6. The Tamer of Beasts #2
It doesn’t take long to work out that they don’t pat everyone down. Blessed be the angels for small mercies, I count the recruits who hand over their bags and leave the line, and the ones who are pulled aside to be searched, looking for a pattern.
One in every five are searched.
If I can make sure I’m not the one, I should be able to sneak the journal through.
As we wait, slowly but surely inching forward, a tall male cambion with long brown hair and olive eyes steps into line next to Khali.
Shortly after, he steps out again.
I watch as he does it over and over. Is he drunk? Nervous? I’m not sure what the hulking demon has to be nervous about if that’s the case. He’s built like a warrior; his bottom lip scarred like someone who isn’t a stranger to violence.
“What’s he doing?” I ask Khali eventually, nodding toward the male.
She rolls her eyes, then raises her voice enough for him to hear. “Az, are you getting back in line or just standing there looking pretty?”
Az turns, grinning. “You noticed.” He adjusts his belt with what looks like mock vanity. “And for the record, I’m absolutely getting back in line.”
Khali arches a pierced brow. “Really? You look like someone who’s waiting to be talked out of it.”
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Shitting myself, love.” It’s an odd thing to admit to, but somehow, he doesn’t seem any more of a coward for saying it.
His gaze stays on mine, and he raises an eyebrow.
“I’ve not met a nephilim who looks like you before. Is it true that you are all virgins until the day you marry? Or just those that don’t have red in their hair?”
He lifts a few strands of my hair in his fingers, winks and lets it fall.
My toes curl inside my boots.
“Az,” Khali groans beside me. “You don’t have to answer that,” she tells me. “It’ll only encourage him.”
“Neither.” I say, unsure why I didn’t take Khali’s out and ignore him.
“Is that how you ended up in the academy?”
“By the pit Az, enough,” Khali snaps.
“You know about the academy?” I cut in.
“Well, yeah, obviously. Who doesn’t?” He nods to Khali. “We have some good friends who came from there. Fucking gross place if you ask me.”
“Agreed,” Khali says.
While I frown, the other nephilim bristle and shiver at the mere mention of the facility.
I really need to speak with them alone.
Not only to reassure them that I have a way of getting them out of here, a direct link to getting help from Virtus high ups, but to find out exactly what goes on inside those marble walls. Nothing I’m hearing makes any sense.
While Az asks more inappropriate questions of us, many that could make even the most Unrepentable blush, I can’t shake the feeling of being watched.
My eyes scan the yard.
Several groups of cambion cadets look our way, then they drop their gazes and whisper among themselves, like we are the freaks here.
But that’s not it.
This is more intense, foreboding.
I glance around some more, certain I’m not imagining it or being paranoid.
Then I see him.
The man leaning against the wall, cloaked slightly by shadow from the setting sun as it hits Vulcaris’ outer walls.
His presence is calm, cold, dangerous, and I quickly turn away from it, but his gaze continues to burn into the scars at my back.
I try to ignore it, to pay attention to Az and the other conversations in the line, to how many people are between me and the officers at the desk…
It’s useless.
The air around me grows hotter until breathing feels like swallowing smoke and I give up.
“Who’s that man over there?” I eventually whisper to Khali. “The one leaning against the wall.”
It’s Az who answers, looking genuinely offended. “You don’t know who that is?” he scoffs.
“I wouldn’t ask if I did.”
“That,” Khali says, not even needing to look at the man in question to know exactly who I’m asking about. “Is Overlord Silver Ardentis. Esteemed commander of the Iron Isle. The man who makes hellfire obey.”
Az gives a low whistle. “Allegedly, he once killed a chimera with his bare hands because it sneezed on him.”
“That can’t be true,” I say.
Khali shrugs. “You’re welcome to ask him.”
Az leans closer, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Just don’t look him in the eyes too long when you do. Rumor has it he can see what you fear most.”
I snort, surprising myself. “I doubt that.”
“No, seriously,” Khali mutters. “His name is Silver, Overlord Silver to us. The Iron Flame. Tamer of Beasts.”
Az lists more of his accolades, like men want to be him and women want to be with him.
They might, but I’d already stopped listening when Khali said ‘Tamer of Beasts.’
‘Give her to me and I’ll have the bitch tamed in a day.’
No.
It can’t be.
Thought you didn’t believe in coincidences?
I glance over my shoulder again.
I try not to stare, but it’s impossible not to.
He straightens from where he’d been slouching, and steps out of the shadow. Then he crosses the space between us, unfolds his huge arms, cracks his knuckles, and heads straight for me.
I suck in a breath. The cloak is gone now, but he’s as tall as I remember. Not impossibly so, but the kind of height that makes everyone else seem smaller.
His frame consists of hard lines and precision, built like someone forged him instead of birthed him.