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I took her icy hands, panting from exertion. “He can’t reach you now that we're back inside. Okay?”
Maeve was shaking like a leaf, sitting up to hug her knees. “This is my fault. I pushed you into this. I wanted you out of the way so I could take top ranking.”
“It’s not like you lied about a secondary motivation. You didn’t push me into anything.” Shrugging, I offered a forced smirk. “I’m a lost cause anyway. Let me take the blame. I'll say I forced you.”
Scoffing, hand to her forehead, she squeezed her eyes shut. “How did you force me into a dress and makeup?”
That was a good point, but I was willing to lie through my teeth if I had to. “Then I’ll tell the truth… to a point. You were just trying to stop me. Understand?You went after me to stop me. What happened at the bar was my fault.”
Voice little more than a whisper, Maeve said, “I’ll be executed, Lorieyn.”
“Not if you can learn to lie in the next five minutes.”
A single shrill alarm blared, Maeve jumping with a screech. “He’s here!”
Code Yellow. Someone was trying to breach the academy’s front gates. “It won’t be much longer before they upgrade the threat from yellow to red. If we go into full lockdown, every door will lock, and my opportunity to tell the general my version of the story first will be gone.” I held her wet eyes, demand in my voice. “So, I’m going to ask you one more time.What happened in the city tonight, Maeve?”
It was hard for her to speak the words, knowing what the outcome would be for me. “I… I went after you to stop you.”
Smiling, I urged her to go on. “That’s right. You were just trying to help a sister who wouldn’t listen.”
Crying as she squeezed me tight, she said, “A sister I love very much.”
“I love you too.” A warm tear fell down my cheek. “Tell everyone I love them, okay?”
With one last look, I left my friend to find her way back into the women’s dorm, rushing at full speed straight toward the lion’s mouth.
Straight for General Cyderial, where I would fall on my knees before him and beg him to spare Maeve’s life.
I’d give him mine instead.
12
Breathless, I burst through General Cyderial’s office door, breaking every rule of protocol, to shout before I could even see him, “Sir, I am to blame for all of it!”
Racing past the vestibule, I charged into the office proper, only to practically knock into a large, golden beast.
One who grinned at me. “Hello again, Private.”
Maeve’s behemoth had beaten me there.
Huge, he took up way more of the room than any one person should, smirking at me as if this were actually amusing.
Panting, sweating from exertion, I tossed loose hair over my shoulder and showed my teeth. Unsure how he’d managed access to the building, I flexed my fingers, claws ready. Circling the stranger who’d had his hands all over my friend, aggressive drumming left my breast, violent intention clear in my snarl. “You!”
Collected, he fiddled somewhat with his sleeve, indicating that he saw me as no threat whatsoever. “Me.”
Perhaps I wasn’t. But if I’d had my sword, I would have drawn it, tip pointed right at his thick throat. “You can’t have her until she’s ready! She’s not on the list, so get out!”
The intruder turned his golden head toward the very man I had come to see. A man leaning over his desk as if he might rip it in half.
Cyderial’s eyes…
They were running all over me, burning with rage.
I was disheveled and sweaty, chest heaving for breath from the manic insanity of the last hour. The dress. The lipstick. My hair half-fallen from its pins and on display in a way that was highly inappropriate for an academy girl.
That green-eyed glare promised painful retribution, as did the inhuman growl he aimed right at me when I nervously tried to smooth a stray lock behind my ear.
