Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“You’re right. I’m sorry I let my temper get the better of me. It’s not like me.”
“We’re all feeling it,” Rafe says. “The mate bond is a complicating factor. But it’s not the only thing. We’ve all fought long and hard to get to this point, to put all the pieces in place. We’ve infiltrated every corner we need to. We’re going to succeed. And yelling at the kids isn’t going to do anything to help.”
“Right again,” I say. “I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
CHAPTER 15
Einar
Yesterday was a complete wash. We all ended up going to bed at six in the morning, which resulted in some very poor sleep overnight, but that can’t be helped. It is a new day, and it is time to execute the plan.
Darcy doesn’t want to go to school. I know how she feels. The day I left the academy as a teacher, I felt a lightness I’ve never felt before or since. It was like being let out of prison. I wish I could tell her that, but I don’t want to give her more ammunition to argue against doing as she is told.
The two of us somehow manage to pout over pancakes in mutual silence. Kirin’s butler serves us in polite quiet, which means the only sounds in the room are forks and knives on plates.
“You were lucky Kirin didn’t kick your ass for slapping him like that.” Darcy breaks the silence.
I drop my fork onto my plate in a clattering defeat. She’s not going to let this go. Women don’t. They hold onto things. Little things. Things any man would know don’t matter.
“You should worry less about what I did to Kirin, and more about what I’m going to do to you.”
Her eyes widen. Her mouth falls open.
“What do you mean?”
“You left the academy day before yesterday without permission. You’re going to be dealt with today.”
She narrows her eyes at me, but it’s not as convincing this time. I can smell her arousal. It’s instant. This girl likes to be punished. She likes it when I’m more than stern. She likes it when I’m rough.
“I’m not going, in that case.”
Darcy
He gets up, walks around the table, and grabs me by the back of my shirt, scruffing me up out of the chair like I weigh nothing.
“I’m getting a little tired of having to manhandle you every time you need to do something,” he growls at me. Suddenly, I very much feel the absence of Rafe and Kirin. There’s nobody here to moderate Einar now. Maybe I shouldn’t have mouthed off quite so much. The guy is rough as hell, and he has a temper when he’s pushed. We’ve been doing nothing but pushing him. I pushed him just now, said something I knew would wind him up. Now, hanging in his fist, I’m really not sure why the hell I did that.
“You’re going to the academy, and you’re going to become a model student, and you’re going to be assigned to the palace…”
“And I’m going to kill the king for you?”
“Yes,” he growls. “You’re going to kill for me, just as I tell you to, because you have been raised as a soldier. That is what you are, and it is what I expect you to be. Understand?” He gives me a little shake.
His words are stern, but it’s the way that he says them that gets my attention and twists my gut. I’m going to kill for him? The memory of the dead guard flashes through my brain and reminds me how I felt when this all started. I’m not a killer. I’m not cut out for the primary function the academy trains us for, and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s one of the reasons why I started skipping out in the first place, along with the fact that most people spend a few years in the academy, and I have spent my entire conscious life there. What I don’t yet know, they can’t teach me.
I say none of this to the man holding me up like a kitten. He clearly doesn’t care what I think, or what I want. He’s just made it abundantly clear that I am a means to an end for him, and he expects me to be the perfect little soldier everybody else at the academy is smart enough to know I will never be.
“Yeah,” I say. “I understand.”
“Good.” He puts me back down on my feet. “There’s a uniform up in the room that’s going to be yours. One across from mine. Go put it on.”
“I haven’t worn a uniform for years. They stopped bothering to try to make me wear one.”
“You’re going to start again.”
I open my mouth to complain, but I decide against it.
We drive to the academy in a car. I sit in the passenger seat and I wear my seatbelt and breathe in strained silence that I know wouldn’t exist if we had the others here.