Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

Isat inside of medical and through the giant glass window watched my dad rip every single admiral a new asshole. They stood erect, against the far wall as my father and Zuri stalked before them, threatening to close the school, pull funding, and fire them all.

"She's your future empress! If you cannot protect her, you certainly cannot protect our borders," he shouted to the stony-faced men and women. They did nothing. Just stood there and took it, only speaking when directed a question.

Liana insisted on not leaving my side, so we had to open the double doors at the end of the hallway to get her inside, and then she had to duck low with her wings tucked in to enter the room I was in. She stood alert beside my bed, watching my father with her head cocked to the side.

He was pissed.

I needed to confide in someone about what happened, but I took to heart what Kohen said about me not telling a soul. Still, I didn't think that meant Liana too. I was pretty sure she already knew through our bond, but I wanted to make sure.

‘Do you know what I did?' I asked her.

She looked at me. ‘Yes. We call it the thrall where I am from. It's a form of mind control.'

That sounded scary. ‘What is it? Are there limits? Can I control ten people at once? Could it hurt me if I use it too much?' I had a thousand questions.

‘I don't know. I only know one other person who had the gift, my grandmother. A firebird of great power who was not weakened by a human body.'

I knew she wasn't being mean, just factual. The creatures of The Wilds were filled with magic, magic our human bodies could only hold so much of.

‘Did you know I had it?' I asked her. She seemed so confident.

‘I suspected you had the power to control another since we bonded.'

I peered at her in shock. ‘You did? How?'

She glanced at me, ‘When you fought the fire beast. It was only fully defeated after you shouted at it to just die already and it did. I thought I sensed the power in you then.'

I cocked my head to the side, remembering the scary fire beast that tried to consume me. I'd used the mind control then?

‘Were you there with me and the fire beast?' I asked. I barely remembered her flying underneath me at one point and then gone the next.

She was quiet a second. ‘I am the fire beast, Aisling. It's part of me, a part of me I cannot control. The dominant part of me you had to subdue in order to bond.'

I sat there in shock for a full minute, absorbing what she had just said.

‘I would never want to hurt you,' she told me, nuzzling my neck. ‘If I could choose, I would have allowed you to live without a fight. But my magic is bigger than that.'

That was heavy. The fire beast that was trying to consume and kill me while I was in stasis was her? The same Liana that protected me now. And yet I understood. She could not allow a weak bonding to be reborn.

"It's okay. Thank you for telling me." I stroked the feathers on her neck and she peered up at me. ‘Does that mean if I were to die again, I would enter that void again and have to fight before being reborn?'

‘I wish I knew. But if it's any consolation, each time I die I have to fight the fire beast as well.'

My mouth popped open in surprise at that. She did?

‘Did you notice the other power that manifested before you enthralled the instructor's creature?' she asked, changing the subject, which I was grateful for.

I frowned. ‘No.'

‘The smoke that was coming off of your body. Not only are you impervious to harm from fire, but you can produce and direct fire at will. Like me.'

My eyebrows rose at that. ‘That's something I can share with the Imperial Fleet, right?' That would be an amazing power to have in battle.

I could almost see a smile in her eyes. ‘It is. Along with your ability to rapidly heal. But the rest… let's keep to ourselves.'

Like the fact that I could possibly come back from the dead again, and the very secret fact that I could control minds. Yes, let's never tell a soul about those.

"Aisling," my father snapped, and I jerked my head to the door. He must have already called my name once and he didn't like to repeat himself.

"Yes, Father?" I sat up straighter.

He stepped inside the room, Zuri trailing behind him; both their gazes went to Liana. There was a flash of trepidation there which I wasn't sure was a good thing.

"I have dealt with this matter, but if anything else happens I want you to send for me right away," he said. A spinning wheel of fire began to open at his back. I'd seen him create portals a hundred times and it never ceased to amaze me when I saw another place come into view behind him—his office at our home, the place where he spent most of his time.

What I wasn't prepared to see, however, was Kohen closing my father's desk and peering at me before running out.

I gasped and my father frowned.

"What is it?" He stepped closer, concern etched onto his features.

I grabbed my side, pretending I had a pain there. "Nothing. I'm fine."

My father nodded and then turned around, following Zuri back into his office, and the portal snapped shut. Was that why Kohen made such a big deal about calling my father to the school? So that he could sneak into his office while he was away? I knew it. I knew he was just using me!

That bastard.

I peered at Liana in anger. ‘Did you know he was going to break into my father's office?'

She looked surprised and hurt by that. ‘Of course not.'

I yanked the IV out of my arm and stepped out of bed, struggling to get my clothes on and not flash all of the admirals who were still talking outside in front of my window.

My father had insisted on a full checkup and I was checked up. Time to get the hell out of here and find Kohen. Why had I stayed silent and protected him?

Because if my father had seen him, he'd have killed him on the spot without question.

I was going to handle this my way.

After getting dressed, I tossed the medical gown on the bed and flung the door wide. I threw it so hard that it hit the back wall. Every single admiral turned and faced me, all wearing stony expressions.

I saluted them and then passed them down the hallway as Liana struggled to make it through the doorframe. She stopped to glare at the admirals and they all took a few steps back to give her a wide berth. Outside, I hopped on her back. "Take me to Kohen. I know you can find Onyx."

She didn't argue, she just kicked off and took to the skies. I was fuming mad by the time we saw the black dragon in the sky flying over the park near my house. How dare he! With my sisters home. Would he have hurt them?

