Page 20 of Great Falls Rogue
River turns, his broad chest and square jaw enough to make a stone dampen. “All right.” He waits, bracing his hands on the desk behind him in a way that makes his shirt stretch over his abdomen.
Stopping at the chair, I’m suddenly not sure why I insisted on standing. Certainly it does little to diminish the sheer difference in our size, with my head barely reaching River’s shoulder.
“You should know that when I issued orders for you to report here, the Ostera ball…events had not yet happened.” His voice is a soft rumble that vibrates my core.Events.His dance. Our kiss. My running off into the darkness. My hands tighten on the back of the chair. River straightens, pulling down on his already perfect shirt, his face an unreadable mask. “What I did was inappropriate, Leralynn. And I both beg your forgiveness and offer assurance that such indiscretion on my part will not be repeated.”
Ice douses my core. Indiscretion. I’m a bloody indiscretion.
“Understood, sir.” My voice is so distant, I can’t believe it belongs to me, my heart hammering against my chest.
He draws a deep breath, his shoulders straight but seeming to bear even more weight than I am used to seeing upon them. “All right. With that said, judging from the books I see you’ve brought, I imagine you are aware of my original reason for summoning you.” He runs a hand through his hair, one of his only tells of discomfort. “However, given my subsequent poor choices on an unrelated matter, I don’t believe myself to be in a position to oversee you. So I will instead simply lay out the facts and let you walk out that door to make your own choices. You are not required to say anything regarding my suspicions or allegations, but I request that you not lie to me either. Can you agree to that?”
I swallow, my mind tripping over River’s words as I repeat them in my head. Say nothing and walk out. Too good. The offer sounds too perfect to be true, and yet I can find no hidden hook in it.
“Leralynn?” River prompts, then clears his throat. “If you do not wish to be alone in a room with me, I understand.”
“No.” I raise my hand, simultaneously realizing both River’s misinterpretation of my silence and the small glowing coals of indignation that his previous words roused inside me. Spinning on my heel, I stride to the still-open double doors and pull them shut. “I’ve no problem being alone in a room with you,” I say, striking back at him. “You didn’t force something on me that I didn’t want, and I will not let you rewrite history to imagine it that way. I’m perfectly capable of making my own choices about who I kiss.”
He raises one dark brow, his gaze brushing from the now-closed door back to my face. “Relieved as I am to note that my actions have not doused that spitfire spirit of yours, my position at this Academy makes any overture coercive.” He holds out his hand, forestalling anything I was going to say. “In either case, let us return to the topic of my original summons.”
Putting his hands into the small of his back, he inclines his head toward me. “Several of your instructors have expressed concern about whether the work you submit is done…independently. My intention was to have you work here for the morning, to reassure both myself and your teachers that the material you submit is, in fact, your own. Or to address the issue by harsher means if it is not.”
A shiver runs down my spine, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from taking a step back.
He shakes his head, not even pretending that he missed my sudden tension. “None of that is going to happen, Leralynn.”
I let out a breath in spite of myself.
River sighs. “I am not at all certain I am doing the right thing, but as I refuse to insist you remain in my isolated company, I will simply remind you that, eventually, you will face exams and leave the matter at that.”
Exams.I’d not thought I’d be here long enough for those. “What happens to students who fail?” I can’t help asking.
“Great Falls Academy is prohibited from expelling students directly, but we make the consequences unpleasant enough that most withdraw their enrollment or choose to alter their study habits drastically.” River’s gaze locks on me, something about the way he says the words making them sound like a desperate warning instead of a threat. Tapping a finger against his desk, he walks back to his seat. “You may go.”
Tension that I didn’t know was holding my body immobile suddenly releases its grip, relief flooding my blood. A reprieve. A stay of execution. All I need to do is walk out the doors, and I can return to the niche I’ve carved out for myself over the last month. I work alone, powerful in the safety of being who I am—no matter how short it falls of the males’ standards. And now, without River looking over my shoulder, I will have months of easier breaths. Months to fight unmolested by night and survive the Academy the best I can by day. He need never learn the truth of my ignorance or of my cheating. As for exams, I’ll deal with those when they come. If they come at all.
Everything is exactly as I could possibly wish it. So why am I not happy? Clenching my jaw, I wait for a delayed uplifting of spirit to flutter through me. It doesn’t. It can’t.
“River,” I say quietly.
“Sir.” His voice has an edge.
“Sir.” I shut my mouth, the words catching in the back of my throat. I need to keep silent. Turn around. Walk out the door and thank the stars for making the male leave me alone. And yet my legs will not let me move.
Maybe I don’t want the reprieve. Don’t want for River to turn a blind eye to my cheating, for Coal to release his wrestling holds, for Tye to take no for an answer to a dance. Maybe I don’t want Shade to look away when I ask him to. All the things that I’ve struggled for. Maybe I want none of them. Not really.
Whatever punishment he will inflict for my cheating, I think it will hurt less than him turning his back on me.
With a suddenly trembling hand, I reach into my satchel and pull out my history text. Opening the book to a random page, I lick my lips as I stare at the long words.“‘Ckriee-del’s inch-insulation…insinuation that it would consider…consider…’” My voice breaks on the long words as it always does, my heart pounding harder with every misread syllable. River unlikely even remembers a time when he tripped over such things. My face heats, my chopped words echoing in the small wood-paneled room. I tighten my grip on the pages, the words swimming before me. “‘It would consider any buildup of ships a pro-vo…provo…’”
“Provocation,” he says very quietly.
“Provocation,” I echo, gripping the book so hard that my knuckles blanche. “‘Ckridel’s insinuation that it would consider any buildup of ship a provocation, led to the core-create…’” The words blur, my traitorous eyes stinging. I should have chosen a different sentence, one that I had some chance of reading.Stars,I should have walked out the door when I had a chance.
I realize he is beside me only when his large hands take the book from my grip. Putting a knuckle under my chin, he tips my face up to meet his. For the first time since I met the male, I can’t bring myself to look into his eyes. Can’t bear the disgust and disappointment that I know will lurk behind his gaze no matter how schooled his features.
“Might I deduce that your mathematics skills are little better?” he asks. “And that neither the work nor the application you turned in to the Academy were your own?”
I nod. Ironically, no lie there.
