Chapter 32 #2
I bid the twins farewell for the evening and crossed the courtyard toward the same building for the second time today. The dusk-lit sky was still bright, and it wasn’t yet curfew, so cadets were milling about. A few sparring, mostly playfully.
When I reached the small meeting cabin, the door swung open before I could knock, this time revealing Otis Stoll with a scowl on his face.
He was the first guard who’d caught me while on patrol the day I arrived.
Stoll ground his teeth together, saying nothing.
“Look.” I sighed, palms up in surrender. “I never wanted any trouble. I’m on your side.”
His green-eyed glare didn’t falter.
“No hard feelings?”
Still nothing. Tonight was off to a great start.
“Okay.” I motioned past him. “That’s fair. May I please come in, at least?”
Unenthused, he retreated slowly and let me pass. The room was brightly lit and warm enough to make me regret wearing a sweater, with a roaring fire beneath a hearth and tall lanterns in the corners. It was even stuffier than this morning, and the scent of liquor was heavy.
“Fera, welcome.” Elias motioned to a seat on the opposite end of the table. “Please, sit.”
One of the blondes I recognized from the night that I’d stumbled upon his “threesome” sat in his lap. He wore her like an accessory, and she seemed perfectly content with that.
Valda wasn’t my favorite person, so I surprised myself by being disappointed by her absence. Other than the blonde in Elias’s lap, I was the only woman.
And the only spot available was next to the Sharpe brothers.
Lovely.
I already wanted to be back with the twins playing cards or hearing more stories about Caz, Marin, and their families, and what it was like growing up in the Caves, but I took the seat next to a quiet and kind-faced soldier.
His glass rested on his lips while he peered at me with dark eyes that glinted in contrast to his olive skin.
“Drink?” Micah Sharpe offered me a glass of brown liquor from my other side.
“No, thanks.” Mavic’s warnings had put me on guard, and I specifically remembered Gavin’s written instruction to never, under any circumstances, accept drinks from people that I didn’t trust. Especially men in large groups.
I withdrew my canteen of water out of my small bag and set it on the table.
Elias saw and quietly laughed at me while the woman in his lap muttered something to him.
I focused on the others as they went around the table and introduced themselves, per Elias’s command.
I stayed mostly quiet, not out of fear but because listening was one of the best ways to learn.
People showed you who they were if you let them talk enough.
Keeping up with multiple conversations at once in a stuffy room wasn’t easy.
The sound of gold coins on the table as they gambled with cards added to the clamor of rising voices and made it hard to focus as third and fourth rounds of liquor set in.
It was at least an hour before one of them addressed me.
“Why so quiet, Fera?” I could smell the rum on Hendrix Sharpe’s breath as well as I could feel insincerity oozing out of him. “Unlike Stoll, we forgive you for beating us, and we don’t bite.”
“According to Draven Finch, she does,” said Micah. “What do we have to do to earn that treatment?”
“Do you ask all your female peers questions like that?” I challenged them. “Like Valda Hoss?”
Hendrix violently shuddered. “You don’t threaten Val unless you want your cock sliced off in your sleep.”
“I can do just as much damage as she can, if not more. I suggest you hold your tongue.”
Their eyebrows raised. Micah opened his mouth to retort but was distracted by a voice from across the table.
“Heard you set Molochai’s beasts on the young ones this year, Commander,” one of the other men said to Elias.
“They need to know what’s coming,” he answered, his voice solid and unaffected by the blonde’s mouth on his neck. His hooded eyes lingered on me.
“One of Molochai’s beasts? That must have been quite the challenge for a little thing like you.” Micah leaned a little too close.
I forced a smile. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Have you, now?”
I clenched my fists under the table. Should I tell them that I watched the man they feared most snap someone’s neck?
That he single-handedly slaughtered an entire band of Insidions like it was second nature?
Or should I admit that Molochai himself had tied me naked to a tree and invaded my body with his corrupted shadows? This entire gathering felt like a test.
“Maybe I’ll tell you sometime,” I taunted, eyes darting between them. “Maybe I won’t. It depends on how soundly you wish to sleep at night.”
Either my retort was vague enough to dull their interest or my threat didn’t land, because their conversation shifted to someone’s recent visit to Peradine. A few minutes later, they were discussing what they did after hours, and I tried and failed to block them out.
“I had her bucking underneath me by the time we were done,” one of the men laughed from across the table.
“You know what they say about women from certain seaside cities,” said another. “Always eager to warm a man’s bed.”
I grimaced. Was being a degrading idiot a rite of passage here that I hadn’t been made aware of?
I didn’t care much about what people did for pleasure in Peradine, nor did I care for its reputation, but I had every intention of going there for the enchanted tome I discovered in the library. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d need it.
“Enough of that,” Elias warned them. He whispered something in the blonde’s ear that made her smile and giggle.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” she crooned, then slid off his lap. She sneered at me as she passed. I took it as a hopeful sign that the evening was nearing its end. I was getting drowsy.
“As of this morning, we’re down a horse, Commander,” someone mentioned.
He frowned and rubbed at his chin. “What happened?”
“Hendrix’s brown stallion. Infection in its back leg. Abram said he’ll do what he can, but it might be lost.”
An uneasy sensation settled in my stomach. Would they kill it? Put it out of its misery? If I could save Shera from near death, I could heal a horse’s infected leg.
“Let me take a look in the morning,” replied Elias.
“I bet Fera rides like a natural. Don’t you, Fera?” Micah grinned at me. “Maybe you’ll let me take you for a ride?”
I blinked a few times, in shock over what I’d just heard, then bit the inside of my cheek to keep from scowling, or worse. If they tried anything, I’d blast them into a wall, burn their hands, or freeze their balls off.
“Don’t be a disgusting ass, and don’t fool around with your peers during assignments,” Elias muttered in half-hearted annoyance. “You know the rules, Sharpe.”
“And shame on you all for speaking that way with a lady present.” Alec Gerard, two spots down, gave me an unnervingly kind smile. “And about her, no less. I give my apologies on their behalf, Fera. And I regret that you and I haven’t been formally introduced.”
Whether or not Gerard’s kindness was well intended, I returned it with a forced smile of my own. Elias tossed back his drink with an air of annoyance. Now that Alec Gerard paid me attention, he cared?
“I prefer men capable of more than floundering on top of me like a spineless fish,” I remarked, aggravated by Elias and not caring whose egos I damaged. “None of you would even know what to do with me.”
Granted, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, either. My experience in this life was lacking. I had been so desperate to give myself to Gavin in Brinnea, in part because I had no doubt he knew exactly what he was doing with me. I’d trusted him.
The memory of his mouth and hands on me had me clenching my thighs together. Five months later, he still had the same effect on me. But thinking of him took me somewhere safe and warm. I didn’t want that feeling here .
I cleared my throat through the awkward silence and looked at Elias to approve my departure. “It’s been lovely meeting you all, but if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be turning in for the night.”
Elias gave me a firm nod, and I moved fast. I groaned when a long, muscular arm prevented the door from closing.
“Fera.” It was Alec Gerard. “Walk with me?”