Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

An hour later we were waltzed into the building as some older soldiers grinned and tossed immature comments our way. The training facility housed boot camp cadets, and then also higher-level soldiers doing advanced officer training.

When we turned a corner we had to bunch together and I felt Kohen's hand slip in mine, depositing the locket into my fist. I slipped it into my pocket before anyone could see and flicked my gaze to his, but he faced forward, ignoring me.

Why did he do that? Risked getting his butt chewed out for a stupid necklace. There was only one answer I could come up with.

Psychological warfare. From day one, he'd moved out of the way so that Tetra could take his place; he had his team of Imbrians protect her in The Wilds; he helped me save Liana—he did these nice things so that I would grow soft towards him and then he would betray me.

I was not going to let that happen.

"Choose a bunkmate of the same sex!" one of the drill instructors screamed, and I scrambled to get next to Tetra. We formed an orderly line of two by two and the instructor pointed down the hallway of open rooms. "Find a room. This is a co-ed dorm, not a brothel. You are here to learn. We are not your parents, you are grown-ass adults, so we expect you to behave like it. Remember that," she said, and then all the instructors flattened their backs against the wall as we walked briskly to the first open room we could find. My stomach sank when Kohen and Dev slipped into the room directly next to mine, but I shook it off.

We were given ten minutes to unpack and make our beds. Perfectly folded sheets were set at the end of each bunk. I instinctively started making the top bunk bed up because I knew with Tetra's foot she wouldn't be able to get up here. When I was done folding the corners exactly like Elaine had taught me, I slipped my locket under the mattress between the boards and then jumped down to look at Tetra's bed.

It was awful.

"Tuck them tightly," I whispered, yanking the sheet and bedspread down and showing her how. She nodded, doing the next one.

"Tighter, crease it with your hand," I told her.

She did, and struggled without her cane, falling over a few times.

"They will give you a Fleet-issued cane made of rubber," I whispered. "I forgot to tell you that."

She looked relived at that.

"Inspection!" an instructor screamed, and I stood, creasing the last part and then standing at attention, back ramrod straight, hands clasped behind me and chin up.

Tetra mimicked my position and I worried less about her. She was smart and a quick learner—she would catch on. Boots sounded down the hall and then I heard the sound of sheets being torn off a bed.

"This is the Imperial Fleet! Not your mother's basement!" an instructor bellowed down the hall.

"Yes, sir!" a female yelled back.

In the next room the same thing happened.

And then it was our turn. Instructor Ashendell stood in the doorway of our room and peered at me.

"If the emperor's own daughter doesn't know how to make a bed, you all have to run a mile," she said from the doorway, and there was a collective groan down the hallway.

My heart burst to life inside my chest as her gaze ran over my top bed with a critical eye. She even stepped up on the first rung of the attached ladder to get a closer look. When she jumped down, she held my gaze.

"Congratulations, Miss Everhart, you are the new official cadet bed-making instructor."

"Yes, ma'am!" I said.

It was a compliment. I would need to train anyone who had their bed torn up and it would fall on me to be punished if they couldn't learn. Elaine told me things like this happened. It was a test of my leadership skills.

The instructors fanned out and tore apart nearly all of the bedrooms.

"Pathetic!" the older instructor my father had spoken to outside screamed. "You have twenty minutes to remake them or you all have to run a mile. You may ask Miss Everhart for a tutorial."

Great.

My room was suddenly flooded with worried-looking cadets. My ex-boyfriend Jace was among them. Tetra stepped to the side and I tore her lower bunk apart for the tutorial. My nervousness ramped up a notch when I noticed Kohen in the crowd, and then went even higher when I saw that three of the instructors were watching me.

I separated the blanket and sheet and then shook the sheet flat, draping it over the bed.

"The trick is constant creasing with your hands, every step of the way." I tucked the sides, lifting up the mattress and creasing as I went. "Think of your hand as an iron, and crease tight. If you think it's tight enough, it's not," I said.

