27. Nora

27

NORA

W e find an odd but balanced rhythm by the end of my third week at Mt. Bramble.

Each morning, I take my breakfast alone in my room, savoring the calm loneliness provides before I brave the storm of my companions. Though, I'd be lying if I said watching the duo bicker wasn't growing on me. Silas was right; Wrath is extremely easy to rile up, and it's quite entertaining to poke fun at the grouch. Silas has taken to doing most of the poking, and while I egg him on from the sidelines wholeheartedly, Wrath doesn't shoot me anything more than exasperated sighs.

After that night on the mountaintop, we came to an unspoken understanding. It isn't a warm and fuzzy friendship. He's still a grump, and I'm still coarse, but there isn't that thrumming ire between us anymore.

By noon, we're killing time, going back up to the range for repeat contests—all of which I win, to their dismay—or finding our own spots within the mountain complex. Silas frequents the library, I tend to linger in the training room, and Wrath sets off to his mysterious workshop. All of us wait for the clock to tick past our daily goalpost so I can release the tether of my magic on another soul.

We worked our way from one minute to thirty within the first twenty-four hours of adopting my newfound method. Pride had swelled in my chest the first time I tethered myself to one of the prisoners for more than a minute. But as we increased the goalpost, waiting for days with my magic stretching between me and the prisoners, we quickly realized how easily that connection could be broken.

Now, Silas has made it his mission to get me to crack. It's exhausting.

So exhausting that I don't want to get out of bed, despite the sunlight flowing into the room. It burns my eyes through my lids and I groan. Pulling the sheets up over my head, I remind myself what's waiting on the other side of this.

I think of Imogen.

Twinkling laughter fills the room, however muffled from my position under the covers. The bed dips with the weight of Imogen as she crawls to me. I lower the sheet, revealing the lazy smile that's plastered across my face.

She kneels in front of me, blocking the rays from the window and allowing me to bask in blessed shade. She's an angel, with a golden aura glowing around her. Her hair, loose and long, tumbles over one shoulder as she tilts her head at me.

"I'd normally be happy you're so willing to sleep in." Imogen's soft voice is a morning birdsong, rousing me from slumber. She runs a thumb over the dark circles forming under my eyes, gaze soft and teasing on me, and the gentleness of it all makes my heart stutter. "But I find myself a bit sad this morning."

"Maybe after this trip is over, I'll be more amenable to lazy mornings," I say, voice rough from sleep. "As a way to make up for being gone."

She laughs, and the sun brightens with her joy.

"I'll hold you to that," she says before leaning down.

Soft lips meld to mine. It's a languid kiss, and I marvel at how she tastes sweet as honey, even in the morning. I'm sure I taste stale, but she sucks my bottom lip between her teeth as if I'm made of nectar.

I shift and sit up, one hand keeping me upright behind me, and the other wandering to her knee. Her nightdress has ridden up her legs, exposing the smooth skin there. Lazily, my thumb strokes circles on her inner thigh, inching up and under the silky fabric.

Imogen pulls back on a hum, her forehead resting on mine. "Though I like where this is going, you only have an hour before you need to leave."

"Silas can wait," I murmur against her lips, leaning forward to capture them again.

She pulls back, one brow quirked up on her forehead; normally it would read as a sassy scolding, but the sparkle in her eye is missing, and her lips twitch like she's fighting a frown. I squeeze the ample flesh of her thigh.

"Trust me, for what I'm doing for him, he can wait an extra ten minutes," I say. And while it doesn't bring back the lightness in her eyes, her body melts at my words.

"I'm sure," she says, but I can hear by her tone that the moment has passed.

The sex has been electric since we made up, but in the weeks since our fight, I've realized that there are many other ways to share yourself with someone.

Just by existing alongside another, new layers reveal themselves.

Like how I've noticed that Imogen sighs wistfully anytime she gets a whiff of baked goods, as if she's been hit by a warm memory. Or learning that she loves the way my nails scratch at her scalp when I wash her hair. Or how neither of us want to get out of bed in the mornings; long gone are the days of me sneaking out at sunrise.

Small intimacies, I've discovered, paint a black-and-white life with color.

I pepper kisses across her cheek and to the hollow behind her ear.

"I could make you come for hours and still have energy to spare." I hum, running my nose down her neck and breathing in her delicious floral scent before pulling back to meet her flush-cheeked gaze. "You can hold me to that too."

