Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Beauty and cruelty often go hand in hand.
At least that’s the way it seems to go.
The woman walking toward us with the grace of a hunter is stunning beyond mere words. But not in the quiet, subtle way. Not in the beauty that grows on you over time. No, she’s beautiful in the way that screams for you to acknowledge it. To bow down and obey. The kind that causes men to go to war.
But the malevolence is in the eyes.
They never lie.
There’s a lingering brutality among hers. The crimson-colored orbs sweep over us, taking in the scene before her. A half-frozen woman hugging a tree for support and a perpetually stoic Noctryn in full battle gear.
She stops a few feet away, her red dress flowing around her sinuous form. The deep color is a stark contrast to the straight white hair falling to her waist. Her full lips pull into a saccharin grin as she looks from Kingston to me and back again.
“Hello, King,” she says in a velvety voice.
He dips his head. “Constance.” His body is rigid, and shadows hover along his fingers.
With raised eyebrows, I look back and forth between the two. They clearly know each other. I just haven’t figured out on what terms.
Her eyes remain on Kingston as she moves toward him, slowly circling his much larger frame. She reaches out and runs her fingers down the length of his arm.
My fingers curl slightly at my sides.
“It’s been a while,” she says, stopping in front of him.
He lowers his head to look directly at her. “It has,” he replies in a flat voice.
“One would think you haven’t missed me,” she comments, a lethal edge to her tone. Her crimson eyes are locked on his face.
I snort under my breath.
Kingston raises his eyes to look directly at me, a warning lingering in the amber depths. He turns his attention back to the woman in front of him. “What are you doing so far east?” he asks, his dark voice surrounding us in the quiet forest.
“Foraging. Why do you ask?” she taunts, moving her hand to his armored chest.
His dark eyes follow the movement before his gloved hand captures hers. His glare is sharp and fixed. “What do you want, Constance?”
“Were you going to fuck her?” she asks bluntly.
I bristle behind her. I knew from the moment I saw her that she was trouble, but now she’s just pissing me off.
Kingston casually dismisses her. “That’s none of your business.”
“So you’re done with me, and you’ve moved on to—” she begins, turning and roaming her eyes over me. Eyes that clearly want to hurt me. “Lesser quality.”
I’m about to show her exactly what kind of quality I am.
I push off the tree, but before I even take one step forward, a dark voice echoes through my skull.
Do not fucking move from that spot.
I whip my eyes toward Kingston. But his eyes remain on the woman who’s now looking up at him. Did he just telepathically order me around?
Okay then. Let’s have a conversation, asshole.
Stay out of my head!
Also, how about you wrap this little reunion up? I’m a freakin’ icicle over here!
A muscle jumps in the corner of his jaw.
Working on it.
“We agreed it was casual,” he says tightly.
“Ah, we did.” She inclines her head in mock agreement. “Pity.”
“We were also just leaving.” His hands flex at his sides, betraying both unease and agitation.
She gives him a smile with too many teeth to be considered warm. It’s more like a challenge. “Were you now?”
Can you just tell this bitch to skedaddle?
Be the asshole I know you’re capable of being. The one you save just for me.
I’m going to be frozen to this tree if we stay much longer.
You don’t tell a witch to skedaddle.
Oh shit.
Yes. Oh shit is correct.
He keeps his eyes on her, but I can see the tension in his stance.
His shoulders are still, and his posture is calm, but it’s there.
It’s in the tightness of his jaw, the way his fingers clench tightly at his sides, and his breath coming out too measured.
The kind of stillness that occurs when someone is holding back their demons.
A witch.
Apparently, there are actual witches in the Witchwoods. I knew something was off about her. Wait until I tell Ambrose.
Kingston’s eyes cut toward me, narrowed in a silent warning.
I shrug.
I’m too cold to raise my arm and give him the finger.
“We’ll be on our way now,” he says in a tone that clearly shows the conversation is done. He walks over to me and grabs my hand. Wisps of onyx shadows follow in his wake. He’s pretty brave turning his back on the woman whose eyes are currently promising pain.
“King,” she calls in a smooth voice.
He stops walking, his back still toward her. “Should your bed ever get lonely again, you know where to find me.”
Without answering her, he reaches down and grabs his helmet, then proceeds to pull us through the woods, back toward the academy.
I scoff.
Seriously, Adair? With a witch?
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Jealous?” he asks, a sexual undertone lacing his words.
“Ugh, clearly not,” I remind him, staring at my hand gripped in his. “Here against my will, remember?”
“You seemed willing enough back in the clearing.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. “You are out of your mind. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“You’re in denial. Has anyone ever told you that?”
I stop walking, pull my hand from his, and cross my arms. “Explain.”
He fully faces me. “You’re not what you thought you were, yet you refuse to accept what you can be.
You view this world in black and white when it’s so much more than that.
” His lip curls. “Perhaps you should pull your head out of the sand, actually start trying in your dark studies and stop focusing so much on a man who clearly has no clue what he wants.”
His words sting. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Caderyn, if there’s one thing I understand, it’s this.
It’s okay not to fit inside the mold that was created for you.
You’re entitled to be exactly what you were made to be,” he states, his words coming out direct and unapologetic.
