Chapter 276

“You’re the only sniper, Ariel,” Rafe says, dry. “And your specialization was noted on the form, which I wasn’t happy about. I had hoped you would be a low-level candidate for picking as your specialization was a secret. We had to make…serious concessions to ensure that we got you.”

“So you got me?” I gasp.

“It’s unlikely that we didn’t,” Jackson says with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest, clearly not happy about it. “Like Rafe said, we made one hell of an offer for you.”

“Awwww,” I sigh, clasping my hands under my chin, looking at my brother and my mate with clear love all over my face.

“If you could…just pretend to be a boy,” Ben laughs, reaching up and gently tugging on my wrists, begging me silently to drop my hands.

I laugh again, giving him a grin and slumping back in my chair in what I hope is a more manly position. The way Rafe smirks and rolls his eyes at me lets me know I’ve completely failed.

“Okay, so,” Ben says, leaning forward, wanting more details.

But on my other side, Luca stands up, looking towards the front of the room. “Results are out,” he murmurs, starting towards the desk where a Lieutenant lays a few half-sheets of paper as Cadets all over the room likewise start to stand up. “You guys stay here, I’ll bring them back.”

None of the rest of us move, everyone just watching tensely as Luca makes his way to the table, grabs a few sheets, and hurries back before most of the other Cadets have even made their way to the table.

“He’s fast,” I murmur with a frown, watching him.

“Luca’s faster than most of us,” Jesse murmurs. “Just be glad he doesn’t come to morning run,” he finishes, smirking at me and making me scowl, all of my smug joy at being on everyone’s draft wish-list fading as I remember how damn slow I am.

Before we can get any further with that particular conversation, Luca comes back to the table with three sheets. I bend over the one that Ben and I share, scanning the lists.

“Oh no!” I say after a moment, my head whipping up. “You guys didn’t get Ben!”

“Sorry, man,” Rafe says, putting the sheet down and looking seriously at our friend. “You were our top ambassador seat, but…”

“It’s cool, I was probably everyone’s top ambassador seat,” Ben says, pretending to be smug to hide his disappointment. “And I get it – you were prioritizing military prowess.”

Rafe nods, his face betraying his clear regret at making Ben feel left out.

“I’m off too,” Luca says with a sigh, and I gasp, spinning towards him.

“What!?”

He sighs as he lays the sheet out on the table in front of us, tapping his name where it’s listed on…

My eyes go wide as I see the name of Luca’s captains at the top of the sheet. Redman Blythe, whom I don’t know, and…

“Alan Wright?” I breathe, staring first at Luca and then over at my brother and Jacks. “He’s a captain!?”

“He unfortunately has a fine military mind,” Rafe says with a scowl. “And has been working his ass off since his relative…disgrace. We protested it,” Rafe says, gesturing between himself and Jackson while holding my gaze. “But…the Captain told us to back off.”

“And Luca has to take his orders!?” I gasp, looking down at the sheet again.

“Your pet Tony, too,” Luca says, tapping the list again and showing me that Tony’s name is on the list somewhere below his own.

“You didn’t get Tony either!?” I gasp, appalled, smacking my hands down on the table as I glare across it. “Rafe!”

“Why are you not blaming Jackson for this too?” Rafe asks, putting his own hands on the table and glaring at me right back.

“Because Jackson likes Tony,” I counter, narrowing my eyes even further. “You don’t.”

“I was my call, Ari,” Jackson says, making me spin towards him. He shakes his head slowly. “We don’t even know his specialization, and it was not listed. I’m not picking a guy for the team just because I like him – not when we were trying to hard to keep Luca and Ben.”

“Which clearly backfired!”

“We got three of the highest-ranked Cadets in the warrior track, Clark,” Jackson says, holding my gaze sternly, not backing down as he points over at Jesse, clearly including him in that group. “And the only sniper on the field. And to do that, we have the smallest number of Cadets on the team.”

I glance down at the page, seeing that he’s right – that there are at least five less Cadets on our team than anyone else’s. And that this was largely a concession that they made to keep me.

I scowl a little, slumping back in my chair. “Okay, I’m sorry,” I say a bit through my teeth, knowing I owe them the apology even if I’m not too happy about it. “I just…wanted us all together.”

“In a real war situation, we will be, okay?” Rafe says, leaning forward towards me, willing to make peace – I think because he knew that apology cost me a bit of pride. “But in these games, we have to see how we play with others, see if…there’s anyone worth including on that eventual real-life team.”

