MAX
The emergency drill ripped through the barracks at pre-dawn, and every cadet hit the floor and dressed at combat speed. I was still dazed from last night. My body remembered things my brain was trying to bury, and the ghost of Nikolai’s mouth on my thigh made it hard to lace my boots with steady hands.
Light hadn’t cracked the sky yet. I ran after the other first-years, falling into the stream of bodies flooding through the barracks doors. Thane barked orders, directing squads into formation as we poured into the courtyard.
I caught fragments between cadets near the front of the pack. Senior cadets—the ones plugged into the base’s rumor network—traded quick, clipped words.
“The heirs are back.”
“All three?”
“Affirmative. Arrived an hour ago.”
My chest tightened.
The courtyard was already filling with cadets in formation. First-years assembled by company in tight ranks, twelve abreast, standing at parade rest. Second-years held the left flank. Officers and senior NCOs formed a rigid line at the front, facing the assembled battalion. I counted over two thousand cadets arranging themselves into a grid of gray and dark silver under the pre-dawn sky.
I fought to shove last night out of my head as I searched for my position—sixth rank, fourth file. The formation was tight. Shoulders nearly touching. I couldn’t afford to be a pleasure-drunk zombie right now. Not with who stood facing the assembly.
Drakken.
His uniform didn’t have a single crease, as if the fabric feared him too. He stood at the center of the command line with the stillness of a man who didn’t need to move to dominate a space—legs braced, hands clasped behind his back. His dark hair was military-short. His shoulders blocked out the sky behind him. Power rolled off him in waves that pressed against the formation, and every cadet stood so rigid they might have been nailed to the flagstones.
His cold gray gaze found me before I’d even reached my position.
I was dashing to fill my spot when his eyes locked on, tracking me through the ranks the way a predator tracks movement in a herd. I turned my head, met his stare. Tried not to flinch.
Surprise flashed in his eyes. Then something raw—a flicker of need so brief it might have been atrick of the pre-dawn light. But I’d spent years reading faces in the dark. I didn’t imagine it.
I understood the shock. I’d changed. Days of real food and sleep had filled me out—healthy, strong, my skin glowing instead of ashen. I barely recognized myself in the mirror. Of course, I’d cinched the chest-bind tighter this morning. Nikolai had provided me with a spare, and I could wash and dry them in his bathing chamber that was exclusively mine to use.
I had no idea what the need in his eyes was for. He didn’t crave my blood like Nikolai. As I settled into my spot, my gaze still on him like every other cadet’s, I held my ground. This was a test of will. Same as last time. I wouldn’t fold under his alpha stare.
The need vanished. Loathing replaced it—aimed at me, or maybe at himself for the slip. As if he’d been caught in his own reaction and despised it.
And damn my height. I stood taller than every cadet in the formation—over two thousand of them. Only Drakken edged me out, and barely.
“Cadet Max!” Drakken barked.
I snapped to attention. Every other cadet was already locked in. I’d been trying to make myself shorter by widening my stance and bending my knees.
“Yes?” I asked, then caught myself. The cadets always shouted their responses. “Yes, sir!”
“Fall out of formation!”
What now? Hadn’t I shouted “yes, sir”? What else did he want? I had nothing to give him. Not even attitude—not in front of the entire battalion.
“Roger that.” I nodded and stepped out of the line.
The cadets nearest me shifted—angling their shoulders away, widening the gap where I’d stood, as if I were contaminated.
“Who the hell do you think you are, Private?” Drakken’s voice carried like a mortar round. The officers flanking the command line fixed me with identical looks of disgust. “You don’t walk to formation. You don’t stroll. And you sure as shit don’t swagger.”
I blinked. “I didn’t swagger, sir. That’s just how I walk. I’ve walked this way since I was a toddler.”
I’d been imitating boys since I could stand upright. I might’ve overdone it over the years, but I couldn’t unlearn two decades of performance.
“You’ve swaggered since you were a toddler?” Drakken sneered.
