Page 67 of Lies That Bleed
“Just go,” he ordered.
“Kohen…” I searched for a kind thing to say, but telling me that I was his and that he already owned my heart in some future where he had yet to romance me wasdefinitelyfreaking me out.
“Just go,” he said again, and so I did. I stumbled out into the hallway and went right for the bathroom, where I stared at myself in the mirror for ten whole minutes in shock.
‘Kohen can see the future,’I told Liana.
‘Yes.’Her reply was filled with sadness.
This changed everything.
Over the next week,all I thought about wasmaking love under a bed of stars and crying out his name. He’d implanted that into my head and now I was going insane with it. He was avoiding me. He ate lunch at our table in under two minutes and then went outside to run. He ran all the time now, as if he trying to run away from his problems. We trained daily as a group with my fellow wing mates. We did flying drills and combat drills, and all I thought about was Kohen and I having sex.
It was driving me crazy. I wished he’d never told me. The only way I would have sex with him were if we married. I was a responsible successor to my father’s throne, held to the highest standard, albeit an old law that was outdated. But I wasn’t about to go sleep around and ruin all my prospects just becauseKohen whispered something in my ear. One check from the doctors telling my future husband that I was impure and I’d be a spinster for the rest of my life, collecting cats. But there was literally no world in which I would marry Kohen Badshah, which led me to believe that he was either mistaken about his visions of the future or he was deliberately lying to mess with me. My mind was a wreck, and there was no one I could tell, because on the off-chance Kohen wasn’t lying, or making this up… revealing his secret could get him killed.
I was functioningon such little sleep that my movements were sluggish when we were dragged out of bed at 2 a.m. Another week had passed and the instructors were torturing us with nighttime drills.
“This is a drill!” Instructor Ashendell announced through her bullhorn as she walked down the hall. “Pretend that we’ve just been attacked by Luskins—who will be wearing red vests. Go find your creature and defend the training center, detaining as many red vests as you can.”
Tetra limped over to the dresser in her underwear, half falling over until I caught her midair and helped her into her pants.
“There’s no time for lacing boots, ladies and gentlemen!” Ashendell barked, and I released Tetra aswe both stumbled into the hallway still dressing as we ran.
My gaze flicked to Kohen, shirtless and not even bothering to put one on as he strode into the hallway in low slung pants and a long sword in each hand.
Stars help me.
You’re mine, Aisling.His words reverberated around my head and I had to push them out of my brain. It wasn’t the time to think of such things. The second we stepped outside, we were hit with an onslaught of mock weapons. Blunt rubber tipped arrows, water balloons filled with paint, and wood throwing “knives” rained down on us. We scattered like bees, running in every direction, and I tucked myself flat to the building and moved to the woods that way.
“Cadet Everhart!” a male whisper-screamed from a nearby bush. “You are with me.” He stepped out and waved me over. It was one of my instructors, and he wasn’t wearing a red vest, so I followed him, keeping my head low.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered-screamed to him as we walked in a crouch farther away from the noise and chaos.
He peered back at me. “We are going to make a jail of sorts and hold the red prisoners there securely.”
Okay, not my ideal position in battle because it sounded more like babysitting, but I wasn’t going to complain if this was what the lieutenants had come up with for me.
I followed him across the back field of the school to an abandoned building. The windows had been blown out and it was missing a roof. It looked like they had tested bombs in here or something. It was basically four brick walls and nothing else, but would make a decent jail if we bound everyone’s hands together.
“Alright, come in and check out the space first,” the instructor said to me as we entered. The second I stepped through the threshold I felt air whoosh at my back and I ducked just in time to avoid a blow to the head. Dropping to one knee, I rolled out of the way, and that’s when both men came at me.
Their creatures joined in.
The two men grasped me by the arms and hauled me up as a small fox creature stalked towards me, the electric blue ember lines on her back glowing as a wind stirred around the room. Her power.
“Quickly, kill her before her creature shows up!” the one instructor barked.
I didn’t know if I was tired or what, but this entire time I thought this was a part of the drill. It wasn’t until he yelled about killing me that I realized this was an ambush. They’d lured me away from my friends and now I was going to die. Ice cold dread settled in my stomach as I realized these were the men wearing the gasmasks who had spoken of “taking me out.”
A wolf creature then stepped out from behind a stack of bricks and my stomach sank. His power was poisoned teeth if I remembered correctly. These twoinstructors weren’t our main ones. They popped in to help from time to time, but I think they were normally on the officer side. I didn’t even remember their names. But I was keenly aware that there were only two of them and three had spoken of offing me on that day.
The fox creature suddenly dove for me but I kicked out and connected with her belly, sending her flying across the room. She hit one of the walls, knocked out cold, falling to the ground with a thud.
Four on one were not great odds, but there was no way I was going out like this.
‘I need help. I’m under attack,’I told Liana, my brain finally awake enough to make smart decisions.
‘I’m coming,’she said just as the wolf creature lunged for my throat.