"Got it," a girl with long brown hair said and spun to leave the room. I recognized her from the academy; we went to school together. She dated Alek in eleventh grade and was super stuck-up. Her name was Summer and she was a know-it-all. I'd seen her come in with a beautiful male lion creature. We didn't run in the same social circles, so I normally did my best to ignore her.

"I'm not done!" I snapped at her back, and Kohen stepped out from where he'd been and barred her way.

Why did he keep doing that stuff?

The girl turned to me with a narrowed gaze. "An idiot can make a bed. I've learned enough. I'd rather have more time to work on it."

I saw the instructors' eyebrows raise but they said nothing, as if they were watching me to see how I would deal with this confrontation.

I nodded. "Then when everyone else passes and you fail, you will know that your pride and impatience are the reason we will likely have to run a mile."

She rolled her eyes, spun and bumped Kohen out of the way.

A nearly all-consuming rage washed over me as she left. I wanted to tear after her and drag her back here to finish the tutorial, but I'd learned from my father that some people only learned from their mistakes. I was betting she was one of those.

I faced my fellow cadets: "The corners must be folded at a forty-five-degree angle." I demonstrated. "And even if you crease and tuck everything tightly, where you will fail inspection is not folding the sheet over the blanket and then folding both down together." I showed what I meant, pinning my knee onto the blanket and sheet to keep it taut. When I stood, there was a knee imprint on the bed so I reached out and creased that. "Try to pull the blanket up with two fingers," I asked Tetra.

She stepped forward and pinched the blanket with two fingers and lifted up. It snapped from her fingers, unable to be pulled up because it was so tight.

"Good luck," I told everyone with a smile.

I was their future empress, and the odds were that my fellow peers in this very room would one day guard me. I wanted loyalty that I'd earned, not ordered.

Everyone burst from the room and scattered down the hallways, running to fix their beds.

Instructor Ashendell stepped inside and pointed to Tetra. "You are needed in medical."

Her eyes widened and she looked frightened for a second.

"For your cane," I whispered, and she relaxed.

Instructor Ashendell shot me a glare as if she didn't appreciate my chatter. Well, I didn't appreciate her freaking my friend out.

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, just as they were inspecting the newly made beds, Tetra waltzed in with a new black rubber cane. It was ugly compared to her crystal one, but functional, and I was just grateful they'd given her one at all.

"Pass," one instructor said, and then moved down the hall. Pass, pass, pass, pass.

With each passing bed inspection I felt pride swell in my chest. This meant I was a good leader, or at the very least that I gave a mean tutorial on how to be a good bed maker.

"FAIL!" I heard a scream. "Get out in the hall and lead your cadets in their one mile run punishment."

I shook my head. I knew who it was going to be before I saw Summer step to the front of the hall and pass my room with her head down. Hopefully, she learned from this. We all stepped out into the hallway and I saw the panic in Tetra's gaze.

She couldn't run, not for long. It was more of a frantic hop, and only when being chased by a feral dog or something.

"I can't run," Tetra said in a low voice to Instructor Ashendell.

"WHAT IS THAT, CADET? I CAN'T HEAR YOU," she shouted on purpose.

"I CAN'T RUN!" Tetra screamed in anger.

I wanted to come to her aid and defend her, but I knew that would only make things worse.

Instructor Ashendell glared at Tetra. "How can you expect to protect this great country if you can't even run?"

Tetra matched her glare. "Oh I don't know. Maybe with my badass wolf creature?"

Over a dozen snickers burst from the lips of the cadets present, and I wanted to smack Tetra in the back of the head.

Was her comment funny? Hell yes. But was it also stupid? Yes again.

A shadow crossed Instructor Ashendell's face. "Because of your fellow cadet's attitude, you all now have to run two miles while she sits on a blanket and paints her nails like a princess."

I could see the retort building in Tetra's throat, so I stepped forward.

"Yes, ma'am, let's move out!" I nudged two people in front of me and we began to march.

As far as first days went, this could have gone worse.

By the next morning at breakfast, everyone was over the two-mile run. Everyone but Tetra.

"She's awful. I hate her," Tetra growled, shoving potatoes into her mouth angrily.

