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I would immediately take my chances outside the castle if I could trust Elijah. The question was, did I trust him? At one point, the answer would have been yes right away. Not anymore. But I did trust him with my safety. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
I placed my hand in his rough, outstretched one and internally questioned if I had lost my damn mind.
“For the hundredth time, do not call me Elijah,” he griped, squeezing my hand.
“I called you Ash-hat. Don’t I get any credit for that?” I smirked.
He would never be Ash to me again. I needed to protect myself. Elijah was a competent, fierce man, but just a man. Ash was something else entirely. For another thing, it annoyed him way too much when I called him Elijah. And it made me way too happy when he was upset.
Plus, his friends called him Ash. I couldn’t very well act as if we were friends. He had hurt me, and I hadn’t forgiven him for that. I wouldn’t allow myself to think of him as anything more than another man. My heart is safer that way. I’d continue to push him away, not allowing him to hurt me again, something he was sure to do.
Chapter6
Kaia
At the end of the final tunnel, Elijah ascended a crumbling staircase and knocked at the heavy steel-reinforced door in a particular rhythm. It was pushed open almost immediately from the other side.
Elijah’s teammate Ezra Wyndham’s shiny blond head greeted us. His ever-present grin was plastered in place as he pushed curly hair out of eyes the color of a thundercloud. They lit up like lightning and seemed to dance when he caught me watching from behind the door before he returned his attention to Ash, his amusement only growing.
“About time, Ash! Thought you’d abandoned me.” Ezra’s smirk said he knew Elijah wanted to punch him but wouldn’t. I didn't think he was entirely correct. “Don’t you know we’re on a time crunch?”
“Liam was late.” Elijah shoved Liam into the corridor, reaching for me next. “And Kaia decided she wanted to talk rather than walk.”
“Sorry for trying to save everyone from a terrible fate,” I grumbled under my breath, rolling my eyes as I followed behind Liam.
We stepped into servants’ quarters that I’d never had any reason to enter. I welcomed the familiar smell of gardenias, the late queen’s favorite flower. I greedily inhaled, savoring the spicy aroma that the castle was known for.
I personally always preferred the smell of roses. The potency of gardenias sometimes gave me a headache. They were almost too sweet and zesty with pungent green undertones. Still, it was much more pleasant than mold, decay, and human excrement from below.
Ezra sent me a charming half smile and a wave as Elijah pulled me past him. E.Z. had an easy grin that was somehow both natural yet practiced. He was a weird guy.
Where Elijah was still dressed in his stiff uniform from earlier, Ezra was more casual. He had lost his coat, loosening the strings on the neck of his undershirt, his well-defined chest peeking out the top. The sleeves were rolled up to just below his elbows, showing off sinewy forearms and several markings of supremacy. Clearly, this man trained without a shirt regularly since every ounce of skin I drank in was deeply tanned.
When Ezra caught me looking, he flashed me his grin and his bright blue eyes and his lit-up face.
“Hey, Kaia Doll, good to see ya. You ready to get to know all of us a little better?” Ezra winked at me. He freaking winked at me while grinning from ear to ear. His tan and dark Air Marking made his teeth seem even whiter.
“Hey, Ezra,” I said quietly, embarrassed to be caught staring, and looked away.
I didn’t know what came over me. I had never needed to stare at Ezra before. I acknowledged that he was good-looking but didn’t ogle the man. I could tell he was friendly and amicable, and generally considered charming and funny, but I was never left speechless when he spoke to me, not like a lot of other girls whom he sent into fits of giggles with a smile and kind words.
“Oh no, friends call me E.Z.. But you, pretty girl, can call me anything you want.”
This was not the Ezra I was used to. I never had a nickname or received the full force of his charm.
I knew Ezra, obviously. He was a Denalian and had been since Father’s first set of recruits. Still, we didn’t talk much beyond civil acknowledgments. He was usually polite and cordial out of respect for Father.
But Ezra was team Elijah, and I was… not. I would have been happy to befriend him if not for his choice of company. Getting to know someone whose best friend you avoided whenever possible was hard.
Somehow all I could come back with was, “Isn’t that a line only whores use?”
My face inflamed. I was horrified by my response. I rarely blushed. I hated blushing. But it was beyond my control. I stared straight ahead, attempting to cover my embarrassment,
What was happening to me?
“Both of you shut up,” Elijah said, exasperated, drawing our conversation back on track. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes, Griffin’s waiting in the courtyard. It’s all set. He prepared the north wall so he can open it quickly,” E.Z. replied.
