Page 59 of Lies Within the Darkest Tower

Quill sucked in a sharp breath and shoved whatever he was feeling back behind the mask he’d built up over the years that made him a good captain. No matter what he was feeling, he always gave a sense of control. He was the calm to Rider’s ferocious determination and my charming allure… while Ash was the shadow watching our backs.

And if I was smart, I’d ask Ash to watch Sawyer’s back. If the other novices didn’t back down, the boy could reach a point where he’d be forced to fight back or break, and I really didn’t want to see the boy break.

CHAPTER 37

Rider

I pickedat my meal of venison and root vegetables knowing eating was a practical necessity for a warrior but unable to concentrate on the job. Stunned green eyes and brilliant red hair kept flitting through my mind’s eye, and the more I thought about it, the more I was sure she’d been too stunned to know where she’d been last night.

I shouldn’t have let Talon scare her off. I should have taken the moment to find someone I trusted to take care of her. I?—

Why the hell couldn’t I stop thinking of her? I’d been thinking of her since I’d left the Garden last night. I couldn’t seem to get her out of my mind.

Sage.

Her name rolled around and around in my head. I didn’t know her. Didn’t care about her. Sure, she’d been new and vulnerable, but it hadn’t been my business. I didn’t want a mate. I’d had a mate, found that one woman who’d made my soul sing, and now she was dead. I didn’t want to replace her. I couldn’t. And I sure as hell didn’t want the Goddess to force a mate on me, either.

Talon scaring her away had been for the best.

Except I couldn’t make myself believe that. What if Wells had found her again? He was one of a handful of young men determined to be mated who aggressively pursued all available women. And while many women loved that, others were intimidated by it, and given how Sage had run away from him instead of telling him off, I suspected she was a woman of the latter group. Winning her bond wouldn’t come by pursuit. It came by letting her see your soul and understanding just how special it was when she let you see hers.

Like it had been with Isemay. She’d been ferocious when she needed to be, a match to my wolf’s nature, but she’d also been careful with her heart and soul. The human men of her world had scarred her, made her wary of opening up, but when she had, it had been like one of those rare moments when the sun cut through the mist in the Gray.

Had Sage been hurt the same way? Maybe she was just shy. There were so few women they were precious and there were some sects that kept them safe and sheltered, preparing them at the last moment for what to expect in the Garden while training them to look for mates in the men among the sect. Perhaps Sage had grown up in a family in one of those sects and manifested sooner than expected.

“For the love of— eat the damn carrot,” Talon said, snapping me out of my reverie.

“What?” I stared at him sitting across the table in my private suite, a cup of wine in his hand, his own meal finished.

He gave a pointed glare to the carrot piece I’d been pushing around my plate. “Just because you favor meat doesn’t mean you don’t also need vegetables.”

“And did you hear the last two things I said?” Quill asked, using his bread to sop up the last of the gravy on his plate.

“You want to test Winter and Rue’s magic,” I repeated back then shoved the carrot into my mouth.

Quill sighed and ran his hands through his short, blond hair. “Not the last two things I said. I said of the humans there are nine who we can put into advanced training right away. Mikel, Durand, Hamelin, Bramwell, Ambrose, Aldis, Jokin, Sivis, and Sawyer.”

There were a few other novices on the borderline who we might want to put in advanced training once this first rotation was done, but those nine were definitely the most skilled of the group… Sawyer being a shocking surprise.

I’d thought because he’d been stupid enough to use the ring after dark and so damn small, he’d have minimal weapons training. Usually extensive training built muscle, something the boy didn’t have much of. Of course, if he was only sixteen, he could still be waiting on a growth spurt. Goddess, I hope he was. I didn’t think we’d ever had a guardsman of such slight stature before.

That said, the boy could fight, and he had a good eye at archery. Whoever had taught him, had taught him competition shooting, stilling himself and focusing solely on the target, but with a bit of practice he’d be able to speed that up. If, of course, the chaos of battle didn’t send him running.

Except I already knew it wouldn’t. He’d been losing the fight against the hounds when Grefin and I had saved him, but he’d still been fighting. That and before I figured out he was a hell of lot better with the sword than I — and probably anyone — had first assumed, he’d managed to dodge my attacks and even score a point until I’d raised my skill level to that of the top human novices.

At least until I’d scored my first hit and brought him to his knees.

I bit back a growl of frustration at the boy for not mentioning that he was hurt but mostly at myself for being so angry with him last night that I hadn’t bothered to check him out after haulinghim into the Tower’s bailey. He’d looked shaken but he hadn’t been bleeding and Grefin said he’d climbed the stairs to his room without problem. Hell, even Talon hadn’t said anything after the boy had stumbled across him in the bathhouse.

And while Talon had assured me Sawyer didn’t need a healer, it didn’t make me feel better that his guardian had beaten him, and I was now punishing him for protecting his sister. He still shouldn’t have come through the ring after dark and it still didn’t sound like he’d known how dangerous that was, so he stilled needed to be reprimanded, but that didn’t make me feel better.

Maybe I could suggest to Talon to tell Sawyer to appeal his punishment. He had a right to do so and probably didn’t even know that, either.

But given how the boy had taken my punishment and the snide remarks from the other novices, I doubted he would. That and just taking a rotation of stable duty with an extra half shift after the evening meal would go a long way to easing the anger of the other guardsmen. Speaking up would just make him look more like a spoiled nobleman that the other novices thought he was, even if Kit, Payne, Lewin, and even Grefin had reported the boy was anything but.

He was reeling like all human novices were when they first arrived, more so because his arrival hadn’t been pleasant. That was all. Just like a certain red-haired beauty had been reeling.

Fucking Shadows. I had to stop thinking about her. “We’ll put those nine into the accelerated training with the fae novices when the initial first rotation is done,” I forced out.

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