Page 65 of Kiss of Smoke

He was still awake, sitting at a desk and studying a large agent handbook. There was something about the Hunter studying agent fieldwork, wearing his rock band tee shirts with his long hair tied in a ponytail, that made butterflies burst to life in my stomach.

“You don’t have to knock, Bananatree,” he said with a grin, even though he looked tired. “My room is your room.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” I closed the door behind me and walked to him, settling on his lap. “I’m just… afraid I might turn back.”

Gwyn wrapped his arms around me, cushioning his head on my chest. “You won’t. I know you don’t believe me, but you’re here, and going nowhere. We’d find a way to wake you up.”

“I know that rationally, but it’s hard to believe rationality late at night.” I coiled a thin blond braid from his ponytail around my index finger. “It’s also hard to believe you’re studying to be an agent.”

Gwyn laughed, his breath warm on my skin. “Titania brought all four of us under her aegis. Giving up the Hunt wasn’t easy, but I’d rather be here than in the Otherworld.” He looked up, his cheek still resting on my shoulder. “All the real things happen here. Being in the Wild Hunt isn’t much more than being part of a dream.”

I looked over the book that was still open on his desk. I’d only get a short reprieve before I had to start studying too, and make up for the six months I’d lost. “Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’d rather you be here than there.”

Gwyn traced the bridge of my nose, then picked me up with a groan and carried me over to his bed. “Yeah, except it comes with studying until four in the morning.”

He flopped me on the bed, and I curled up against his side after he laid down. One of his arms twined around me.

It felt like having an anchor to keep me in place, keep my mind from drifting off to be with nature. It would be a while before the voice of nature faded to background noise in my head again.

There was a reason dryads rarely pulled that particular trick out of their hats.

“You were always up until four in the Hunt, anyway,” I said, my jaw cracking on a massive yawn.

Gwyn’s chest shook when he laughed. “There’s a huge difference between harvesting screaming souls at four, and reading an extremely dry textbook at four.”

“True.” I blinked, my eyelids already feeling heavy. How could I already be sleepy, only a day after waking up from a six-month slumber? “I suppose one is a bit more exciting than the other.”

Gwyn was in the same boat, his lids drifting shut. “Go to sleep, Briallen. We’ll both be here when you wake up.”

I was already halfway there, but he pulled the dark green blanket over my shoulders, and the next thing I knew I was out. There were no dreams this time.

But, true to his word, I woke up exactly the way I’d gone to sleep: at six a.m., when Robin decided it was time for the rookie agents’ training to start.

23

I stoppedat the top of a steep hill, bending over to rest my hands on my knees and groaning.

Honestly, when had running up hills gotten this hard? I used to bike up these things day and night and never had so much as a calf cramp.

Gwyn was already at the top, lounging in the shade of an elm tree, his tee shirt damp with sweat and sticking to his chest. I cast an appreciative glance at the limned outline of his muscular torso, then went back to quietly dying.

“You owe…” Robin looked down at his pocket notebook. “Three more laps, Agent Appletree.”

I looked up at him, trying to wheeze silently and failing. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“I’m trying to make sure you can outrun anything that wants to kill you,” he said.

Yeah, he was taking the agent training seriously, all right.

I’d gotten one week of rest and acclimation after leaving my tree. Now, it was all training, almost all the time—except when Robin got a call, and the four of us headed out to kick ass.

It was also very apparent that he’d been letting me slide by on the bare minimum before.

Every morning, we ran the entire perimeter of Thornwood for six laps, and then did a hundred push ups and sit ups. It was the basic Garda recruit work out, and boy, was I feeling it.

Especially in my hamstrings.

On top of the training, I’d dug back into my Atlantean primer, and Jack was giving me lessons in nereid and naiad dialects, while Gwyn was putting me through a crash course in weaponry and introducing me to Undercity contacts who might make for good informants one day.

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