Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

They put Kohen and I in different cells but we were right next to each other. I could see him through the bars, lying on the bench with a rag pressed to his nose.

The soldier had just left and we were all alone in the dimly lit room with four cells, two currently empty.

"You okay?" I finally asked.

He sat up slowly, pulling the rag away to reveal puffy eyes and a purple cheek, but the bleeding had stopped.

"I'll live," he muttered.

I frowned. "Why did you attack the admiral like that?"

His eyes practically glowed. "He hurt you."

Heat rushed through my entire body then, and I couldn't get my heart to stop pounding.

"So? That's none of your business," I snapped.

I watched as he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"You're welcome," Kohen finally said, and I sighed.

Point taken.

"Thanks. Now, don't do anything stupid like that again. I had this handled."

Sort of.

Kohen laughed. "Really? He was about two seconds from forcing you to one knee and revealing your powers in front of everyone, which would probably have gotten us both killed because I would have been next."

I frowned. That was oddly specific. "So that's why you took him down."

Kohen's eyes blazed across the space, searching for me, and I felt them like a physical caress when they landed on mine. "He hurt you. That's why I knocked him out. And I would do it again."

"Why?" I pressed. "Why do you care if someone hurts me?"

Kohen's jaw pinched and he stood, beginning to pace the cell. "I hate this," he said, causing me to frown in confusion.

"Hate what?"

"Nothing," he snapped, and I decided to leave him alone. He'd probably gotten a head injury and needed some space.

We were quiet for a while, then the door on the back wall opened. Kohen returned to the bench and took a seat as Admiral Caruso strode towards us, her tawny wolf right at her side. Caruso had brown skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. Her face was perfectly carved, plump lips, sharp nose, high eyebrow arch. She could have been a model in another life, a life without war. She was in her early forties; her hands were littered with little battle scars that told me she'd earned her title. My father counted her as one of his closest advisors.

She walked right up to me and pinned me with a blank look. "Elaine told me to keep an eye on you, and here you are attacking an admiral's creature to save a Badshah." She flicked a disgusted gaze in Kohen's direction.

I sighed in relief at the mention of Elaine. If she was friends with Elaine, she was an ally.

"I didn't plan on doing that, ma'am." I stood and walked closer to her so that she could use her truth telling power to know that I was not lying. "I woke up this morning with every intention of going through the power revealing process like everyone else."

She raised one eyebrow and nodded, apparently pleased with my answer. "Then why stick up for him?" She jerked her head in Kohen's direction.

My heart beat frantically in my chest. I had just reacted without thinking, but I couldn't say that. And I couldn't lie.

"My creature is a mother figure to his. They are bonded in a way and… I just reacted, doing what I knew my creature would want."

Truth.

I didn't look over at Kohen but I could feel his eyes burning into me.

Caruso stepped closer to me. "And why did your creature want to hide whatever your powers are?"

Crap.

Be smart, Aisling.

"What I want to know," Kohen interrupted, giving me some time to think of an answer, "is why an admiral nearly broke the jaw of the future empress."

Caruso snapped her head in Kohen's direction. "You will speak only when spoken to, Cadet. Do you understand?"

Kohen swallowed hard. "Yes, ma'am," he growled.

His outburst had bought me time I needed to gather my thoughts.

Caruso peered back at me. "The entire admiralty cabinet is telling me to march you both back in there and reveal your powers. Give me one reason not to."

"They will be revealed in due time," I told her. Because if they weren't, we weren't getting good postings. "But right now it's a matter of national security that both of our powers stay hidden."

She frowned, concern pulling at her features. "National security?"

She must have sensed the truth. I was the heir, the next empress, my father's successor, and if I died it would be a matter of national security, as keeping the line of succession alive was of utmost importance. And right now there was a current plot on my life, as I had heard yesterday morning outside the mess hall. Liana said that revealing my powers right now would get me killed and I believed her.

"That's all I can say for now, ma'am. That to force me or Kohen to reveal our powers would put my life in danger."

Her frown deepened. "Why him?" She jerked her head towards the cell next to mine.

Why him? I'd been asking myself that since the day I laid eyes on him.

"I don't know."

Truth.

My fate was intertwined with Kohen's in some way. That was something I just felt deeply in my soul, and it filled me with equal amounts of excitement and fear.