I chuckled, half asleep still as Jace pulled into the seat next to me.

"Hey," he said shyly.

"Nope." Tetra pointed her fork at him. "Not happening."

I had to hide my grin as I glanced at him.

Jace looked offended. "Tetra, Aisling and I talked. We're cool now. Friends. Right, Ash?"

I hated that he still used his pet name for me.

I remembered him telling me at Club Sleuth about his parents' divorce, and I pitied him.

Turning fully to him, I met his gaze, a gaze I had once gotten lost in for hours. "We are cool, but I need time before we just sit next to each other and act like nothing happened."

Because he still cheated on me. I wouldn't soon forget that, if ever.

His face fell and he nodded, getting up and moving to another table.

"Don't worry. I still have a revenge plot in place," Tetra said.

A new tray plopped next to mine and I looked up to see Alek and smiled genuinely. He was followed by Roc, Anika, Dev, and Meera. The Wilds alliance was all at one table.

"How are you feeling after that two-mile run, Tetra? My legs are sore," Anika asked my bestie sarcastically, but there was a smile on her lips.

Tetra hadn't run at all. She'd sat in the middle on a blanket with a bottle of Instructor Ashendell's nail polish, painting her nails as ordered.

"Mine too." Tetra matched Anika's sarcasm.

I felt at ease with this group. Maybe it was because we'd bonded during our time in The Wilds. Meera was the quiet introspective and smart one. Anika was clearly one of the leaders, with a chip on her shoulder. Nikhil was the ladies' man, who even now was flirting with Tetra and asking to touch her new cane. Dev was more like Kohen, quiet and always calculating. A man of few words.

Speaking of Kohen… the Avasan gang leader had arrived. If it weren't for Roc and Alek sitting next to me, I might have had to switch tables for fear of people thinking I was aligning with him or something. I couldn't let that kind of word get back to my father.

"Aisling." Kohen said my name so delicately it made heat bloom in my core.

I looked up at him. He was holding his tray and eyeing the empty seat at the end of the table, farthest from me.

"Do you mind if I sit with you guys?"

Why in the stars was he asking? And so politely? Had he gotten hit over the head?

"Sure, dude." I tried to be casual. "Why would I care?"

He plopped down next to Dev and across from Meera and peered at me. "I know you have to be careful about your reputation. I don't want to cause you trouble."

My gut clenched at the thoughtful statement, and for some reason I was getting really pissed off by his hospitality. Was this his plan? Lure me in, chew me up, then spit me out?

I turned to Alek, giving Kohen my back. I couldn't deal with this right now. He was playing games. I knew it. My father murdered his. There was no way his kind gestures were authentic.

"Do you think we will get put into wing training soon?" I asked Alek. "I bet Instructor Ashendell will be our trainer." He was hawk bonded, like her. All those who bonded with a beast of the air had special "wing training." Just as those who bonded with a water animal had water training.

He nodded. "That's exactly what I think," he agreed and popped a piece of bacon in his mouth. We all chatted casually for the next ten minutes until the lights went off in the room, plunging us into darkness.

"This is a drill, get ready," I told everyone. Elaine warned me about this. Random attack drills. A mean thing to do on day two.

The mess hall door was kicked open and low emergency lights flicked on as a dozen instructors wearing gas masks walked inside. One had a bullhorn. "This is a drill to assess your readiness for battle! Prepare to be tested!" It was Ashendell. I recognized her voice.

I pulled off my shirt, sitting in just my sports bra, and wrapped the shirt around my nose and mouth.

Everyone at my table looked at me like I'd grown two heads, everyone but Kohen. He stared at me with eyes that felt like they were on fire, blazing right through my soul.

"They are wearing masks for a reason, you idiots!" I told everyone at my table.

Tetra and everyone else followed my lead, pulling off their shirts and wrapping them around their mouths. I then grabbed my plastic knife and crawled under the table. Everyone else followed my lead.

That's when the smoke grenades went off.

