Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
ARYELLA
You know, you called me crazy once or twice. You always said it in jest, I think, but we both knew it was true.
I decided a long time ago that if crazy keeps you safe and ensures you get everything you deserve, I’ll be the craziest motherfucker this world has ever seen.
—FROM THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA’S LAST KNOWN LETTERS TO QUEEN ARYELLA I
Every morning after breakfast, the cadets gathered in the main courtyard or training hall to spar. This morning, Elias once again paired me with someone eager to snap my neck. Someone who I’d handily embarrassed during the first test.
Draven Finch.
We were outside, and the heat of the morning sun was a welcome contrast to the chill of spring frost in the air. Finch stood opposite me on the mat, scowling.
“Ready to spar, sea witch?” he taunted.
I snorted. “Did you come up with that nickname on your own?” My attention shifted high and to the right, where Elias observed from a watchtower, leaning casually over the rail as if sticking one of the strongest cadets on me was merely a product of happenstance.
Gravel crunched beneath my feet when I stepped closer to Finch, my voice low.
“Cadets cannot kill other cadets. You know that’s the rule, and you were going to violate it. ”
Finch’s responding laugh made me ill. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” He glanced left at where Alec Gerard, Otis Stoll, and the Sharpe brothers stood watching us spar, like they were waiting for something.
Their presence was beyond unnerving. I suspected they were just waiting for the right moment to retaliate for the way I’d humiliated them outside the fortress the day I arrived.
I reached up to tighten my black hair from a ponytail to a tight bun. “You can try to kill me, Finch. But touch Mina Reed again, and I will be the one that guts you in your sleep. Believe me, I learned that from the best.”
Confusion flashed through his hateful eyes.
The Butcher taught me nearly everything I know , I wanted to say, and I don’t think I’d hesitate with you .
But saying that would get me a one-way trip to the jail cells. Or a grave.
Finch lunged at me. I dodged twice, but he faked me out on the third and landed a strike to my face. I lost my balance just long enough for him to grab me by the collar of my leathers, jerk me toward him, and wrap his arm around my neck.
His arm tightened as he growled, “Yield.” “I don’t yield ,” I hissed back.
“Yield or I will kill you.”
Based on experience, dying was unlikely. Then again, my injuries had killed me in Brinnea. Could I heal from suffocation?
“Killing me isn’t a good idea.” I dug my fingers into his thick, sweaty arm.
“You’re probably right.” Finch’s breath was damp and hot on my ear. “The commander doesn’t like to lose his playthings.”
I strained my eyes to look up at the watchtower. Elias stood there, eyes wide and locked on me. I expected to see at least a smirk, then perhaps a joke with Valda or another soldier as Finch snapped my neck.
But Elias wasn’t smiling. In fact, was that worry I saw?
Finch’s arm pressed tightly against my trachea until darkness crowded the edge of my vision. I had time, but not much, so I reached into the reservoir of all the things I had been taught. His guidance, always at my disposal whether I wanted it or not. What to do when on the brink of death?
You take whatever weapon you have and you stab, beat, slice, or bite the life out of them. You do not hesitate.
Damn him and his relentless way of never letting me give up, even when he wasn’t here. My mouth was less than an inch from the skin of Finch’s forearm. There was only one feasible way out of this without using magic.
Disgusting.
I inhaled through my nose and counted to three before clamping my teeth down on his forearm, until I broke through flesh and the taste of wet, hot copper seeped into my mouth.
Despite the urge to vomit, I bit harder, easing up only when the brutal hold around my neck released.
Finch yelped and shoved me to the ground.
Gravel sliced into my palms, drawing blood, but I would take some cuts over death by Draven Finch any day.
“What the fuck!” Finch gawked at the bloody teeth marks in his arm. “Crazy bitch!”
I pushed off the ground and quickly regained my footing before he could lunge at me. I thought he might, but his blood dripping down my chin might have been a deterrent.
“Captain!” Finch shouted at Valda. “She’s not allowed to use?—”
“—a blade,” Mavic interrupted from behind me. “And she didn’t .”
Finch turned to Valda, eyes wild with fury. “Captain?—”
“Reed’s right.” Valda watched me with surprise. “She used no weapon.”
Chest still heaving, I looked up. Elias’s grip had loosened on the railing, but his skin was pale, his shoulders still tense.
Perhaps not so eager to see me killed, after all.
I used my sleeve to wipe Finch’s blood off my face.
It was an effort not to throw up my middle finger to him, Finch, and Alec Gerard, Otis Stoll, and the Sharpe brothers, who still watched me with predatory eyes from the side of the courtyard.
Finch was dragged to the infirmary by two soldiers while other cadets stared at me in disgust.
I excused myself and ran to the shower hall to rinse off my face and chest, wash out my mouth, and further compose myself.
Engulfed by humid air, I saw that the discoloration from Finch’s hit was already spreading across my jaw.
The bags under my false blue eyes revealed how tired I was.
I brushed a few damp strands of hair off my forehead and took a deep sigh.
Tired and disheveled, I could accept. As long as I stayed alive, strong, and capable.
As long as I kept my eyes fierce and my fists and tongue sharp.
Ella, I need you to live.
I turned away from the mirror the minute I felt my nose burn and eyes water from the memory of his voice. He still did that to me, even when he wasn’t here: cracked me open, squeezed my heart, and sent waves of emotion flooding through my body like he was the very blood I needed to survive.
When I’d been vulnerable long enough, I pushed off the edge of the sink and strode confidently out of the shower hall.
I only made it two steps out of the door before a strong hand wrapped around my forearm.