"You are one unit! When one of you fails, you all fail!" Instructor Ashendell shouted into my face as I ran past her for the seventeenth lap. Rain pelted down on me as sleep pulled at my limbs. It was 3 a.m. and we'd just been woken for punishment for Kohen's and my outburst. On the lawn in front of us, sitting under some floodlights and an umbrella, was Admiral Blade. He grinned as our entire unit jogged in the rain around him. Sahiri stood next to him, soaking wet and tracking me with her gaze like a predator.

Tetra had been doing sit-ups this entire time. I flicked a gaze her way to see that she had just vomited from overexertion.

Everyone was going to hate us come morning, but we'd gotten away without having to show our powers. Kohen ran well ahead of me. We were trying to keep distance from each other. The last thing I needed was for word to get back to my father that we were some item or alliance or something.

We'd totally missed the power reveal, but Tetra told me that she and her creature had discovered she had the power to shield people, and eventually with practice, buildings, from harm. It was an incredible power that would make her useful to the Fleet. Jace had apparently revealed he had the power to project illusions, which could confuse someone or lead them astray. His father would be thrilled. It was an amazing power to use in time of war.

My muscles burned, my lungs felt like they were on fire, and I had mud up to my knees, but I kept running. Someone beside me fell and I slowed, reaching down to pick them up before the instructor could yell at them. It was Anika.

"Thanks," she muttered, looking miserable.

Tetra told me that Anika had the power to manipulate the wind. With practice, it would be an amazing gift on the battlefield.

"I don't know but I've been told!" I shouted, trying to boost morale.

"I don't know but I've been told!" half of the cadets around me echoed.

"It's cold as hell and I feel old!" I yelled, and was rewarded with chuckles from my fellow cadets.

"It's cold as hell and I feel old!" they said.

"I don't know but I've been told!" Tetra yelled between push-ups in the middle of the field.

We echoed her.

"Punching an admiral is pretty bold," she said, and I couldn't help the grin that slipped over my mouth. My gaze flicked to the admiral, who was now glaring at Tetra.

"I don't know but I have heard!" Kohen said and we echoed him. I was curious what he might say.

"I have regrets about punching the admiral. I should have just flipped him the bird!"

More laughs echoed around the field, including my own, and I noticed the admiral glare at Kohen, but the corner of his lips twitched as if he was fighting a smile.

Sahiri beat her chest in response to that and we all shut up and ran for another hour until most of us were puking our guts out, or had fallen so many times we couldn't get up. Me included.

Stick a fork in me. I was done.

The next day, everyone walked into the mess hall on three hours of sleep wincing with pain—everyone but Kohen and I. It seemed the Imbrian and I shared the same gift of rapid healing. My muscles should be killing me right now after all the running, but I didn't feel a thing. Kohen's face, previously bruised and swollen, was looking as normal as ever.

"Aisling!" Alek strode up to me as I placed food onto my plate from the self-serve bar. I was starving from the middle-of-the-night workout.

"Hey, what's up?" I peered at him.

Alek's power had been revealed as the ability to control metal. A huge help in the war when the enemy used swords and other metallic weapons. He'd need to practice it though.

"Are you going to the karaoke thing tonight at Club Sleuth?" he asked.

I frowned. "The what?"

"Yep, we will be there," Tetra peeped beside me, and Alek broke into a handsome grin as we walked over to the table we had taken to sitting at every day. Our little Wilds alliance crew, plus Kohen.

As Alek took a seat on my left, Tetra dropped her cane to the ground and kicked it under the bench, folding her bad leg in first and then sitting on my right.

"You were in the brig when we planned a karaoke night at Sleuth to celebrate revealing our powers," Tetra said.

I nodded, popping a French fry in my mouth.

Alek reached out and grabbed one of my fries. "For those of us that did reveal our powers." He winked at me and I smirked.

"Too soon for jokes about that," I told him.

Suddenly a hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed another fry. I followed the hand to see Jace casually smiling down at me. "Hey, Aisling." But when Jace's gaze flicked to Alek, he glared.

What Jace didn't see was Kohen looming behind him. I opened my mouth to say something just as Kohen's hand snaked out and wrapped around Jace's wrist, shaking the fry loose of his grasp.

Jace dropped it on the floor and yanked his hand free, spinning around and getting right up in Kohen's face.

"What the hell, Badshah?"

One by one, the Imbrians from our table rose. Anika, Dev, Nikhil, even little unassuming Meera. They didn't make a move on Jace but their message was clear. They had Kohen's back.

