Page 69 of Lies That Bleed
Ashendell took in the scene and her eyes flew wide.
Kohen dropped my hand, storming over to the lead instructor angrily. “Is this how you protect your future empress? By having two of your own instructors try to kill her?”
Ashendell’s mouth flew open as her gaze went to the dead man’s body and then to my neck, which I was guessing had marks from where he choked me.
“Call the emperor and tell him there has been an attack on his daughter. I’m sure he will want to know how this training facility is being run,” Kohen growled.
My father?No way. I could be on my death bed, and if I thought it would piss him off I wouldn’t want him called.
I stood, holding out my hands. “That’s not necessary.” My voice was raspy and painful.
‘Let Kohen lead,’Liana told me, and I shot her a glare.
“If the emperor finds out his daughter was almost killed and you did nothing…” Kohen shook his head. “You’re done for.”
Ashendell swallowed hard and nodded. “Of course. Come with me, Miss Everhart. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
I allowed Ashendell to pull me away as a whistle was blown and the drill was called off. When I peered back at Kohen, he was mounting Onyx and flying off into the night, away from campus.
What the hell just happened? And why did it feel like Kohen had orchestrated something?
Chapter
Eighteen
Isat inside of medical and through the giant glass window watched my dad rip every single admiral a new asshole. They stood erect, against the far wall as my father and Zuri stalked before them, threatening to close the school, pull funding, and fire them all.
“She’s your futureempress! If you cannot protect her, you certainly cannot protect our borders,” he shouted to the stony-faced men and women. They did nothing. Just stood there and took it, only speaking when directed a question.
Liana insisted on not leaving my side, so we had to open the double doors at the end of the hallway to get her inside, and then she had to duck low with her wings tucked in to enter the room I was in. She stood alert beside my bed, watching my father with her head cocked to the side.
He was pissed.
I needed to confide in someone about what happened, but I took to heart what Kohen said about me not telling a soul. Still, I didn’t think that meant Liana too. I was pretty sure she already knew through our bond, but I wanted to make sure.
‘Do you know what I did?’I asked her.
She looked at me.‘Yes. We call it the thrall where I am from. It’s a form of mind control.’
That sounded scary.‘What is it? Are there limits? Can I control ten people at once? Could it hurt me if I use it too much?’I had a thousand questions.
‘I don’t know. I only know one other person who had the gift, my grandmother. A firebird of great power who was not weakened by a human body.’
I knew she wasn’t being mean, just factual. The creatures of The Wilds were filled with magic, magic our human bodies could only hold so much of.
‘Did you know I had it?’I asked her. She seemed so confident.
‘I suspected you had the power to control another since we bonded.’
I peered at her in shock.‘You did? How?’
She glanced at me,‘When you fought the fire beast. It was only fully defeated after you shouted at it to just die already and it did. I thought I sensed the power in you then.’
I cocked my head to the side, remembering thescary fire beast that tried to consume me. I’d used the mind control then?
‘Were you there with me and the fire beast?’I asked. I barely remembered her flying underneath me at one point and then gone the next.
She was quiet a second.‘I am the fire beast, Aisling. It’s part of me, a part of me I cannot control. The dominant part of me you had to subdue in order to bond.’
