The Fae had mostly crafted swords and daggers, but occasionally, they’d branched out into other weaponry. Samara used to make fun of me because I’d always selected an axe for weapons training at Drudonia; even scholars needed to keep their fighting skills honed.
“Trying to make up for your shit aim and slow speed?” she’d drawl while sinking knife after knife into the bullseye without looking.
She didn’t have much room to criticize me though. Samara might have been lethal with projectiles, but she wasn’t much better than me with a sword. That was Cali’s domain.
More often than not, I fought in my wolf form, so weapons weren’t really my thing. Sometimes though, the occasion did call for it, and in those instances, I preferred an axe. They did a lot of damage, and I preferred to hack at something rather than stab.
An axe would have been real fucking useful against the Strigoi earlier.
“Got it!” Kieran announced as he strode back into the room with a book in his hand. “You really should clean your room, Roth. It’s a mess in there.”
“That was Samara’s doing and you know it,” Roth hissed, tossing the axe back onto the table. “She’s staying in your room from now on.”
Kieran winced, and I smirked, well aware of how messy my best friend was.
“What’s the book for?” I set the axe down and held my hand out to Kieran. Before he could pass me the book, Roth snatched it.
“Rynn, take your shirt off,” Roth demanded, flipping through the pages.
“Buy me a drink first,” I grumbled but got to my feet and obediently pulled my tunic off. I wasn’t wearing anything underneath, but neither Kieran nor Draven leered at me. Instead, the latter looked over the still-healing scabs on my stomach.
“How’s your movement?” Draven asked. “Feel any lingering pain or discomfort?”
“No, just tired is all.” It wasn’t a lie. Draven and Kieran had sunk a lot of magic into healing me. Another few hours, and I’d be good as new. Although a nap would be nice.
“I’ll escort you back,” he said.
“That’s not necessary,” I protested. The only Moroi more hated than Samara was Draven. He hadn’t exactly been well-liked when his mother had reigned. Most of the Velesians viewed him as everything that was wrong with the Moroi: spoiled, pompous, and just useless in general.
Draven was none of those things, but he’d played the part well.
Now he was hated because someone, likely the same person spreading rumors about me and Samara, had made it known that Draven was the son of the man who was in charge of the Seelie Fae. That, more than anything, was why we were fairly certain it was Lucian behind the rumors. He’d been close with Velika, Draven’s mother, and had known about Draven’s lineage. We hadn’t kept it a secret that all Moroi had at least some Seelie blood, but only a handful of people had known who Draven’s father was.
“I think it is necessary.” He shrugged.
I looked to Kieran for help, but he just shook his head at me. “You showed up on death’s door, Rynn. Honestly, I have half a mind to keep you here until tomorrow, because we both know you’re not fully healed yet.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Bastian can’t know I left. He’s a nosy bastard and he’ll want to know what I was doing. The Alphas can’t know about any of this.”
“Then accept Draven is going with you,” Kieran replied. His tone was light and conversational, but his expression said I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. And he thought it was adorable that I thought I did.
“Fine,” I relented and glanced at Roth. “But we need to get going. Can we move this along?”
They shoved a chair into the middle of the room and pointed at it. “Sit.”
With a huff, I did as I was told.
Roth was so bossy. Samara probably loved to push their buttons. I wrinkled my nose at the table next to me, realizing my best friend had probably been fucked senseless on it, and every other piece of furniture here for that matter.
Probably more comfortable than the rocky floor of the cavern.
“Next time, we should do this in a bed.”
I swallowed. How would Ryker react when I left the Alpha pack permanently? Would he track me down all the way into Moroi territory? He always seemed to find me.
Did I want him to?
No. I mentally slapped myself. No more bad decisions.