"Where I'm from, if you take food from a woman, it means you are a coward," Kohen spat.

Jace moved blindingly fast then, coming up with a right uppercut, intending to connect with Kohen's jaw. But Kohen was ready for it. He blocked the move and took Jace to the ground quickly, kicking his legs out from under him.

As I watched the boys fight, anger boiled within me. What the hell did Kohen think he was doing? Last night with the admiral and now this? Over a French fry?

I got up from the table, picked up my French fry tray, and chucked it at the boys on the floor, letting my food spill all over them. They stopped their fighting when the fries pelted their face and looked up at me.

"Grow up!" I snapped, and stalked off, hungry and pissed.

I stormed outside and headed for the woods, toward where I knew Liana would be waiting. I could feel her, like a gentle nudge in my heart, beckoning me closer.

‘What's wrong?' she asked.

‘Men suck,' I told her, and trudged through the thick trees.

I found her and Onyx together in a field with a few other creatures. It took me a moment to recognize Lieutenant Ashendell's hawk and Alek's. They all stood in a circle like they were having some kind of bird chat.

"Am I interrupting something?" I asked.

Liana stepped over to me and bowed, ‘We are wing training in the air today. Let's go for a flight before class starts.'

I needed that. I needed to get the hell out of here and away from Kohen's possessiveness. I happily crawled onto her back, surprised when I saw that she was wearing a small harness that had two handles.

‘They outfitted us this morning,' she told me, and kicked off the ground.

I screamed in excitement as my stomach dropped and the wind rushed through my hair. ‘You let them?' I was impressed. She didn't seem the type to allow any kind of restraint.

‘Yes, so that we can do this. Hold on,' she said, and I grasped the handles and clenched my thighs, thinking she was going to do some evasive sharp left turn. Instead, she did a full flip. A scream of terror ripped from my throat as my heart beat frantically. She righted herself and I could almost swear she was smiling.

‘What the hell? I could have fallen!'

‘You're not thinking of stupid men anymore though, are you?'

That got a smirk out of me. I was not.

‘Touché.'

‘Do you want to talk about it?' Liana asked.

She had this mother energy, an energy I had been missing most of my life. I felt like I could come to her with anything and she wouldn't judge me and might even give sound advice.

‘Kohen is being…' I fought for the words. ‘We're not friends, okay. He's my family's sworn enemy and yet he's being nice and possessive over me. Like he's protecting me.' It felt good to tell another person what I was thinking. ‘Maybe it's because Onyx and you are close and he is feeling some need to protect me because of that?'

‘That's not why,' she answered, and I frowned.

‘Then why? Why is he so… why won't he just leave me alone?' I asked. ‘Is he playing some kind of game? Trying to draw me in so he can get revenge for his father's death?'

She was quiet for a long time, so long I thought she might not answer me. ‘Let me be clear, Aisling. My allegiance is with you and you alone. I will put your safety above anyone else I may care about, including Onyx and by extension Kohen. But, as this does not concern your safety, I will not answer you. Kohen can tell you when he's ready.'

I felt like I'd been slapped. She knew the answer and wouldn't tell me. ‘Is it related to his power?' I questioned.

‘Yes,' she replied.

What the hell? I hadn't even discovered my power yet, assuming I had one beyond rapid healing and seemingly escaping death, and Kohen's was apparently messing with him so much he was punching out admirals and Jace?

‘Okay.' I was quiet the whole rest of our flight, lost in my thoughts. When we landed, Kohen, Alek, and Ashendell were in the field, waiting. Dev was walking through the trees with his giant vulture creature on his shoulder. Tetra told me his power had been revealed to be so intense that the admirals didn't know what to do with him. Sahiri revealed that one day he would kill with a single touch.

"Getting a head start, cadet?" Instructor Ashendell asked me.

My gaze flicked to Kohen, but he was staring straight ahead, ignoring me.

Great.

"Just a light flying practice, ma'am," I told her, dismounting.

She nodded and then pointed to Kohen. "The fact that you can both fly on your creatures is an incredible asset to the Fleet."

Onyx craned his black scaly head in Ashendell's hawk's direction and sniffed him. They both froze.

Kohen grinned. I was guessing Onyx said something funny in his head.

"What's he doing?" Ashendell asked Kohen as her hawk flew from the ground to her shoulder. She was a badass, but she definitely seemed terrified, and had been avoiding looking at our creatures the entire time.

