Chapter 22
Rider
Reef was a fucking idiot.
My horse shifted underneath me, nervous around all the blood and dead shadow hounds scattered across the road.
I tightened my grip on the reins as my wolf heaved inside me, furious and desperate to tear something apart.
Moments ago, Slate had run into my office saying Reef had taken his novices beyond the Tower’s protective wards, and I’d instantly thought he was wrong. Nobody was that stupid.
But Slate wasn’t a liar, and Grefin and Payne had already reported that Reef wasn’t doing his duty with regards to Sawyer, assigning him all the cleaning duties while mentoring Garridan, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that Reef thought an outing with novices who hadn’t even completed two rotations was a good idea.
The only saving grace was that Payne had gone with them. And without a doubt Payne hadn’t gone along out of the goodness of his heart. He’d gone because he cared about the boy and knew Reef was a fucking idiot.
I let my gaze drift over the mess of Reef’s reckless decision.
The donkey that had been pulling the wagon was dead, its throat ripped out, and blood pooled around its body, soaking into the bricked road.
At the back of the wagon, a dozen dead shadow hounds lay scattered across the ground, and Payne and Reef stood with their swords drawn, sweat and grime streaking their faces.
In the back of the wagon, Garridan knelt, pale and wide-eyed, his hands pressed against the leg of our usual cleaning spirits merchant, Iztal, who gasped and panted, his face gray with blood loss, while Sawyer knelt in the middle of the wagon, squeezed between the barrels, his head hanging down making it impossible to tell if he was injured or not.
I could have lost two novices today. Before they’d even become guardsmen.
My wolf snarled and churned inside me.
“Get the wagon to the Tower,” I barked.
Slate and Grefin unhitched the dead donkey, hauled it off the road, and hitched one of their horses to the wagon instead.
I jerked my chin at the back of the wagon. “Reef. Get in and heal the merchant.”
Reef frowned at me and I glared at him. His eyes widened and he scrambled up, squeezing into what little space was available between Iztal, Garridan, and the barrels.
There wasn’t enough room in the back for Payne with everyone else and the barrels crammed in there, so he strode to the front of the wagon and climbed onto the bench next to Grefin.
The human guardsman gave Payne a tight nod and a knowing look, a wordless understanding passing between them.
I bit back a growl. Grefin worked well with Kit, Payne, and Lewin.
The silent communication between the two of them proved he was a perfect match for their team, and I’d been hoping he’d enter the competition for an elite position so I could promote him.
But Grefin had been overly cautious when he’d first joined the Guard, and without a doubt, the shadow bear attack had made him revert to his old ways.
Which meant I was going to have to find someone else to put Kit’s team back together.
We hurried back to the Tower, drawing as close to the infirmary doors as possible.
Reef and Slate helped Iztal out of the wagon and into the infirmary. Garridan still sat in the wagon, staring at his bloody hands like he’d never seen blood before, which I knew wasn’t true because Payne had reported that Reef had let Garridan assist with basic healing during his infirmary shift.
Sawyer climbed out the front, his shoulders hunched forward like he was trying to make himself smaller.
My chest tightened at his posture. It was too much like how he’d looked when he’d first arrived in the Gray. Too much like a wide-eyed, red-haired beauty I knew in the Garden.
And now that I knew Sawyer’s behavior came from getting beaten, it was obvious he was afraid of me and thought he was going to get punished for Reef’s mistake.
The growl I’d managed to swallow back earlier strained against my throat.
I didn’t want the boy afraid of me. I didn’t want him afraid of anyone. But I’d fucked up for punishing him for defending himself, and with his history, he assumed all blame for all things would fall to him.
The growl slipped free, making Sawyer flinch, and I wrenched my attention away from him.
The only way he’d stop being afraid was for me to prove he could trust me, and building trust took time.
I needed to be goddess-damned patient.
Which, as an animal shifter, wasn’t one of my strong traits.
My gaze landed on the barrels still crowded in the wagon.
Focus on command, making sure the things that were supposed to happen happened. That was what I was good at. Others, like Talon and Quill, could deal with the emotional shit.
