Chapter 17

Chapter

Seventeen

When we got to the bar, Tetra hopped on stage and started singing one of my favorite songs about late nights and not caring what others thought. She even flipped me off during the best parts and I grinned. She was my ride or die. Even with a bashed-up foot, nothing would stop her from singing and having fun.

The song ended and then the DJ picked up for a bit, playing mostly high vibe dance music.

"Dance with me?" Alek's voice washed over my neck and I turned to find him leaning forward, inches from my cheek.

Oh. I swallowed hard.

He looked handsome in his black fatigues with rolled-up sleeves showing his bulging bicep.

Was this like a friendly dance? Or something more?

I didn't see this coming, so I just accepted his hand and allowed him to lead me onto the dance floor, where others were moving to the beat.

I peered back at my bestie and she waggled her eyebrows, causing me to grin.

I hooked my arms behind Alek's neck, and he placed his hands on my hips as I moved against him.

"Crazy week," I said into his ear.

He nodded. "But we're surviving."

We were.

"Your powers are super cool. I can't believe you got two," I said.

He pulled back and cast me a sexy smile. "Says the girl who bonded a Talanagi!"

I tipped my head back and laughed and he pulled me closer to him.

"Stars, I love your laugh." His voice was husky now, and I swallowed hard.

Alek? I mean… he was hot and I'd known him since we were twelve, but I'd never considered him as?—

"Can I step in?" Kohen growled, suddenly looming next to us.

My fingers dug into the back of Alek's neck, and I could see the muscle in his jaw tic.

"Well, I don't speak for Aisling, but no. I do not want you to step in," Alek told him respectfully but point blank.

It was kinda hot that he wasn't speaking for me, but one look at Kohen told me something was up. He looked pissed and ready to explode. This must have to do with his power, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what power would cause this aggro male behavior.

Which was also kind of hot if I was being honest. I hated myself for loving the alpha male fight over me thing, but dammit, Kohen looked ready to rip Alek's fingers off of my waist one by one… and I liked it.

But I couldn't dance with the Imbrian prince. Was he serious?

"Kohen, I can't dance with you." I flicked my gaze to the soldiers lining the walls, and watched as pain crossed over his features for a split second before being replaced by a stone-cold wall.

"Understood," he said, and then stormed off.

"Dude, he's got it bad for you," Alek said, and I shook my head.

"No, it's something else. Our creatures are bonded in a way. He's been acting like this since then." Kohen didn't like me. Right?

Alek gave me a look. "You can't believe that, right? The way he knocked out an admiral, then taking out Jace for stealing a single French fry. Now trying to break up our dance. He's claiming you."

I chuckled. "Claiming me?"

Alek's face grew serious. "Aisling, I'm not kidding. He wants you. The questions is, what do you want?" He peered at me with a vulnerability I wasn't prepared for, and I took a closer look at Alek. He was handsome, there was no denying that, and a complete opposite looks-wise from Kohen: blond hair and blue eyes, fair skin. But there was no spark there. No ember to light the fires of passion that I'd experienced with Jace. And if I was being honest, Kohen too. But was there spark potential? Given different circumstances? I was confused.

He was a great guy, someone my dad would like well enough. Someone the country would approve of. But the spark… wasn't there.

I pulled my hands from behind his neck. "I don't know what I want. I'm sorry, Alek," I said, and then bolted for the bathroom.

I hadn't expected the night to go like this and for Alek to confront me like that. As I passed the bathroom, I heard banging in the storage closet to the left, the same one I'd met Kohen in before. It sounded like someone was punching holes in a wall.

I yanked the door open and found Kohen doing just that. Until his knuckles bled.

"Kohen, stop it!" I slammed the door behind me and yanked him back by the shoulders.

He spun to face me, eyes filled with a mixture of rage and agony. His hands shook as he looked down at me in the soft light.

"I can't do this, Aisling. I'm not strong enough," he admitted.

His emotional display scared me. "Do what? What's wrong?"

He reached up and cupped my face, staring into my eyes and taking the breath from my lungs. Just one touch from him and my entire body was buzzing. There was more than a spark, there was an entire forest fire.

"You're mine, Aisling. And I can't watch other men throw themselves at you when I know that you will be mine."

His words knocked my heart from my chest, and dizziness washed over me.

He knew that I would be his? What the hell did that even m?—?

It hit me then. His power. It was unheard of. Not permitted. A power so hard to handle that the few people in history who carried it killed themselves or went insane. If my father didn't kill them first.

"You can see the future," I breathed.

He whimpered in relief that I had figured it out and then released my face. "Yes, and it's a curse because no one around me understands what is coming, or what we will do."

He shook his head and tapped the side of it with a fist. "I can't sleep. I just want it to stop. I just want to transport myself to the future when it's over."

Holy effing shit. Kohen could see the future? No wonder Liana kept this from Sahiri. He would have been torn apart on the spot. It was a forbidden power to carry. Outlawed by my great-grandfather.