“Don’t let anyone steal that from you. Not even yourself.
” His eyes hold me rooted to the spot. The gold is diminishing, and the black ring seems larger.
He is a walking enigma. Cold and detached, but sees things others choose not to. He’s dark in the most delicious ways—dark hair, dark eyes, and dark tendencies. But he’s also the only one who shines a light on me and pushes me to accept all aspects of myself. Even the uglier ones.
He never judges me for not being perfect, just for trying to be.
“I do accept what I am. What I can be. It’s just at the moment it seems that the only thing I am good at is not being good at anything.”
“False.” He shakes his head at me. “Low confidence isn’t a good look on you.”
Frustration bubbles below my skin. “You can’t just say something and make it so. Maybe this isn’t what I was meant to do. Maybe I’m needed elsewhere.”
“You’re needed here. The sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be. No one is going to do it for you. There is no hand-holding in this academy.” His fingers flex over the helmet in his hand.
“I know that,” I counter. “I just don’t know what I need to do to manifest. I’m a Liminal,” I remind him. “I have no instruction manual on the steps needed to be taken. But thank you for reminding me I’m on my own,” I seethe, turning on my heel, the blanket snapping as I walk away.
Kingston’s fingers close over my wrist, stopping me mid-stride. “We are born alone, and we die alone. We’re all on our own. It’s not just you, Heathen.”
I’m feeling irritable and annoyed at the fact that he’s making sense. Reckless and defiant enough to push him. “Technically, I’m not alone. I have Ambrose in my corner and hopefully sooner rather than later, in my bed.”
His eyes meet mine, and a chill sweeps through the air.
His sharp jaw ticks, and his canines flash.
I can bite, too. “And we all know where you can go if yours gets too cold.” I cross my arms and raise a brow.
“Where do you think I’ll be tonight?”
I want to punch him right in the face, and I’m not sure what bothers me more. What he said, or the fact that I want to hit him because of it.
The rest of the walk back is in silence. I feel Kingston watching me out of the corner of his eye. I think he’s trying to determine whether he should just carry me the rest of the way to speed the journey up, but he knows that it’ll probably irritate me more.
The moment our feet step onto the training field, I push past him. Makon and the three Noctryns from earlier swivel their heads in our direction. Makon’s face breaks out in a wide grin. The bastards never even joined the hunt. It was a scare tactic. An efficient one, though, I’ll give him that.
“Looks like there won’t be a training break for you,” Makon hollers between his hands.
I pull the damp blanket tighter around my shoulders and ignore him.
We cross the field, our path back to the academy bringing us closer to them. “That didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” one of them says. His helmet masks his identity. He reaches out and touches the soggy blanket resting around my rigid frame. “Geeze King, what’d you do? Try to drown her?”
“She decided a swim was in order,” he answers dryly.
“Does she know how to swim?” one of the other helmeted men asks.
I’m pretty sure I recognize the second speaker as Koa, but at this point, I don’t care who they are. They’re all my enemies.
“A-assholes,” I mutter under my breath, shivering.
Kingston grabs my elbow and starts pulling me toward the academy. I’m so exhausted, I just let him.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?” an angry voice thunders across the field. I turn my head to find Ambrose stalking our way.
His face is a mask of fury.
I close my eyes and exhale. He’s here. Everything will be okay.
His shoulders are rigid, and both nostrils are flaring. His large strides eat up the space between us in no time. The second he reaches me, he grips both shoulders and lets his eyes run over my frozen body. A tendon in his neck stands out from suppressed anger.
Without warning, he turns and punches Kingston right in the jaw.
Kingston’s head whips to the side. My eyes widen, going back and forth between the two. A fight between two heavyweights. This will end in death. There isn’t another plausible conclusion.
“Did you do this?” Ambrose grinds out through clenched teeth, pointing at my frozen form.
Kingston uses the back of his forearm to wipe the blood from his already split lip. “That was your one free hit, Ballard,” he says in a low tone.
Ambrose steps up to Kingston, his eyes hard. Chest to chest, they stare at each other with pure hatred. “You leave her out of this. We can settle our score whenever you’re ready,” Ambrose snarls.
Kingston’s lips draw tight, pulling into a sneer. “Are you so eager to die, Captain?”
Ambrose laughs, low and mirthless. The Noctryns surrounding us step back, giving the two men a wide berth. They’d never insult their major by interfering. Kingston stares at Ambrose with a gaze so cold it could give frostbite.
Speaking of frostbite, I’m pretty sure I might have it.
I try to pull my blanket tighter around me, but my fingers fumble.
They’re clumsy and won’t cooperate. I blink my eyes slowly, trying to focus on what’s about to unfold, but my eyes are heavy.
I’m struggling to keep them open. I can feel my body sway slightly, and black dots dance along my vision.
“You always want what isn’t yours to have,” Ambrose taunts. “This is no different.”
Kingston flashes his canines. “Rich, coming from you of all people,” he growls.
I blink my eyes rapidly, trying to clear my vision and keep up with the insults being thrown back and forth. Shit’s about to go down. I try to focus, but my knees lock up right as Kingston steps up to Ambrose. I reach out to stop him.
I see Ambrose whip his head toward me, his brows pulled down in concern.
Then I collapse.