Kohen straightened his back and stood erect. "Nothing, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."

Ashendell brushed it off, but Liana used one of her long tailfeathers to smack Onyx in the side of the head. I wondered how old he was, because he behaved like a cocky teenager. Kohen and Onyx were perfect for each other in that way.

"Today we will be practicing using our powers with our creatures. This will prepare us for the mock attack we will have at the end of the week," she said.

My powers. I didn't know what they were yet. Other than possibly being immortal, which made me want to vomit just thinking about it, and healing.

Ashendell peered at Alek. "Since we don't yet know what these two can do…" She cast a glare at Kohen and I. "We will start with Alek."

She pulled some throwing knives from behind her back and handed them to him.

"Cool." He picked one up.

Ashendell whistled and her hawk took flight. She closed her eyes, concentrating, and I realized she had the power to see what he saw, a very cool if somewhat common power. He could fly ten miles away and she would see through his eyes.

"Send out your hawk," she told Alek, keeping her eyes closed.

Alek's hawk, who I'd learned was named Iniki, burst from his shoulders and took off to the skies.

Alek closed his eyes and mimicked what Lieutenant Ashendell was doing.

I gasped. "You have two powers?"

Alek grinned, making himself look even more handsome than usual. "I do."

For some reason I felt like Kohen was watching me. I glanced his way to find him glaring. I rolled my eyes and focused on Alek again. He was seeing through his hawk's sight, which I imagined was such an amazing experience second to flying.

"Now throw the knife, but use your metal-moving power to guide the sword through the woods using Iniki's sight," Ashendell ordered.

He winced. "That sounds hard. I can barely move a quarter across the room."

Ashendell nodded, her eyes still closed. "It will take a lot of practice, but eventually you could kill an enemy from a mile away—slitting their throat in their sleep."

Badass. But she was right. His power was amazing when you thought about it like that. We stood there for twenty minutes while Alek tried to move the thin blade through the woods using his hawk's sight, but it fell about ten feet from him.

"Alright, good try. Take a break," she told him, opening her eyes and calling her creature back.

Then she peered at me. "Are you going to tell us what your power is yet? Otherwise I don't know how to train you."

‘Don't tell her that you don't know yet what your power is. That will make you sound weak,' Liana coached, and then stood beside me, bending so that I could ride her.

"I have a little something I can show you," I told her, processing Liana's advice.

Was sounding weak in front of Ashendell dangerous? She sort of made it seem that way. And wasn't being impervious to flame, and possibly immortal, power enough?

‘You have more abilities. They just haven't shown yet,' Liana told me.

She seemed so sure… maybe she felt it. I certainly didn't.

I climbed onto Liana's back. She leapt into the air as I held onto the handles of her new holster and squeezed her back with my thighs. She went really high.

‘Hold on,' she instructed.

She dove at that moment and my stomach dropped. Halfway down, she did a barrel roll and let loose a twenty-foot stream of fire that nearly shaved the top off of the trees near us.

"Showoff!" Alek taunted from the ground, and I grinned.

It wasn't a power display from me, but it showed what I could do with Liana.

When I landed, Ashendell marked something on her clipboard and nodded.

"Okay. That will do for now. Kohen, you're up."

She didn't seem very impressed. Maybe she was hoping for me to display something.

Kohen leapt onto Onyx, staying upright, and I noticed his feet slipped into the hand straps sewn onto a harness Onyx had that was nearly identical to Liana's. Onyx flew around like a teenager who had drank way too much caffeine and Kohen stayed standing the entire time. They ended their little display with Onyx breathing a ring of fire and flying Kohen through it.

"Talk about a showoff," I muttered to Alek, who chuckled.

But Ashendell was smiling at the display and I saw her write, battle ready on the top of Kohen's paper before pulling the clipboard out of view.

Battle ready. In his first few days of training? Did she mark that on mine?

We all had to be battle ready by the end of this month, but seeing him get the nod of approval so quickly made jealousy flare to life in my chest.

When I got back to our room, I found Tetra lying in bed with her bad foot elevated and an icepack on top. Her creature was lying on the bed next to her with her head in her lap.

"You okay?" I rushed inside and knelt before her.

She nodded, but I could tell she wasn't.

"What happened?" I asked, lifting the icepack to see that her normally pink and crooked foot was black and blue.