"Kohen…" My voice shook. "My father will kill you if he finds out you can do this," I said.

He looked at me and swallowed hard. "I know."

Did he know or did he know?

I couldn't handle this right now. It was too much. I came here to blow off some steam with Tetra and now I knew too much to go back to my relaxed state of mind.

He reached up and grasped the back of his neck. "Please don't flirt with Alek or I'll have to kill him."

I barked out in laughter at the ridiculous comment, and then stopped when I saw that he was serious.

He stepped forward, locking his gaze with mine, and then leaned into my ear, bringing the heat of his body with him and sending an inferno through my veins that settled between my legs. "Aisling, I've seen myself make love to you under a bed of stars, and I've heard you cry out my name begging for more. Anything with Alek or Jace would be fleeting. You are mine, and I am yours."

I stumbled backward, emotion clogging my throat.

His words were crazy. It was too much. I couldn't make love to the prince of Imbria. My father would kill me. It would be the ultimate betrayal.

"I've freaked you out." He took three giant steps backward and then gave me his back, squatting on his heels and hanging his head in his hands.

"Kohen, it's just… a lot."

"Just go," he ordered.

"Kohen…" I searched for a kind thing to say, but telling me that I was his and that he already owned my heart in some future where he had yet to romance me was definitely freaking me out.

"Just go," he said again, and so I did. I stumbled out into the hallway and went right for the bathroom, where I stared at myself in the mirror for ten whole minutes in shock.

‘Kohen can see the future,' I told Liana.

‘Yes.' Her reply was filled with sadness.

This changed everything.

Over the next week, all I thought about was making love under a bed of stars and crying out his name. He'd implanted that into my head and now I was going insane with it. He was avoiding me. He ate lunch at our table in under two minutes and then went outside to run. He ran all the time now, as if he trying to run away from his problems. We trained daily as a group with my fellow wing mates. We did flying drills and combat drills, and all I thought about was Kohen and I having sex.

It was driving me crazy. I wished he'd never told me. The only way I would have sex with him were if we married. I was a responsible successor to my father's throne, held to the highest standard, albeit an old law that was outdated. But I wasn't about to go sleep around and ruin all my prospects just because Kohen whispered something in my ear. One check from the doctors telling my future husband that I was impure and I'd be a spinster for the rest of my life, collecting cats. But there was literally no world in which I would marry Kohen Badshah, which led me to believe that he was either mistaken about his visions of the future or he was deliberately lying to mess with me. My mind was a wreck, and there was no one I could tell, because on the off-chance Kohen wasn't lying, or making this up… revealing his secret could get him killed.

I was functioning on such little sleep that my movements were sluggish when we were dragged out of bed at 2 a.m. Another week had passed and the instructors were torturing us with nighttime drills.

"This is a drill!" Instructor Ashendell announced through her bullhorn as she walked down the hall. "Pretend that we've just been attacked by Luskins—who will be wearing red vests. Go find your creature and defend the training center, detaining as many red vests as you can."

Tetra limped over to the dresser in her underwear, half falling over until I caught her midair and helped her into her pants.

"There's no time for lacing boots, ladies and gentlemen!" Ashendell barked, and I released Tetra as we both stumbled into the hallway still dressing as we ran.

My gaze flicked to Kohen, shirtless and not even bothering to put one on as he strode into the hallway in low slung pants and a long sword in each hand.

Stars help me.

You're mine, Aisling. His words reverberated around my head and I had to push them out of my brain. It wasn't the time to think of such things. The second we stepped outside, we were hit with an onslaught of mock weapons. Blunt rubber tipped arrows, water balloons filled with paint, and wood throwing "knives" rained down on us. We scattered like bees, running in every direction, and I tucked myself flat to the building and moved to the woods that way.

"Cadet Everhart!" a male whisper-screamed from a nearby bush. "You are with me." He stepped out and waved me over. It was one of my instructors, and he wasn't wearing a red vest, so I followed him, keeping my head low.

"What's the plan?" I whispered-screamed to him as we walked in a crouch farther away from the noise and chaos.

He peered back at me. "We are going to make a jail of sorts and hold the red prisoners there securely."

Okay, not my ideal position in battle because it sounded more like babysitting, but I wasn't going to complain if this was what the lieutenants had come up with for me.

I followed him across the back field of the school to an abandoned building. The windows had been blown out and it was missing a roof. It looked like they had tested bombs in here or something. It was basically four brick walls and nothing else, but would make a decent jail if we bound everyone's hands together.

"Alright, come in and check out the space first," the instructor said to me as we entered. The second I stepped through the threshold I felt air whoosh at my back and I ducked just in time to avoid a blow to the head. Dropping to one knee, I rolled out of the way, and that's when both men came at me.

Their creatures joined in.

The two men grasped me by the arms and hauled me up as a small fox creature stalked towards me, the electric blue ember lines on her back glowing as a wind stirred around the room. Her power.

"Quickly, kill her before her creature shows up!" the one instructor barked.

