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“If it’s to allow you to patrol, the answer is no.” Salem cut her off and carried on when he saw her scowl. “You have not passed your final Trial, Kallie.”
“But I can’t miss when I aim!” Kallie exclaimed, holding the bow up as if in proof. “I can beat Tegan every single time in throwing knives and the bow.”
“I know, I’ve heard and—” Salem held his hand up to stop her interruptions. “I’ve seen. But tell me, why do you want to be stationed herewhenyou pass your Trials?”
“This is the best Headquarters,” Kallie answered immediately. “And my family,” she added on hastily.
“This is the best Headquarters, well, maybe not the best, but it is one of the best because we are strong. We do not—Ido not—send Akrhyn on patrol who have yet to pass their final Trials.” Kallie’s head dipped down at his words. “And your aim is exceptional, Kallie, but I haven’t seen you to be infallible on a moving object yet. Or best one of the Elite in hand-to-hand combat.” Salem regarded the young female seriously. “Or have you?”
“No, Principal Elder.”
Salem smiled to himself at her surliness and clasped her shoulder warmly. “Keep training, pass your final Trial, and when you do, I will be honoured to welcome you in my Guard. Until then”—he dropped his hand as he looked once more to the Headquarters—“don’t be so keen to die, there’s been too much death on my watch as it is.”
“Sorry, Principal Elder.”
Salem gave the young female a small smile before he left her and headed into Headquarters, to the training room. As he walked along the corridors, acknowledging the greetings from his fellow Sentinels and Akrhyn, the Three’s Prophecy echoed in his head.
“The Mark will fight in the coming war, and he will strike our enemy with his blade made by the forger, honed with the stone. With the alpha and father by his side, he will listen to the mentor, and the power of Velvore will rage through him. Bound to the Raven, the Mark will be. The One does not stop. The One does not falter. The blade must strike true.”
He had been trying to train his son and daughter to be what the Prophecy needed them to be, but his conversation with Marcus and Kallie lingered in his mind. Salem hesitated at the door to training room four, his hand on the wooden panel, his thoughts continuing to be elsewhere. He had been honest with the young female Kallie outside. He wasalwayshonest, very much like his daughter Tegan, although Salem liked to think he had slightly more tact. His hand dropped from the door as he headed back the way he had come. Taking the stairs to the sleeping quarters, he resolved himself to a hard conversation with his youngest child.
* * *
“You cannot seriously expect her to get away with that?” Sloane goaded his best friend as he watched Michael struggle to get out of Tegan’s punishing hold.
“Please, by all means, if you can get her off me, I will surely repay her,” Michael replied, his voice tight with strain.
“Yield,” Tegan demanded as she pressed her knee firmly in between her brother’s shoulder blades. Her thick braid hung over her shoulder, loose strands framing her face as she glanced up to meet Marcus’s gaze. A slight nod from the Lycan and she pushed Michael’s arm further up his back. “Yield,” she demanded as he groaned in protest.
“Michael?” Briony asked from the sidelines. The tall red-haired Sentinel looked apprehensively between him, his sister and the Lycan, Marcus. “Just sayyield,” she encouraged him. “Seriously, I don’t think you’re supposed to be turning purple.”
Marcus failed to stifle his laugh at her words, and Sloane gave her an amused wink as he too enjoyed the Heir’s incapacitated difficulty.
“Fine!” Michael grunted. “I yield.”
Tegan sprang off his back effortlessly, smoothing her hands over her hair as she swept the loose strands from her face. “I win.”
“Youalwayswin,” Michael grumbled as he rolled over onto his back and stared up at his sister. “Show me,” he demanded as he slowly got to his feet.
“Another cheat sheet?” Tegan asked as she stooped to pick up her dropped kali stick.
“It’s not cheating,” Michael said with slight exasperation as he glared at Sloane, who was the one who had taught Tegan the saying. “It’s calledteaching.”
“It’s called cheating,” Tegan replied with a derisive snort. “If you can’tlearnthe technique of breaking the hold yourself and someone has to tell you, it’s calledcheating.”
“Do you even know what teaching means?” Sloane asked with amusement from his position against the wall, completely unperturbed by Michael’s glare.
Tegan rolled her eyes at him before pointing to the three younger Sentinels in the room. “Obviously. Iteachthemevery day.”
“What Michael means,” Marcus interrupted them before they squabbled, “is that by telling him how to break the hold is not cheating. Who taught you how to break it?”
“I did,” Tegan answered easily. “Father held me in that pose every day for six months before I learnedon my ownhow to break it.” Tegan’s look to her brother was pointed.
“Okay, so rationally,” Michael said as he approached his sister cautiously, “you would be correct in saying that in six or more months, I could learn as you did. But we have awarcoming.War, Tegan. I don’t have six months to learn when you know how to do it now.”
Tegan frowned as she considered his words and glanced once at Marcus to gauge his thoughts.
“Basically, cousin, what we’re trying to say is that we don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel if we don’t need to.”
