Page 13 of Cry of the Damned
He shook his head.
Damn it!
Frustration snapped through our tetrad bond, coming from all four of us.
We should get back,Maki said.
We all silently agreed and started trotting back toward the city, keeping hidden. A few minutes later, we were following the path that led to and from Lux City to the Academy at a safe distance when Novuk halted.
Stop and be quiet,he ordered in our minds.
We froze immediately, crouched low in the shadows, and listened. Voices. People walking down from the Academy toward the city. As they approached, what they were saying became clear.
“They have a new girl for me today,” a male voice said. “Her name is Marissa, and she’s only eighteen.”
“You lucky bastard,” another man replied.
“Watch it! I’m your superior. Don’t talk to me like that.”
They both laughed.
Concentrating, I tried to recognize the voices, but they were slurred, drunk. Guards, I imagine. They had to be since the magistrates lived a life of deprivation, abstaining from too much food, wine, and definitely sex. But a girl that young? What a pig!
“Hand me back that flask,” the first man said.
The other man grumbled, and we were close enough that I heard liquid sloshing inside something metal. They were drinking as they went. Something else, the voice of the first man… it seemed familiar this time.
Still staying low to the ground, I started moving closer to the path.
What are you doing?!Kall asked.
I need to get closer.
Be careful, they all said in unison.
Moving one inch at a time, I reached a scraggly bush, hunkered behind it, and peered through its sparse, dry leaves. From there, I had a good vantage point to observe anyone coming down the path. My wolf eyes pierced the night as easily as if it were daylight. I waited, hardly breathing, then I saw them.
Two men dressed in casual clothes—slacks, white button-up shirts, and jackets—which was strange because no one dressed like that ever went to the Academy. Only guards, initiates, apprentices, and magistrates did, and they were always dressed in uniform.
But as they drew closer, recognition thrilled through me.
I shook my head.
It can’t be.
I moved a bit closer, narrowing my eyes as if that would help me see their despicable faces better. A dry branch broke under my paw. One of the men stopped, his head snapping in my direction. Panic jolted through the tetrad bond.
“Did you hear that?” The man who was Magistrate Sonticus asked. He had been my teacher, always in charge of the initiates’ history lessons.
The other one—Magistrate Bona—frowned. “Hear what?”
Sonticus listened for another moment, then he scrubbed at his face and blinked drunkenly. “Nothing, I guess.”
They kept going, zigzagging down the hill and laughing at crass comments about tits and fine asses. Bile burned in my throat. I should’ve guessed they were corrupt in every possible way. They didn’t abide by the rules they forced on the apprentices. They ate their fill, drank themselves into a stupor, and had sex with barely legal girls.
Bastards!
I didn’t think it was possible, but my hatred for the Academy grew even more, so much that it felt like a cancer pressing against my organs and threatening to suffocate me.
