and I cracked an eye open to find Aiden laying his own towel down next to mine.
He grinned, the neon turquoise that ringed his irises flashing briefly before his beast faded away. He sat down on the towel and set his saber in the sand in front of him. “Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” I replied dumbly. Aiden wore dark joggers and a white long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, which meant I was going to have to exert extra effort not to be distracted by his veiny, corded forearms while I worked. “What are you doing?”
“Joining you, if that’s okay? I took over the blessing of our quad’s blades a few months ago.”
Heath and Wyatt arrived next, barefoot, carving their way through the sand with much less stealth than Aiden’s feline prowling.
Heath produced his own saber and laid it next to Aiden’s, and then he pulled three different daggers from his backpack and set them down as well.
Elijah’s blades, though Elijah himself was conspicuously absent.
Wyatt spun his big battle-ax like a baton and ran his hot green gaze up and down my body. He was wearing nothing but tight swim trunks, his pale skin iridescent beneath those tattoos, the moonlight caressing his body. Our celestial goddess was sure proud of her handiwork.
Or she was torturing me. I was subverting her will by refusing my Fated, after all, so I wouldn’t put it past her.
“Hey, Wildcat,” he purred. “I’m disappointed you didn’t use this extra beach time to wear your sexy little bikini.”
I squinted at him. “How are you all out after lights out? Did you get permission from Ward too?”
Wyatt chuckled. “I prefer to ask for forgiveness instead. It’ll be fine, baby. Dad knows Aiden’s doing this for us now.”
Aiden had an etching needle pinched between his long fingers that looked suspiciously like an exact copy of mine, and he was laying Elijah’s daggers out in meticulous order. “I grew more confident after we successfully used my saber to kill the L4s that breached the school walls,” he said softly.
Guilt shone in his eyes, and my stomach soured at the reminder of that horrible night.
I let it pass. After a moment, I held out my hand to Wyatt. “Let me do yours, since Aiden has five already.”
He stopped twirling his ax, and his sexy smile softened into something so adoring that it made my chest ache. He gingerly laid his ax next to me, its blade nestled in the sand next to my swords. “Thank you, Wildcat. I’d be honored to carry a weapon with your blessing.”
“Can you four pipe down?” Ian said drolly. He’d put gloves on and was stirring something in his bowl in a slow, careful circle. “Some of us are trying to work magic out here.”
“Sorry,” Heath replied, and he actually sounded contrite. “We’ll let Avery and Aiden get started.”
Aiden laughed softly, and then he pulled something from his wrist and handed it to me. “Here, sweetheart.”
I took it from him. It was a hair tie—a sturdy purple band like the ones I used to pull my hair back.
“Not that you aren’t fucking gorgeous with your hair down,” he said, his turquoise rings sparking behind his glasses, “but blessing four blades is tough, and I know you like your hair out of your face when you’re working.”
He was right, but I’d wandered out of my cabin without my usual ponytail or braid because my hair was damp from the shower, and I was letting it air dry.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and tied my hair back. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He looked so pleased. “You’re welcome. Now show me why you’re the best Runes student I’ve had in my short teaching career.”
My beast preened, as if she had anything to do with my ability to work a secondary affinity.
I mentally swatted her nose and returned to the potent magical current flowing through my body before I did something rash, such as rub myself all over Aiden like the oversized cat I harbored in my soul wanted to.
I let the Moon’s gift suffuse me, and then I went to work, etching over the runes on each blade and whispering my prayer.
Aiden worked quietly next to me. His smooth, deep voice was as relaxing as the gentle break of the water against the sandy shore.
The feel of our magics mingled in the air between us.
The harmony struck me, much more so than when we’d blessed blades together at school, back before everything went to shit.
It was as if the Moon had deemed those parts of us as compatible as our beasts.
Figures, I thought at the beautiful yellow orb in the sky. You really are torturing me.
Heath and Wyatt sat quietly nearby and watched. Wyatt wore a look of quiet wonder, and starbursts sparked in Heath’s gaze, his wolf’s sturdy presence a possessive hand on the back of my neck.
As I finished up the last rune on Wyatt’s ax—inverted Lifeforce, just as it was on my blades, because Aiden had copied my preferred sequence exactly in the original etching of Wyatt’s ax—Elijah came strolling down the beach.
Unlike the rest of us, who were in some form of training clothes or a swimsuit, Elijah wore tight ripped jeans and one of his linen shirts, buttoned only about as high as the bottom of his sternum, the tails of the shirt fluttering in the breeze.
He had a plastic bottle in one hand and a popsicle in the other.
As he neared, he took an obscene lick of the popsicle with his long tongue, locking eyes with me as he did.
It took everything I had not to squirm on my towel.
“Here you are, Dove,” he said, holding out the bottle. It was blue Gatorade, which I drank at nearly every meal since coming to camp. “I had to snoop through several of the cafeteria fridges to find a cold one.”
“Oh, um.” It occurred to me that I was indeed very thirsty. I was used to blessing two blades, not four, not to mention Wyatt’s was enormous and had taken some extra juice. I took the drink from him, twisted the top off, and took a big gulp. “Thank you, Elijah.”
“Anytime, my love.”
I’d given up on trying to get him to stop calling me that. At least the words felt less like a hot poker jammed through my ribs than they once did. Lately, they hit gentler, more like the icy caress of the basilisk.