Page 39 of Great Falls Rogue
Despite his useless arm, Coal crouches into a fighting stance with a growl, blocking Han’s path to me. Ready to fight for me in a way he hadn’t for himself.
But we can’t fight Han tonight. Not if we want to live. I swallow, my mind racing, groping for the experiences of the other males.River. What would River do now?
“You think you can kill both of us, Han?” I ask, pitching my voice across the battleground before either male can attack.
“Yes. Easily.”
Coal growls. I grab his shoulder, a silent order to stay put that he, by the star’s own miracle, heeds.
“I think you might be right,” I tell Han, raising my chin. “But you won’t. You came to the Academy for a reason, and you aren’t going to throw it all away to scratch a midnight itch.” I draw breath, the confidence I’m putting into my voice now seeping into my blood. Filling the very air around me. “The way I see it, Coal’s body alone could be explained away. But the pair of us together? After you’ve already shackled me to a dungeon wall? You’ll be answering so many questions, you’ll have no time for anything else. Plus, you’ve no idea who else knows I’m out here.”
Deep within the forest, a wolf’s howl shatters the night.
Han looks between us, thought rushing behind his blue-gray gaze.
Beneath my grip, Coal’s body is coiled and ready. If he is to leave this world, he will go out fighting for life. Which is already a victory, though not the one I’m going for.
Heartbeats pass in the night’s darkness. One. Two. Five. Then, Han twists the knife in his hand and tucks it inside his coat.
“As satisfying as cleaning out the Academy’s rubbish would be tonight,” Han says, “it seems I’ll need to wait a bit. Do me a boon and don’t kill yourself before I can have the pleasure.”
The relief washing over me is so fierce that I lean into my grip on Coal to keep from swaying.
Han’s eerie moonlit gaze jerks to me, a gleam in his eyes saying he’d seen my near stumble just fine. “I will see you back at the Academy, Leralynn of Osprey.” A smile that doesn’t touch his eyes breaks the handsome lines of his face. “I would try not to get yourself stopped on the way back. I hear the headmaster is unkind to wayward students. If that sort of thing bothers you.” Without waiting for my reply, he saunters off into the night.
14
Lera
Idon’t dare take my attention off Han until the sound of his retreating footsteps fades from my immortal hearing, the forest’s creatures who went quiet during the quarrel reclaiming their domain.
In the distance, Shade’s wolf howls again, his frustrated song soul-shatteringly familiar. An owl hoots. Beside me, Coal maintains his fighter’s crouch, statue still but for the rapid rise and fall of his broad chest, his broken arm now tight against his ribs. Finally, seeming to mark the same change in sound I had, the male rises and has the audacity to glare at me.
“What the bloody hell do you think you are doing out here, Osprey?”
Blazing heat rushes along my spine. “Saving your life, you bastard. Since plainly, you can’t be bothered with such minutia.”
“What I do is none—”
I slap Coal’s cheek as hard as I can. My nostrils flare, the fury and fear that have simmered too long erupting from my heart. “You think your damn life belongs to you alone? That no other soul would be shredded if you died?”
Coal flinches, rocking back from the strike. “Dying is a natural byproduct of battle. If you—”
I slap him again. “You weren’t battling, you bastard. Battling is when you care whether you bloody win or lose.” I go to strike Coal a third time, but the male catches my hand in an iron grip.
Blue eyes flashing, he straightens to his full height before me, his metallic scent filling my lungs. The lines of his beautiful face are etched with a soul-deep ache, his mouth but a step away.Stars,I can taste Coal from memory alone. My fingers long to run over his strong cheekbones and jaw, the hint of stubble there, to feel his warm skin beneath my touch.
The magic inside me rouses again, sensing its twin in Coal, making every sensation sharp enough to slice through flesh.
The terror of nearly losing him grips my throat again. I twist free of Coal’s grip and spit on the ground. “Go ahead. Lie. Tell me I’m wrong, say there is no connection between us, that I’ve no way of knowing what you were doing.” My teeth grind together, my eyes stinging. “Tell me to shut my mouth. Say I’m imagining things and you’ve no idea where I might have gotten my silly notions. Say that I’m just a cadet you rutted with once and that’s all there was to it.”
Coal swallows, his blue eyes turning so vulnerable for a moment that my anger hiccups.
“That is not all there was to it,” he says, his voice quiet but clear. Covering the distance between us in one powerful step, the male grips the back of my head and presses his mouth over mine.
Heat flares through me as Coal’s tongue brushes between my lips, parting them roughly. His metallic scent flares with a tang of desperation and need that stokes the blaze inside my soul, my magic, my sex.
Wrapping the strong fingers of his good hand in my hair, Coal pushes farther into my mouth. The deep leisurely strokes of his tongue make one turn before morphing to primal possessiveness. My scalp tingles where he grips my hair, the tiny twitches of pain waking my nerves to the full bouquet of his presence. When I try to move, to check whether his fractured arm might be caught in the press of our bodies, Coal only holds me tighter. Deepens his rough, claiming kiss. Gives himself over to it.