Jackson, besides him, nods his support to Rafe’s claims.

And despite the fact that that’s supposed to be comforting, I pale because…

Well, I think because I forgot, a bit, that this is all practice for real life.

And that, one day, we could be doing this for real. And the consequences…

Suddenly, I want nothing more than to pay a great deal of attention to this exercise and learn everything I can from it. And the first thing I can learn is…just a little bit of obedience to my commanders.

I mean…just a little bit.

“Okay,” I say, setting my jaw and nodding as I look down at the paper. “What do we do next?”

“You go to study hall,” Rafe says, turning a little towards Jackson now, “while Jackson and I have a conversation about how to strategize our team. Without those two,” he smirks a bit, looking between Ben and Luca who are now, apparently, enemies.

“It will be an honor to shoot you in the face with a paintball,” Ben says, giving Rafe and Jacks a mock little bow and making the rest of us grin.

Luca, at my side, I can feel is not quite so happy about it. Conversation at the table continues a bit more normally as Ben and Jesse lean towards Rafe and Jackson, all four of them further reading the list and seeing where their other friends have ended up, which gives me the perfect opportunity to steal a little moment with Luca.

“Hey,” I say, turning to him, pitching my voice low and reaching for my coffee, wanting some before I go to study hall with Ben. “You okay?”

“I just wish I was on the team,” Luca says quietly, glancing up at Rafe and Jackson and Jesse. Guilt swells within me and I close down the bond a bit, not wanting him to feel it because…well, because Jackson has been becoming more important in our group – planning with Rafe, helping Jesse figure out his magic.

And Luca…

“No, it’s not because of that,” Luca says with a little smile, glancing over at me as he pushes his eggs and bacon around on his plate, apparently not as hungry as he was before.

I sigh a bit, because apparently I didn’t shut down our bond fast enough.

“Then what is it?” I ask, leaning closer and giving him a little nudge with my elbow.

“I’m just…going to have a really hard time following anyone else’s orders,” Luca says with a shrug. “Rafe and I have been close since we were all candidates but Jackson…has been really good to me lately, hasn’t he, with the study stuff? Despite it all, he is my friend – and all of my friends except Ben are on another team. If someone orders me to shoot one of them, even in play?” he says, raising an eyebrow at me, asking me to see the impossibility in it. “Asks me to shoot you?”

Luca shakes his head and I reach for his hand under the table, taking it.

“What happens if you don’t?” I whisper, curious, feeling his spot stuck in the middle.

“Look, Rafe or Jacks could probably defy command and get away with it – the Captain and the other higher-ups in the Academy – your dad and uncle included – are obsessed with them. But me, with how poorly I’m already doing?” Luca shakes his head, letting me feel how impossible it is. “I have to do what I’m told tomorrow, Ariel, or I seriously risk my status here at the Academy.”

“But they said they weren’t doing any further cuts,” I reply, frowning at him.

“It’s not about cuts anymore, it’s about…whether they’d let me fight with you all in the war, once we’re all sent to battle,” he says quietly, squeezing my hand. “If I’m willfully defiant as well as unimpressive?” he shakes his head. “And I couldn’t stand that, Ariel. Couldn’t…couldn’t stand knowing you were on a battlefield and not being at your side.”

I stare at him, feeling it then – just how serious it is. “Then do whatever it is you have to do tomorrow,” I say, squeezing his hand.

“Even if it means taking you out?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at me, working hard for a levity I know isn’t in his heart.

“Oh, Luca,” I say, tilting my head to the side a bit and giving him a wink. “There’s no way you’d see and shoot me first. I’ll see you coming a mile away.”

My mate bursts into a smile and then a laugh, squeezing my hand again below the table, and as I look at his handsome face as he laughs – his perfect white teeth, those gorgeous dimples – I feel my breath stolen a little, my stomach turning over. Because heavens, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he? And working so hard.

God, have I forgotten that a bit in the past few weeks?

I squeeze his hand back, taking a deep breath and beaming at my mate, letting him feel my rush of warm affection down our bond. And Luca’s face flushes with it, even as he pretends to play it cool because we’re at breakfast.

But inwardly, despite my renewed attention to Luca…I wonder when everyone started talking so seriously about the reality of going to battle.

And just how much they’re not telling me about precisely how close we are to that.