"Jace, we were training and?—"

I stood angrily, ready to rip that bastard's head off.

She yanked my arm, forcing me down on the bed beside her. "And he accidently jumped on it. He apologized profusely and even carried me here."

I growled. "That's going to put you out of commission for a few days."

She laughed. "Are you serious? He hurt my already mangled foot. I'll be fine. It's nothing I'm not already accustomed to. Pain and uselessness."

Her words hit my chest like a bomb and my heart fissured. Pain and uselessness, that's what my best friend was accustomed to?

"You're not useless," I told her, but she turned away from me and I saw her wipe at her eyes.

"Tetra, look at me. You are not useless!" I forced her to face me and my heart broke when I saw the unshed tears in her eyes. Her mouth was set into a grim line. "What's gotten into you? Did Jace say something? I'll nut punch him right now if he did," I promised her.

She shook her head. "I overheard one of the instructors saying my power was really valuable but that my leg would get me killed in combat. They are going to bench me, Aisling. I'm going to be a drill instructor after we graduate, right here at the training center. I was so stupid to think I could do this, that I could make a difference in this war."

She turned back away from me, and this time I let her. Becoming an instructor without any combat experience was frowned upon. It was a known demotion that signaled the Imperial Fleet thought you couldn't handle real battle. I wanted to argue with her and tell her to show them she could do better, but I also selfishly wanted her to stay here after graduation. I wanted her to be an instructor and live out life in the city and see her mom every day. I wanted her to be safe.

Imagining Tetra in a warzone or sleeping in tents while moving through enemy territory would keep me up at night.

"It will be okay," I said instead. Because it would. If Tetra was safe, then everything would be okay.

A few hours later, we got ready for our first off base night since we'd gotten here. Tetra assured me her foot would be fine with the cane and she'd ice it later. We were not permitted to wear civilian clothes, so that all of the people we encountered tonight would know we were cadets in training. Tetra and I had, however, found a way around the dress code. We both tied our black Fleet-issued t-shirt into a knot just above our bellybuttons and I cuffed my black pants to just mid-calf, pairing it with my imperial boots and some light makeup that was allowed. For the first time since I'd entered the Fleet, I wore my hair down and free around my shoulders.

"This is so cool." Tetra smiled as she stroked both sides of my hair.

I grinned. "The triplets loved it."

Tetra laughed. "I'll bet they've all dyed their hair to match yours by now."

She knew them well. I missed their feral little hormonal asses very much. Elaine too.

"Elaine would never allow it," I told her.

"True," Tetra agreed, wincing as she hobbled.

I lowered my voice. "What about those pain pills I got you?"

I'd had to pull some strings with my father last year but I'd gotten Tetra some pain pills for days when her foot discomfort really flared. The war had put a strain on supplies, and pain medicines were the first to go scarce.

She'd be fine for months and then bam, she'd wake up with her twisted foot hot to the touch and swollen. She was born this way, a deformity that the doctors said was so rare they didn't really know what to do about it. But the pills were the good stuff that made you feel woozy and forget about everything.

She shook her head. "It's not that bad yet. I'm saving those for a flare."

I nodded. "You brought them though?"

She bopped her chin up and down. "Medical cleared me to have them, but I have to tell my drill instructor if I take one."

I just hoped she would before it got unmanageable. My bestie was known for hiding her pain and not complaining about it until it was really bad.

We exited our room, and I skittered to a stop to keep myself from slamming into Jace.

His fist was poised to knock over our door.

"Oh, sorry." He pushed himself back to allow us to leave, his gaze running the length of my body. Jace checking me out before would have delighted me, now it just made me pissed-off and sad. He'd ruined such a good thing.

"I'm so sorry about your foot, Tetra. I wanted to offer my family's driver to take us to the club together," he said.

The bar was within walking distance normally, but with Tetra's injured foot, a hired car would be better.

"Thank you," Tetra said simply.

"Excuse us." Kohen's voice came from behind and I spun.

He was standing behind me, looking hot as all hell in all-black Fleet-issued fatigues and glaring at Jace. His hair was slicked back and I spotted a blade tucked into his belt.

Why did I want things I shouldn't have?

Jace narrowed his gaze on Kohen, unmoving, and I couldn't take this anymore.

"We can get our own car," I told Jace, and started to walk away with Tetra hobbling behind me. I slowed, letting her catch up, and then threw the door wide for her, leading us both outside.

I was done with this male pissing match.