I gasped and looked up to see Elias’s piercing eyes.
His handsome features were distorted in anger.
Oh, good. He came down from his tower to lord over me some more.
“What the hell was that?” he snapped.
I tried to jerk my arm out of his grip, but he was too strong. “What was what?”
“Just now, with Finch!” he hissed. “Or are you so used to the taste of a man’s blood on your teeth that you’ve already forgotten?”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “That was survival.”
“Why didn’t you just yield , Fera?” His voice rose, angrier than normal and tinged with hysteria. “He could have had your neck snapped within seconds! Are you so fucking stubborn that you’d sacrifice your life before your pride?”
I shrugged. “I’ll die before I yield to a man like that.”
“Even if it’s what’s best for you?”
My defenses rose to attention. “You don’t know what’s best for me.”
He stared at me, nostrils flared, like I was a puzzle he couldn’t piece together. His grip on my arm tightened to near pain while he cornered me against the building across from another cabin. The pathway was narrow, and no one could see us.
It was unnervingly intimate. I hated it.
“Take your hands off of me, Commander,” I ordered calmly.
“Or what?” he taunted. “Will you bite me, too?” His voice sent goose bumps over my collarbone and down my shoulders.
I hated myself for it. Did I miss Gavin so much, was I so starved for touch, that I couldn’t control my body’s reaction to another man?
Or was it the ease with which he switched from menacing to sensual that had me struggling to keep up?
“Careful,” Elias warned. “I might like it.”
“In your dreams.”
Elias leaned forward with his free hand on the wall behind me. Stay calm. But he was far too close, and my body didn’t know what to do.
“You are, actually, in my dreams.” His eyes dropped to my mouth. “And you are infuriating .”
“Good.” I grimaced. “Maybe I’ll be infuriating enough for you to leave me alone.”
“Unlikely.”
His hungry gaze was still on my lips. I refused to look down and reveal that he had any effect on me. Because while his heat, strength, and closeness stirred something in my belly, my heart and mind didn’t like this at all.
I should have looked down, though.
If I had, I would have noticed his mouth closing in on mine.
I wished his lips weren’t soft and hard at the same time. I wished he tasted bad or that I couldn’t taste him at all, but while I regained my bearings, mint and juniper and something undeniably clean swirled in the breaths between us and invaded all my senses.
My body wanted to like it—like him —because gods, he smelled good , and he kissed like he knew exactly what he was doing.
Elias’s palm flattened on the wall beside my head as he pinned me with his hips.
For a moment, Elias Winterton and his perfect mouth kissed me like he owned me.
Until I reared back, shoved him off me with one hand, made a fist with the other, and swiped it across his beautiful face with all my might.
Because I had not asked for this.
An angry grunt tore from my throat as my knuckles lit up with pain. Stress sent my pulse racing. What just happened? Had I let that happen?
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I spat, shoving him away with both hands before retreating. “Back off!” He obeyed and put a respectful distance between us.
A very dominant part of me wanted to shed tears.
I’d only ever kissed one man. I’d only ever wanted to kiss one man.
I felt proud of that. I felt loyal, even if our situation felt impossible and the future was entirely unknown.
Now that feeling of loyalty had just been jeopardized in the span of a few unwilling seconds, and I hadn’t seen it coming.
At least I’d hit Elias so hard that blood trickled down his chin, the sight marring his beautiful face. One good thing had come of it.
He returned one hand to his jaw to rub where I struck him. “Does this mean we’re even?”
A low, crazed laugh rasped out of my chest. I turned away, eager to get the hell away from him.
“Fera!” he called after I took a few steps down the narrow path.
Deep breaths. That’s it.
I heard Gavin’s voice and stilled. The more I reacted, the more Elias knew he affected me.
“What?” I snapped coldly.
“Your cabinmates said you were screaming.” Gravel crunched behind me as Elias closed in.
His steps were slow, like he was trying not to startle me.
“‘Don’t close me in.’ That’s what you were shouting.
” He repeated the words from my dream, confirming I’d said them aloud.
Only the gods knew what else I’d said. “What does that mean?”
Those cold hands snaked out of my memory, around my throat, and squeezed.
“My dreams are none of your business,” I rushed out.
“A dream?” His voice was skeptical, but gentle as he turned to face me. “Sounds like one of your nightmares to me.” My breath hitched when he tucked his finger beneath my chin and lifted it. “Nightmares as memories you can’t recall?”
I shrunk back. His touch felt wrong, it was wrong, but it wasn’t repulsive, either. In a different reality, I could see myself seeking refuge there.
But he was not my refuge.
“I will not tell you again.” My voice chilled. “Do not touch me, Commander Winterton.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am not yours to touch.”
I clenched my teeth in a futile attempt to catch the words before they rolled off my tongue. As Fera, it shouldn’t matter whose I was to touch, but he would find out I was his queen, and I had a feeling he didn’t forget things very easily.
“Well, gods save the lucky asshole that made you his.” He cocked his head at me. “Though if I were him, I wouldn’t be letting you out of my sight.”
“ If he had a choice in the matter, he wouldn’t be ,” Shera growled from far beyond the fortress walls. “ You and I both know he’d be by your side right now if it wouldn’t put you in mortal danger. ”
She was right, and I knew the truth. Knew who I belonged to. Who I had, and would, lay my heart, body, and soul completely bare to if given the chance again, no matter how many times I tried to deny it to myself.
I silently stared daggers into Elias’s back as he walked away, neither confirming nor denying to him that I belonged to any man.
All he needed to know was that I belonged to myself .