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Sloane coughed out a laugh. “Iamsad.” He kicked the snow at his feet in frustration. “I am sitting here wallowing. That’s what my brother would tell me.” He gave her a quick grin. “He wouldactuallysaywallowing.”
“You’re feeling sorry for yourself?” Kallie nodded as she sat forward, her hands tucking under the bench, and she swung her legs idly as she looked out over the grounds. “I think you have every right to be,” she told him softly as she turned to look at him. “Honestly? I do not know what else you should be doing.”
“I think I am supposed to be a better Akrhyn and be out there patrolling, hunting, killing.”
“I believe Cord wiped the entire North clear of them.” Kallie turned back to look at the grounds. “What he may have missed, the Lycan have been hunting incessantly. It will be a long time before the Drakhyn are seen in these woods again.”
“Do you believe that?” Sloane asked quietly.
“Me? No.” Kallie’s smile was tight. “But who am I? A seventeen-year-old Sentinel in training. Our leaders believe it.” She shrugged.
“Salem won’t,” Sloane said softly. “Salem will want results.”
Kallie nodded grimly. “Who wouldn’t? His daughter was abducted and abused by the Drakhyn. They gutted her to get to the baby.” Kallie wiped her eyes as she looked away. “Thank the Ancients they never forced her.”
Sloane looked at her quickly. “She was not...?”
“No,” Kallie assured him quickly. “My dad told me.” Kallie smiled softly. “He came back to our quarters and hugged me and my sisters for so long and said the idea of having it be me or my sisters was too much.” She nudged Sloane gently. “I love my dad, and I know why he did it, but you know, I’m gonna be a Sentinel soon, and I have to train him to let me out of the grounds if I want to be a good one.”
Sloane laughed lightly. “So eager to fight?”
Kallie lost her smile. “Truthfully?”
Sloane nodded as he reached forward and drew her hood up over her hair. “Always the truth,” he told her seriously.
“Yes.” Kallie saw his smile slip and rushed on. “I know that, when they attacked here and when the Elite Sentinels went after them in the woods, I know that I could not have fought well and lived.” She took a deep breath. “I need more training, I need to be better so I can fight for the Akrhyn like me, like Zahra, who are not strong enough to fight yet. But we will be.”
“You sound like Tegan.” Sloane grinned.
“She’s amazing.”
Sloane laughed again at the expression on Kallie’s face. “You got the hots for my cousin?” he teased.
“Absolutely!” Kallie nodded enthusiastically. “She did all that she did, and then she was still in the training room at five the next morning, waiting for us to train.”
“She was?” Sloane frowned.
“Yes, she said training didn’t stop just because she was slower.” Kallie shook her head in admiration. “On Arflyn’s honour, I swear even Jax softened towards her.”
“She needs to rest,” Sloane grumbled.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, she did sit down through most of it, well, after she kicked Gable’s ass for not picking Briony to spar with. Again.”
“He’s got a problem with females, that one,” Sloane said darkly.
“He’s been in human school for as long as I have. I think he thinks what they do, that their women are weaker in strength.” Kallie kicked her legs again. “And Gable is absolutely huge. You have to admit it. I think his muscles would rival yours.” Kallie let out a peal of laughter as Sloane dipped quickly and flung snow at her.
“Hey, thank you,” he said to her as they sobered. “I didn’t know that, about Zahra. I am glad she was not violated that way.” His shoulders hunched again as he thought about it.
“Will you petition for the betrothal to be dissolved?” Kallie asked quietly.
Sloane looked at her in surprise, astonished that she would be bold enough to ask him. “I do not know.” He looked at her, and her blue eyes held his stare easily. “What would you do?”
Kallie looked at him longer as her eyes roamed his face. Did he know how incredibly handsome he was? Did he know she had been head over heels in love with him for years? Did he know it killed her every day to watch that spoiled brat flirt her way through the entire male population of the human school? Kallie dropped her stare. “I don’t think I am the one to ask,” was what she told him instead.
“Why?” Sloane asked quietly. His finger raised her chin up to look at him. “You probably know more about Zahra’s life than anyone. Would you stay betrothed to her, if you were me?”
“No,” Kallie whispered as she looked at him. “But then I would never have been betrothed to her.”
