Page 51 of Nova Academy

If I didn’t get of here soon, I was going to explode on all of them.

I pushed past them and stomped toward the elevator. They gave me a wide berth, and I found myself alone in the elevator as the door began to slide back down. Except it didn’t make it all the way before someone ducked beneath it and joined me.

I heard a panicked protest from the captain that was cut off as the door finally finished its descent, but I was now stuck in an enclosed space with one person I knew wasn’t going to leave me alone to shove everything back in its box where it belonged. No, she was going to push and push and needle her way inside until I was left bare and bereft, raw and exposed.

Fuck, I just couldn’t…

‘Artemis – ‘

‘Don’t,’ I interrupted, my voice hard and cooler than I think it had ever been.

But she didn’t heed my clear warning. ‘Bromm told us what happened.’

That wasn’t what I was expecting, but the fact that he’d blasted what had gone down between us was the wrong way for her to start her interrogation. All she succeeded in doing was further perpetuating my desire to kill something. To tear another living being to shreds simply because they dared to exist in the same space as me.

‘Fuck off.’

‘It’s okay – ‘

‘I saidfuck off!’ I roared.

The door slid open to let us out at the same time as the other one further down the corridor. The private elevator that had apparently brought everyone else down at the same time. They all heard the way I shouted at Addy, and the captain wasn’t having any of it. He raced towards us, fatal intent in his gaze.

I was fully prepared then to meet him head-on, fuck the consequences, but Addy stepped in front of me and blocked his path.

‘Stop, Xander.Don’t.’

He didn’t want to, that much was obvious, but he did as she asked all the same. His breaths were heaving and his muscles were coiled, ready to attack, but he obeyed, trying to cow me with his death glare instead.

‘Xander, seriously. Stop. It’s my fault. I didn’t read the room. I pushed when I shouldn’t have. Don’t get mad at Arty.’

‘He raised his voice at you,’ the captain bit out through clenched teeth. His jaw ticked as he ground them so hard I was surprised they hadn’t chipped away yet.

I ignored everyone as I left them behind, entering the locker room by myself. They let me, giving me ample space both physically and emotionally.

I had to get myself together. Today we were rotating to hand-to-hand combat, and I was going to have to spar against another person. I couldn’t lose control.

But I could feel what was quickly brewing simmering away beneath my skin. I was already half-way there.

CHAPTER 23

Bromm

‘What the fuck…?’

That was the question. If I’d known making a move on Arty would cause this kind of reaction, I never would have even considered it. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around such toxic behaviour, but it was plain and right in front of my face.

Arty was an angry male and was not someone I should be consorting with.

So why did I still ache to go over there and soothe all his hard edges? I wanted to make it all better, to hold him and let him work through these negative emotions until he was clear-headed and healing.

Was this why he was so stony and distant from us? Was he aware of his short-comings and trying to spare us the backlash when they were released? Or was it more selfish, a form of self-preservation? No one wanted an angry male with a short fuse on their team. They were a liability.

Or maybe it didn’t have anything to do with me at all. Maybe I had been a catalyst, triggering something that had already been festering, or perhaps it was completely unrelated to me. We’d had an entire day and night to sit with what happened between us, and he hadn’t behaved like this yesterday. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

Either way, it was crystal clear that Arty needed help. Except helping him was going to be nigh impossible if this was the armour we had to break through to reach the source of the problem.

But the more immediate problem was our lesson in Combat Training.

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