With an awkward nod, Merrin gestures Magda over. She nods back just as awkwardly and steps forward, her lean frame towering over him as she unravels a long strip of parchment that spills toward the ground.
“Michelle Albridges,” she calls out, her silver tooth flashing in the midday light.
“Here,” a fellow red-headed female nearby responds.
“Lee Axton.”
“Here.”
Prick.
As each recruit answers, Magda marks them off with quick, precise strokes. My name comes up quickly, and then I wait for Ezzy’s next—but when Magda calls it, she only glances toward the Food Tent and ticks it off herself. After that, I’m left sitting there, waiting for the remaining two hundred or so names to be called with nothing else to hold onto, so my focus drifts—and it doesn’t take long before it finds Talen.
His head is angled toward Lucien, listening as he talks. Whatever he’s saying, Talen doesn’t seem pleased to hear it—his brows are drawn low and his arms are folded across his chest while his fingers keep his talisman rolling in a slow, restless spin.
God, why does he look hotter when he’s pissed?
The rhythm beneath my ribs starts to pick up, climbing for my throat as I take him in, and before I can stop it, my mind slips back to the dream.
Not Reya.
Him.
The hunger and restraint in his eyes as he watched my body arch with pleasure. The way the fabric of his trousers pulled taut as he got harder and harder, and how desperate I was to have him push off the wall, to storm over and take me then and there.
The image sends a sharp pulse of need racing right through me, licking up my legs and forcing me to adjust in my seat. Digging my nails into the edge of the wooden chair, I try to steady myself.
I know why I’m keeping my distance, some twisted self-inflicted punishment, but still...
At the front, Lucien keeps chewing Talen’s ear off, and I catch Talen rolling his eyes in response, his lips pulling thin—bored or frustrated, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter. All I can think about is how much I want that mouth at my neck, those hands sliding under me, lifting up, pulling me in?—
Talen’s expression shifts as my next thought lands. He keeps his attention fixed on Lucien but he alters his weight, slipping his hands into his pockets as if he’s adjusting something tight.
Fuck. All the things those beautiful hands could do?—
“Are you sending me those emotions to torture me?”Talen’s voice comes out strained, curling at my ear—and my thighs lock together before I can stop them.“Or are you suggesting something?”
Heat floods my cheeks and I snap my head down, fixing my focus on the floor, on my boots, the dirt, anything but him.
I didn’t even mean to, I wasn’t even trying?—
The Threadfield, how did I forget that? Oh god, it’s like the Rec Hall all over again, when I snapped that pencil and now he knows, not just about the dream—but that I’m fantasising about it.
This time, the blood doesn’t drain from my face, so for the rest of the briefing I keep my head down, too afraid to even risk looking up, my fingers digging into the chair as, between announcements about patrol assignments and evacuation updates, I mentally catalogue all the ways I’m going to bloody kill Reya.
“That is all,” Merrin claps his hands once. “We will meet again next month, after the Blood Moon Ceremony. Good luck to all those who are entering. Though the ceremony is short it is also unforgiving,and we are forever in debt to your bravery and courage.” His gaze moves over the room, and beside me Neeve’s fingers twist in her braid, tugging at it without realising. “Now, back to your duties.”
Benches and chairs creak as everyone stands at once, pushing toward the exits while conversation erupts around us, loud and fast.
Merrin turns and leaves the tent with Magda, things between them still appear tense and awkward, but my attention drifts to the front, catching flashes of white uniform between the shifting bodies as Talen starts moving this way.
Sound pulls away at the edges, the whole tent thinning until there’s only him, the space between us, and the decision I have to make before he reaches me.
If I bolt, he’ll know I’m avoiding him, and then he’ll start asking why. But still, if I stay here, I’ll have to face him. Explain why I haven't opened the Letter-threader all month. Explain why I was sending himthosefeelings.
Through the shuffle of the crowd, Talen continues to move, and with every step closer the space around my lungs shrinks, turning my breathing heavier and harder to steady. Then, to my side, I catch Reya slipping out.
Hell, she started this—she can damn well answer for it.