So. What needed to happen right now? Someone needed to get the barrels out of the wagon, and someone needed to look after the novices.
For now, the barrels could wait until the afternoon shift came on duty.
Given Garridan’s current state, he’d probably drop his side of the barrel, and Sawyer was too small to help lift them.
“Everyone. In the infirmary,” I barked.
Sawyer flinched again, then squared his shoulders as if reminding himself he could stand his ground now when he couldn’t before. He hurried through the infirmary doors, while Garridan continued to stare at his hands.
With a sigh, Grefin grabbed the novice’s arm, and gently urged him to hop out of the wagon and go inside. The novice moved like a sleepwalker, his body functioning but his mind somewhere else, and the need to fight, tear, and maim someone surged up inside me.
I needed to hunt tonight. I had to. It was supposed to be my turn guarding Sage, but I wasn’t going to be able to sit there struggling with pleasantries… or even just sit there and glare at West after she’d retreated to her room since West was worse with pleasantries than I was.
No, if I saw her tonight, I’d grab her and demand to know where she was in the human realm, which humans were keeping her as a slave, and who I needed to kill to avenge her.
But that would just terrify her. She was keeping her situation a secret so she could protect herself and a human boy, and if I couldn’t prove to her that she could trust me, she wouldn’t risk telling me anything.
I stormed inside the infirmary with Payne right behind me.
Iztal lay unconscious on the first of the three tables in the center of the room, and Reef stood beside him, his eyes closed and both hands pressed against the man’s torn flesh.
To his left, Slate had pulled over one of the rolling tables and opened a stitching kit.
“All right,” Reef said as he opened his eyes and held out his hand for Slate to hand him a threaded needle.
“Slate can sew him up,” I said, my voice gruff and dark with my anger and frustration. “I want you to check the novices.”
Reef huffed but headed to the pump and basin at the back of the room to wash the blood from his hands.
“I’m sure we’d know if they were injured,” he said under his breath, low enough that only me with my enhanced wolf’s hearing could hear him.
He went to Garridan first, who sat in one of the two chairs by the infirmary door, still looking stunned. I was starting to worry that he’d taken a blow to the head, but the only blood on him was on his hands, his jerkin, and soaked into the knees of his pants.
The novice continued to stare at nothing as Reef placed a hand against his neck, closed his eyes, and checked his medical condition.
“He’s fine,” Reef said with a frown as he captured Garridan’s cheeks between his palms and forced him to make eye contact. “Aren’t you?”
Garridan blinked slowly.
“Guardsman,” Reef said, his tone softening and surprising me.
As much as Reef was a healer, he was often brusque and abrupt. He dealt with the body, not the mind or the soul, and didn’t care to learn about anything else.
Garridan blinked again and swallowed, some of the shock melting from his expression. He wasn’t perfect — it would take a while for him to overcome the terror of his first battle with shadow monsters — but he was better than a moment ago.
“Now Sawyer.”
Sawyer jerked at the sound of his name, his eyes widening. “I-I’m fine.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Really.” He held out his arms showing me his clothes. They were bloody but I couldn’t see any tears on them. “Not a scratch.”
He wasn’t holding himself as if he were injured, either.
Except it seemed strange that he wouldn’t want Reef to check. Did he think Reef’s magic hurt? It couldn’t be because he didn’t want to waste Reef’s time since it only took a moment for him to check someone’s condition.
No, the boy was jumpy and smart. He knew Reef shouldn’t have taken them beyond the Tower’s wards, and now he didn’t trust Reef…
if he ever had to begin with. Very few humans knew how fae magic worked, and for all I knew, Sawyer thought Reef could learn about his magic and use that knowledge to make his life in the Black Tower more difficult than it already was.
And there wasn’t anything I could do about that right now.
“Fine.”
Reef raised his eyebrows at me, his surprise clear that I hadn’t pushed Sawyer to accept being tested.
I glared back at the healer and he backed off, smart enough to know when not to press the situation, but clearly not smart enough to know he shouldn’t have made this whole mess in the first place.
And that needed to be addressed. Now.
My wolf heaved inside me, and the backs of my hands tingled, the precursor to sprouting fur.
