Chapter 305

Blaze lashes a back-handed fist at me so fast that I barely have time to dodge, stumbling back and raising my right arm to block the blow I know is coming next.

But my teacher outwits me, as he so often does. Constantly, if we’re being honest. His left foot lashes out, hooking deftly behind my knee and tugging me forward. His right hand comes next, but it’s already too late – I’m off balance and out of options.

He hits me hard with the palm of his hand against my turning shoulder blade, sending me flat to the floor, which I hit with an oof.

“Slow today, little bird,” Blaze says, standing above me. I groan, rolling over and staring up at him, an apologetic grimace on my face. “You need more sleep.”

I sigh, and nod, agreeing as he holds out a hand to pull me to my feet.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m…distracted too.”

“Life is full of distractions,” he says, quite kind. “As is war. You must learn to put them out of your mind and concentrate on the moment. Or else…”

“Yeah, or else I’m flat on my ass,” I sigh, nodding to him, knowing he’s right.

“Flat on your little princess butt,” he says, smiling warmly at me before wrapping his arms around me in the hug that always ends our practice.

“What?” I ask, surprised. “Are we…done already?”

“Oh, I sense that you will not be improving today, my sparrow,” Blaze says with a happy sigh, pulling away from me. “Plus that one,” he points to Luca, sitting on the floor in his usual space, “is buzzing to speak to you. I will not torture him further.”

“What!?” Luca gasps, looking between us. “I – I didn’t do anything!”

“You did not need to do,” Blaze says, giving Luca a kind grin as he turns towards his door. “You simply were. It is not bad, boxing boy, you just have an energy that is easy to read.”

I call my goodbyes to my teacher, smiling after him, as Luca gets to his feet and begins to stretch his arms, frowning after Blaze.

“My energy?” he asks, confused. “Can be read?”

“Yes,” I say, peering at him curiously. “Your aura is very frazzled today – azure and purple instead of its usual sunshine yellow…”

“What?” he gasps, staring at me in shock, clearly thinking that I’m serious. “Did you – did you get new magic? Is this something you can –“

I burst out laughing and give him a little shove, interrupting his panic. Luca’s face breaks into a smile when he realizes I was teasing him, and he grabs me to him, pinning me to him with my back to his chest.

I just laugh, pleased to be in my mate’s arms, happiness racing through me despite my rather abject failure at hand-to-hand and the strange day I had.

“I missed you,” Luca murmurs, dropping his head to nuzzle my neck a bit, planting a kiss or two there before loosening his grip so that I can turn in his arms, smiling up into his face.

“Missed you too, handsome,” I say, reaching up to tuck a strand of his glossy hair back behind his ear, taking in the contours of his gorgeous face. I mean, I know that Faiza teased me today about my harem, and she’s right that all of my collected boys make a handsome group. But out of all of them? Luca for sure has the prettiest face.

His face bursts into a dimpled smile as he senses the direction of my thoughts, and I blush a bit to be caught up in them.

“So,” I say, moving on from those thoughts and lacing my fingers behind Luca’s neck and nodding towards Blaze’s closed door. “Was he right? Do you want to talk to me?”

“I do,” Luca says with a sigh, looking around. “Though, do you want to practice first? I don’t want to take away from your education.”

“No, Blaze is right,” I say, dropping my arms and taking Luca’s hand, tugging him with me as I settle cross-legged on the ground. “I’m not going to be any good today – too distracted. And even more so now that I hear you have something to say.” Luca comes with me, sitting the same way across from me, our knees touching.

“Why are you distracted?” he asks, frowning at me.

“Faiza,” I say with a sigh, stretching my tired arms up over my head. “She gave me kind of a weird assignment. Fun, but…weird. But I’ll tell you about that next – I kind of want your help with it.”

Luca’s face brightens at the prospect, but I just lift my chin at him.

“You, please,” I say, dropping my hands and beaming at my pretty mate. “What was your news?”

Luca’s face falls and he leans back on his hands. “After you left breakfast early, messengers came with notes. We’re having the second set of Games early too – crazy early. Draft tomorrow, Games the next day.”

My jaw drops open in shock. “But that’s…that’s ridiculous,” I say, shaking my head at him. “I mean, we haven’t even had time to learn from our mistakes the last game –“

“I know,” Luca says, his voice full of dread as he nods in agreement. “It is…it feels really bad, Ari. Like they’re doing it all fast because they want us to have as much experience as possible before they ship us to the front too.”

“Shit,” I whisper, my shoulders slumping as I cast my gaze down into my lap, terribly worried now. I wish quite suddenly for a phone so I could call my dad, ask him what the hell is going on. But none of the other cadets have that privilege and I guess if he really thought it was important, he’d get in touch with me and Rafe. He wouldn’t keep us in the dark – not really.

“Yeah,” Luca says on a sigh. “I think we all feel the same.”

I nod, forcing myself to move on from it and lifting my eyes again to meet his. “Are the captains the same?”

“No, actually,” Luca says with a grimace. “Heggardy and his co-captain are back amongst the general draft pool and there are four teams this time. Each only with one captain.”

I quickly do the math, my eyes going wide. “So, Jacks and Rafe are against each other this time? And…” I gasp, leaning forward towards him, suddenly livid. “And Wright and Blythe are captains too!? What the hell! They came in last place!”

“Yeah,” Luca says, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. “We can only assume that your boy Tony had something to do with that.”

My wolf turns towards Luca now, curious about the slightly bitter way that he calls Tony “my boy.” What is the deal with these two, anyway? Why is there this weird antipathy?

“Wait, how did Tony have something to do with that?”

Luca shrugs. “Our best guess is that the Captain doesn’t think that Wright or Blythe got the chance to show what they could do. And then, considering that Heggardy and Jones still got their asses kicked after Tony basically took out his entire team…” Luca shrugs and I nod, putting the pieces together.

“Well, this sucks,” I sigh, shaking my head and leaning back against my own hands. “We’re going to be even more divided now.”

“Unless Rafe or Jacks decides to throw their draft so the majority of us can be on one team…” Luca shrugs. “Yeah. Looks like it.”

“I hate that,” I murmur, staring into space a bit as I think it through. “We shouldn’t be split up. We’re not going into an actual battle without each other, so why would we practice without each other?”

“Ariel,” Luca says, his voice full of doubt. “How do you know we would go into a battle together? As a group?”

I turn my head to him and blink once, as if it’s obvious. “Because I won’t let us.”