I forced my food down my throat, my appetite vanishing. Speaking to Lana had left me frustrated, but speaking with Moric made me feel… disgusted.
I pushed away from the table. “I’m tired,” I told him, “I’m going to head back to my room.”
He nodded, staring blankly at his food. Just as he had been before I had entered the mess hall.
Rayna looked up at me as I passed. “I heard about what happened during your challenge.”
I just stared at her, waiting for her to continue.
“Losing your teammate sucks. But they’re saying you killed the monster. Is it true?” There was a flciker of respect in her gray eyes.
“I had help.”
“I heard it nearly took out your arm. That took guts, Aldhur. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
I blinked. “Thank you?”
Rayna shrugged, turning back to her chicken, a small smile on her lips. “Don’t get too cocky. You’re officially competition.”
I couldn’t help the swell of pride in my chest at the recognition. It disappeared, however, as I rounded the corner of the mess hall and collided straight into the solid brick wall that was Kilian Valhan.
I sighed, looking up at him. “Can I help you?”
“Can you help me?” he repeated slowly. “Did you miss the part where I asked to speak to you?”
“No. I got that. I just ignored it. I thought it was quite obvious. Do you need me to spell it out for you?”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I would choose your next wordsverycarefully, Lirahna.”
“Or what?” I scoffed. “You’ll kidnap me and stick me in a deadly round of challenges where I’m forced to watch my friends die before bleeding nearly to death in a cave while a mole creature viciously attacks me? Oh, wait, you’ve already done that.”
I sidestepped him neatly and stomped down the corridor. He kept pace with me easily. “Look, I get you’re upset with me, but we’re linked for the duration of the Trials. You need to get over this and let me train you.”
“Get over this? My friend died.Inearly died. It’s not something you just ‘get over’. It’s actually fucking pointless explaining any of it to you.” I exhaled. “Unless you’re here to tell me everything I need to know about the second Trial, there’s nothing else for us to talk about.”
“You need training. If you hadn’t drawn from the link, you really would be dead right now.”
“But I did, and I survived.Withoutyour training.”
“You were lucky in the caves to have channeled my magic the way you did. It was an instinctual response, but it won’t always be like that. You can’t channel out of fear. Let me teach you.”
I halted outside my room, spinning around to face him. “Teach me what? How to abandon my friends and desert my humanity? If I ever want lessons on being a fucking prick, you’re the first person I’ll come to, don’t worry.”
He slammed his hands against the door, pinning me between it and him. His forehead dipped until his eyes were parallel with mine. Eyes that burned with silver fire. “I am not your enemy.”
“Sure as hell feels like it.”
He breathed deeply, as if he were asking the gods for patience. I knew how he felt. His frustration was mine. His wrath and fury matched my own, twin flames to a pyre. He stared deep into my eyes, so deep I thought he might be looking straight into my soul. “You will let me train you.”
I shook my head, my lips curling into a harsh smile I hadn’t even known I was capable of. Kilian made me feel things, act in a way I never had before. Everything was so heightened around him, I felt like a fucking livewire each time he was nearby. Like I might explode if he so much as touched me. It made me livid.
“I would rather die during the second challenge than spend one minute with you.”
Instead of recoiling, as I had expected, Kilian smirked. A mirror to my own cruel smile. “Your words bite. But you forget that this link is reciprocal.”
“Then you will know for certain how much I loathe you.”
He chuckled, a deep masculine sound that resounded along my bones. I wanted to capture it in a musical box and play it forever. “You know, I don’t think you do. In fact,” he said, and, to my horror, dipped his face lower so that his nose brushed the side of my cheek, his breath a soft whisper on my flesh. “I think you quite like this.”