“Grefin,” I barked, making Sawyer flinch again. “Take Garridan to the baths to clean up. Payne, take Sawyer to his room to change his clothes.”
Sawyer opened his mouth as if he were going to argue with me, probably about not needing an escort to the other side of the Tower, but his gaze jumped from me to Reef and back again. His mouth snapped shut, a flickering of knowing flashing through his expression and he turned to leave.
Yep. Smart.
He figured out Reef and I were going to have a conversation, and it would be better if he wasn’t present.
And for some goddess-damned reason all of the other novices and most of my guardsmen couldn’t figure out the kind of asset he was going to be once he actually became a man.
Payne gave me a tight nod, having seen what I’d just seen in the boy, and followed him out.
“Come on,” Grefin said, taking Garridan by the arm and leading him out as well.
The infirmary door swung shut, and I turned on Reef, my wolf surging forward, straining to break my control.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I snarled. “They’re in their second rotation. They’re not ready to go beyond the wards. And I didn’t give you permission to take them.”
“I was thinking we’re short-handed,” Reef said with a huff, his attention back to Slate stitching up Iztal’s wound. “Someone needed to escort the cleaning spirits from the ring.”
This time fur did sprout from the back of my hands. “The team assigned to that area was going to swing by and pick him up.”
“Then where were they?”
Which was the big question.
Vyell and Jalnar had been on the morning sweep in the area. They’d arrived to the fight at the same time Grefin, Slate, and I had, which meant they would have been late meeting Iztal at the ring.
I was going to have a conversation with them as well to find out what happened, but regardless, Reef shouldn’t have done what he did.
Of course, the question that really bothered me was would the shadow hounds have attacked if Sawyer hadn’t been there?
It was uncommon for shadows to attack in the day, especially so close to the Black Tower, but not unheard of.
And yet, this was another shadow attack the boy had been a part of.
“Besides, it worked out,” Reef said. “I’m impressed with the runt.”
I snarled, jerking his attention back to me. My fingernails extended into claws and fur rolled from the backs of my hands up my forearms.
“I meant Sawyer. Sawyer,” Reef rushed to say, his gaze locking on my hands.
“The boy did well. Garridan was useless. He completely froze up.” He turned his attention back to Slate and Iztal and hummed in thought.
“But Sawyer fought off a hound, got Garridan and Iztal into the wagon, did basic field medicine, then fought off another hound.”
My canines sharpened and the bones in my face stretched, on the verge of breaking and shifting into a snout.
He better not have taken Sawyer out there on purpose to test him. That was my job. If he wanted to know how well the boy handled himself in a fight he should have asked me, Talon, or Quill, not taken it into his own hands.
What the hell was wrong with my men?
Was I not commanding enough?
I didn’t want to change how I led the Black Guard, but I’d have to if my men kept behaving like idiots.
“He hasn’t complained once about cleaning duty this rotation either,” Reef added, his posture becoming even more relaxed, clearly having forgotten how close my wolf was to making a violent appearance.
“You endangered two novices,” I growled, grabbing Reef’s shoulder and wrenching him back to face me. “And you haven’t been training Sawyer like you’re supposed to.”
“I couldn’t trust him,” Reef stammered.
“That’s not for you to decide.” Red washed across my vision, and I strained to hold back my wolf.
I couldn’t tear into him like my wolf wanted. Hell, I couldn’t even punish him like a regular guardsman. He was a healer. Even if he’d been a guardsman before, he wasn’t one now, and I couldn’t put him on a shit duty or restrict his lieu time.
I couldn’t even afford to suspend him because we didn’t have enough healers in the first place. Too few were willing to work for the Black Guard.
“You took training into your own hands, and you endangered two novices and a human merchant who might decide not to do business with us again,” I snarled. “I’m docking you four rotations of pay.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Be happy that’s all I’m doing,” my wolf growled, my voice barely recognizable as fae.
Reef jerked back, panic flooding his expression. “R-Right. Of course, Rider.”
My wolf’s growl deepened.
“Lord Commander,” Reef corrected. “The boy will be afforded the same considerations as every guardsman.”
“Good.”
Now I just needed everyone else to do the same.