I didn't know if I was tired or what, but this entire time I thought this was a part of the drill. It wasn't until he yelled about killing me that I realized this was an ambush. They'd lured me away from my friends and now I was going to die. Ice cold dread settled in my stomach as I realized these were the men wearing the gasmasks who had spoken of "taking me out."

A wolf creature then stepped out from behind a stack of bricks and my stomach sank. His power was poisoned teeth if I remembered correctly. These two instructors weren't our main ones. They popped in to help from time to time, but I think they were normally on the officer side. I didn't even remember their names. But I was keenly aware that there were only two of them and three had spoken of offing me on that day.

The fox creature suddenly dove for me but I kicked out and connected with her belly, sending her flying across the room. She hit one of the walls, knocked out cold, falling to the ground with a thud.

Four on one were not great odds, but there was no way I was going out like this.

‘I need help. I'm under attack,' I told Liana, my brain finally awake enough to make smart decisions.

‘I'm coming,' she said just as the wolf creature lunged for my throat.

I jerked my head to the right, cracking skulls with the instructor on that side, and he let go of my arm, which allowed me to block the wolf's attack. I punched the wolf in the side of the head before he could bite me, and he fell to the ground but got up quickly. I was just about to try to run when the other instructor wrapped his hands around my throat.

My dagger was in my boot, the stupidest place it could be if you were standing and currently being strangled. Trying to fight him off, while also keeping my eye on that wolf was proving too much. So I did what Elaine called panic mode. I went berserk and thrashed every which way, throwing knees and elbows, hoping to catch my opponent off guard. It worked, until it didn't.

I was able to wrestle out of his grasp, but then his partner cracked me over the skull and I went down, ears ringing and darkness dancing at the edges of my vision.

These bastards were really starting to piss me off. Smoke filled the room and I wasn't sure where it was coming from, until I realized it was me. Curls of gray puffed off of my skin as if I were a hot coal doused in water. I was smoking like a damn steak on a grill.

"Quick! Her powers are manifesting," one guy said, and then his wolf lunged for me again.

In the midst of the chaos, it happened. A surge of energy pulsed through me like an unexpected force that seemed to saturate my entire being.

I focused my thoughts on the advancing wolf and threw my arm out.

"Stop!" I flung the word as if it was a physical force, and a thin, silver, glowing string flew from my mouth and wrapped around the wolf's head. The wolf dropped to the ground before me, head bowed with a whimper in his throat.

What the hell?

"No," the man beside me breathed, and that's when I noticed a shadow overhead.

I peered up, just in time to see Liana dip from the sky and take one of the instructors into her mouth, biting his midsection like a snack.

He screamed and she shot into the air with him in her mouth, carrying him away.

The other instructor stood there in shock, watching me in fear.

"Y-you can control minds," he stuttered. "That's forbidden, even for you."

What? No. I didn't control anyone. Did I? But I replayed the scene in my head and fear washed over me. Maybe I did. I told the wolf to stop and he did. Was that what the silver cord was? A manifestation of my control?

The instructor slowly stepped closer to me. "You might as well just let my wolf end it here, because they will never let you live. No one will follow a leader that can't even give them free will." He spat and lunged for me with a dagger in his hands.

Another dark shadow dropped from above and I thought it was Liana, returning to finish off this second guy. But suddenly Kohen landed behind the instructor, wearing a feral expression. The ex-prince grabbed the instructor by the head and snapped his neck cleanly, causing his body to fall dead to the ground in front of me.

The wolf was still kneeling, as if stuck in a trance, and I realized that I still had my power over him, thick like a blanket I could almost feel. The silver cord I had somehow attached to his head was still there, connected to the center of my palm. I pulled it back and the cord snapped. The wolf tipped his head back and howled before dropping dead beside his bonded.

When we died outside The Wilds, our creatures died as well.

I heaved deep breaths as I processed that two instructors from the Imperial Fleet that my dad ruled over had just tried to kill me.

Kohen was watching me like you would watch a caged bird flit around wildly looking for an exit. Which was exactly what I was doing, but I couldn't move. I was in shock. What the instructor said… what I did to the wolf…

My power.

Kohen heard, he must have. The guy said it right before he dropped down.

Kohen knelt before me and I realized I was hyperventilating.

"I don't want this," I told him. I didn't want to control people. It was a dark power, forbidden. I couldn't help but think that Kohen and I were the same. Both carrying a terrifying power neither of us wanted.

Kohen reached for my hand and took it into his, stroking my palm with his thumb in such a tender way it made my heart ache.

"You will be empress, Aisling. And if you want to live, you will never tell another soul that you can do this one thing. I will take it to my grave, you have my word." So he did hear, or maybe he had known this whole time.

The confident way in which he spoke of me being empress made me wonder if he was just being nice—the instructor had said no one would follow me—or if he knew something.

I didn't want to know either way. I felt insane. The wolf had been about to attack me and I'd basically frozen him in a trance mid-attack. That wasn't normal. That was…

Liana returned with a blood-soaked beak and two instructors, one being Ashendell.

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?