"You've just been fired on," Ashendell screamed through the bullhorn. "In the middle of breakfast while you are still barely awake. Your weapons are back in the armory, your creatures are outside, and the enemy is about to attack. What do you do?"

Coughing rang throughout the space as our fellow students gagged and choked, their eyes burning and running with tears. Still, there were fifty of us and twelve of them.

I had an idea.

Leaping up onto the table top, I pointed at the instructors. "Even without weapons, there are more of us than there are of them!" I shouted. "We rush them on three!" And my entire table stood at the ready as the rest of our fellow cadets began to fall in line.

"One." Even though my fellow cadets were coughing and throwing up, they stood and grabbed a plastic utensil, food tray, whatever they could. The instructors fanned out, anticipating the attack.

"Two!" We spread out as well, forming two lines of twenty-five people each.

"Thr—"

"Congratulations. You passed." Instructor Ashendell pulled the bullhorn to her lips. The lights came on, the doors behind the instructors opened, and the smoke stopped.

My eyes burned. Tears streaked down my face, but when Instructor Ashendell yanked off her mask, she was grinning at me.

"Lesson of the day," she screamed into the bullhorn. "Have a weapon on you at all times."

Then they left, like nothing had just happened.

"Holy hell," Tetra said, standing in her hot pink sports bra with her shirt still bunched over her mouth and her rubber cane raised like a bat.

"I need fresh air," I called out. My eyes were burning. I ran for the back door that the instructors had just left out of. There were no windows in here. What a stupid design. It was like being in a sarcophagus.

I stepped out of the mess hall and into the hallway, but stopped when I heard voices around the corner.

"We've never had a drill solved that early," a male instructor was saying. "That's a record." I didn't recognize his voice.

"Well, yeah, she's the future empress. What did you expect?" Another male voice I couldn't recognize through the mask they wore. But I didn't want to eavesdrop and get in trouble, so I backed up only to stop at what I heard next.

"Not if we take care of her in here she's not," an older male said. This one seemed like it might be familiar, but the damn gas mask was making it hard to hear.

Take care of her?

My chest heaved at the threat, and I was about to march over there and demand he remove his mask and show himself when a hand came around my mouth and dragged me backward. I was going to fight when I smelled that it was Kohen. His fingers permanently smelled of fragrant spices, which I had grown to love.

Damn.

He dragged me into an alcove and then released my mouth. I spun, with my shirt still bunched at my neck and glared him down. "You need to mind your own business," I growled.

He frowned. "You looked like you were about to get yourself killed. I'm just trying to help you."

Help me?

"I'm going to report them." I moved to leave the alcove and Kohen yanked me back.

Oh this bastard was begging for a throat punch.

"Hear me out," Kohen spoke softly, his body inches from mine, causing a delicious wave of heat to move through me, catching me off guard. "If you rat out these guys, it will stop them, but it won't stop who hired them."

His words stole my breath. Someone hired them?

"How do you know someone else is involved? It could just be them," I told him, knowing that these precious seconds were costing me. I would soon lose my ability to identify these perpetrators.

He looked at me like I was stupid. "You think three well-paid drill instructors would risk their careers trying to take out the emperor's daughter of their own accord? Why? Because of some vengeance against the country? No. They are being paid, probably four times their salary to turn on you, by someone in a much higher position."

His words struck fear into my heart because I knew they must be true. It made sense.

‘Everything okay?' Liana's voice shot through my mind.

‘Fine,' I lied. It wasn't like I was in mortal danger right this second, but she must have felt that I was off.

"Like who?" I breathed to Kohen. "And why the hell do you care?"

His face clouded over. "I assume it's whoever trapped Liana and tried to keep you from bonding with her. And I wish I didn't care. Do whatever you want," he snapped, walking away, back into the mess hall.

I stood there for a moment, processing what had just happened, and decided Kohen's advice was good, but I still wanted these men arrested. I walked out of the alcove and into the hallway where the lieutenants had just been talking… but they were gone.

Not if we take care of her? I had no idea if they were talking about killing me, and now I had no idea who it was.

The second day of school was truly outshining the first.