Page 17 of Lies That Bind
What was he doing? It was like I’d come to meet the family of a guy I was seriously dating, but we weren’t seriously dating.
Right?
“Why?” Tej pressed.
“Because one day you will serve her, and I want you to respect her like I do. She’s not her father.”
My knees went weak. Not that there was anything wrong with my father, but he’d just paid me a huge compliment, and teaching his brothers to respect and follow me as their leader was about the hottest sign of loyalty I’d ever seen.
“Fine,” Tej shrugged.
“Are you guys friends?” Arjun asked as we began to walk to the back gardens.
Please, for the love of every star in the sky, just say, ‘Yes’, I begged Kohen with my gaze. Telling his brothers that I would one day be his wife or any of the other insane things he’d told me would not be smart. He could believe those delusions, but I didn’t want him spreading them around.
“Yes,” Kohen said. “We are the only two in the Fleet that have creatures we can fly on, so we get sent on missions together.”
Oh, that was good. I nearly sighed in relief.
“Are you important in the Fleet?” Arjun asked his brother and looked excited at that prospect.
Before Kohen could speak, I interrupted him.
“Very,” I told them both. “We have a mission coming up that only Kohen and I can do because of our special skills.” I tried to be vague so as to not compromise the mission.
“That’s cool,” Arjun said, kicking a rock and watching it roll away.
“What are your powers?” Tej asked, sitting down on a bench and yanking a flower from the ground, pulling petals off of it as he looked up at me.
“I’m immune to flame?—”
“Like my brother!” Arjun said. He was so excited I couldn’t help but smile.
“Yes, and I can… blow up, kind of like a bomb,” I added, and Tej stopped pulling petals off the flower and peered up at me open-mouthed. Arjun was speechless too, so I gave a nervous laugh, and then they both broke into a rapid-fire commentary and questions of, “No way, so cool. Can you show us? Have you ever blown anyone up?”
Kohen was laughing by the time they were done.
“Okay, okay, let her breathe,” he said because Arjun had stepped closer with each question, eagerly awaiting my response. I had to admit, he was adorable. A young and innocent version of Kohen without the tattoos and broken soul bleeding through his eyes. Kohen had seen things in his life, and probably Tej too, but they’d shielded Arjun from it all. It made me sad.
I changed the subject. “How do you like living here?”
“It’s way nicer than the government school, but the kids are stuck up,” Arjun said.
Tej rolled his eyes. “Who cares if the kids are stuck up? We get three hot meals a day and clean sheets.”
A pang of sadness ran through me at that. Did their last school not have three hot meals a day or clean sheets?
Tej glanced at me, reading my face. “Has the empress ever gone without a meal?” There was a bitterness in his tone. I knew I hadn’t fully won him over yet. Not that I was trying.
“Way to ruin the mood,” Arjun scolded his brother.
“Tej,” Kohen warned. “Of course she hasn’t. She’s the empress and was raised without want for anything. As it should be,” Kohen told them both.
“You’re wrong,” I said to Kohen. “I often went three days without any food as a part of my training for the Wilds.” I could still remember being fifteen years old and lying awake as my stomach felt like it was eating itself. The craziest thing is after two days, the hunger just goes away. As if it knows it won’t be getting anything, it gives up.
All three of their eyebrows shot up.
“Three days?” Arjun said.