"Okay," she whispers, lips parting into a smirk. But her eyes still aren't getting their sparkle back.

I trace her cheek with my thumb before anchoring my hand at the back of her neck, cradling her head.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

She blinks, a quick fluttering of her blond lashes. Her brows knit in confusion.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

I search her face for any tells of the opposite, finding no trace of untruth. But something still doesn't sit right.

I decide to let it go.

"No reason," I say, dropping a kiss to her forehead. "Meet me when I'm back, yeah?"

Silas eats as he watches me train. My hits against the hanging sandbag grow more intense with each bite he takes of his apple, the sound of his teeth crunching over the crisp flesh grates against my ears. My eye twitches as my frustration flares, straining the magical tether between me and the fae across the room.

I take a step back from the bag, my breaths coming heavy and sweat dripping down my back.

"Will you stop with that?" I growl.

"What?" Silas says, mouth full. He swallows. "You mean eating?"

"Yes. Can't you do that somewhere else?"

"Does it bother you?"

" Clearly ."

"Then no. I absolutely cannot stop doing it." His teeth snap through the apple's skin, a pursed-lip smile forming as he chews with full cheeks.

I mutter curses and go back to pummeling the sandbag. My knuckles start to ache under their bindings, signaling that either my form is slacking, or I'm hitting it too hard—probably both.

"Who taught you how to fight?" Silas asks a few minutes later.

"Pride encouraged it from a young age," I say between punches. "His Second took the job on when no one else would."

None of the other younglings, nor their parents, wanted to engage in hand-to-hand combat with me, and rightfully so. While I had gained control of my magic by ten, that didn't lessen people's fear of my touch. There weren't many options when it came to teachers, leaving me stuck with Pride himself for my magic and his Second at the time, Wes and Claude's father, for fighting and shooting.

He wasn't a good man, but he also wasn't afraid of me.

He should have been.

He realized too late that Pride was training me to replace him—things went south from there. By then, Josie and I were already eighteen, Pride's personal prized weapons lurking in the shadows. He learned that it's hard to get away with plotting a coup when your superior has a mind-reader and a soul-stealer at his disposal.

"Ah, yes. I remember him. Had ruddy-brown hair. Gruff exterior," Silas says. "Very sad, him dying in that automobile accident. Those older cars can be quite dangerous."

I give the sandbag a final hit and begin stripping my hands of their wrappings. The gauze and tape unravel onto the floor, curling into a pile of white.

"Yeah," I say, under Silas's watchful gaze. "Very sad."

He hums, before pulling out his silver pocket watch. The metal clinks against his rings as he flicks it open, reading the time.

"Oh, great," Silas says, perking up from his seat. "We're over time."

My attention turns to the bound fae shackled in the far corner. This was the second to last test before we hit the two-week mark Silas says we need to escape blame for Patience's inevitable death.

I make haste across the room, pushing past Silas.

I close my eyes and breathe deep, focusing on the two tethers of magic that linger within me. One leads to the fae before me and the other to one Wrath has in holding elsewhere in the complex.

Once I had studied up on tethering from the Seelie journals, our training went much smoother. It seems that with the right directions, I'm a natural.

Silas was both thrilled at how fast our situation has changed and jealous at how quickly I was able to grasp the new style of magic.

Training in on the correct tether, I call to my magic. It acts, swift and hungry, rushing through the man's heart and causing it to stall, before running back to me through the fading connection.

The fae shutters, then goes still.

Dead.

Satisfaction swells in my chest along with my magic. In two days, we can finish the last test.

"It is impressive," Silas says. I pivot to face him. "You are a quicker study than I gave you credit for."

"We've been at this for weeks. I don't see how that's a quick study."

He huffs, shaking his head in disbelief. His lips move, murmuring something under his breath that I can't hear.

"What you are doing is not easy. It should take you months , if not longer, to do this," he says.

"How would you know? Is there another soul-stealer you're training that I should know about?" I say, hands on my hips.

"Certainly not one like you."

My lips part at the strange answer, but before I can reply, there's a knock at the door. Wrath steps inside, quickly shutting the door behind him, drawing both my and Silas's attention.

He doesn't often interrupt our training.

"What is it?" Silas asks.

"There's been a wire," he says.

" Okay ," Silas drawls.

There's a beat of silence where Wrath's jaw ticks. Finally, he looks at me, and there's pity in his eyes. Instantly, gooseflesh rises on my neck.

"Your Second sent a message. There was another attack."