‘Tell Onyx to land,' I told Liana.

I knew she had a mental connection with the dragon, and seconds after I'd made my request both Onyx and Kohen looked up to see us looming over them.

Onyx lowered immediately into a dark and deserted portion of the park. The second Onyx landed, I didn't wait for Liana to get me to the ground. I pulled my dagger from my boot and leapt off of her. I crashed into Kohen's back, forcing him to sprawl out on his stomach before I shoved my knee in his back and pulled the blade to his throat.

"What the hell were you doing in my father's study? With my sisters home. If you hurt them?—"

"I would never hurt your sisters!" he said, aghast, turning his head to look up at me in shock.

His shock made regret flush through me.

You're mine, Aisling. I've made love to you under a bed of stars.

His previous words were so far from the current place we found ourselves I couldn't help but shake my head. He was a liar. He was playing me!

"Answer me or I'll bleed you right here," I growled.

Onyx chuffed behind me as if he wouldn't allow that to happen, but Liana stepped in front of him, blocking his view and clearly telling him to back off.

Good. I'd wondered what she would do if it was ever us against them. Now I knew. My creature was loyal to me alone, as promised.

"Left pocket," Kohen said sadly.

I frowned, pulling one of my knees off of his back, and reached into his left pocket, fully ready to slice him if this was some trick. When my fingers wrapped around a cold, flat, metal disk, I pulled it out.

Bringing the item up to my face, I frowned.

"A pocket watch?" I stepped off of Kohen and allowed him to stand.

The watch was heavy, solid gold, and it had a beautiful etched tiger on the front. I clicked the button to open the face and peered at the inside.

The inscription engraved under the lid had my throat closing with emotion.

To my beloved son, Kohen. Rule with justice and compassion in equal measure.

"My father had it made for me when I was born. Your father stole it from him the night he killed him. I was just getting it back. It's mine."

My heart sank into my stomach like a stone. I reached out to hand him the watch, which he took gingerly from my outstretched palm. Here was the man who helped me keep my locket the first day of boot camp, and all he was doing was getting back a similar object from my father.

I felt like a jerk.

"You could have just asked me. I would have gotten it for you," I told him, though the thought of sneaking into my father's office terrified me.

He frowned. "Would you have? I don't know anymore. I don't know anything anymore."

Then he walked past me, got on Onyx, and flew away.

‘He should not have broken into your home where your sisters sleep. You were right to confront him,' Liana told me.

I nodded. ‘I know.'

But then why did I feel like such crap?

The next morning at breakfast, there were two drill instructors standing ten paces behind me as I ate, seemingly guarding me. Kohen sat at a table in the corner and Anika and the rest of his crew moved with him. It was painfully apparent that there was a separation there, and I couldn't help but feel like I'd screwed up.

"He broke into my freaking home!" I whispered-screamed to Tetra. "And I'm the jerk for calling him out on it?"

Everyone had heard about the attack on my life and the fact that two drill instructors were now dead over it, so all my fellow candidates stared at me as they passed.

"I mean, did you call him out on it or did you hold a knife to his throat and almost kill him over it?" Tetra asked seriously.

Damn. She had the tongue of a viper when she wanted to.

"The triplets were home. He could have?—"

Tetra rolled her eyes. "He could have tried to kill you plenty of times but he hasn't. In fact, he seems to have the hots for you. He flipped out over Jace taking a fry off your plate. That's not normal."

I wanted to tell her what he said about me being his at karaoke night so badly that I had to physically squeeze my lips to keep quiet. Doing that would reveal his gift, and although I was pissed at him, I wasn't that pissed. I trusted Tetra, but even knowing this could put her in danger.

"So you're saying if he broke into your mom's house you would be cool with it?" I asked her.

She gave me a look, a look that I had grown to know meant she was about to say something I didn't like.

Alek and Roc were just checking out at the lunch counter; they would be here any second. For now we were alone.

Tetra leaned into me and lowered her voice. "Have you stopped even once to ask yourself why your father would steal a sentimental pocket watch off of a dead man and keep it in his office all these years?"

I gasped. When she said it like that, it made my father sound like a lunatic hell-bent on revenge.

I met her gaze. "Ravi Badshah was a terrorist who killed over?—"

"I know." She held out her hands to stop me, and then flicked her gaze to where Anika was sitting next to Kohen, chatting happily. "Unless… we don't have the whole story there."

I frowned, and she swallowed hard.

"I'm just saying… what if we don't know everything?"

So Anika had been talking to her too. I opened my mouth to argue when Alek dropped next to me, concern etched all over his face. "I heard about the attack. Are you okay?" His gaze frantically ran over my body as if looking for injuries and I nodded, giving him a tight smile.

"My father has enemies even in his own backyard it seems. Luckily, the perpetrators have been taken care of and all is well now." The coined answer Lucinda Lark, my father's personal secretary, had written me this morning, informing me that I was supposed to tell anyone that asked.

Alek frowned. "But the instructors?—"

"All is well now," I assured him, placing a hand on his and giving him a look that said Let it go.

"Damn, I regret not getting tater tots," Roc said, peering at his plate. "I would take one of yours, Aisling, but I'm afraid Kohen will rip my ear off for it."

Everyone at the table burst out laughing, everyone except me.

I peered across the room at the same time Kohen did and our gazes caught. Even from here I could see those piercing blue eyes locked with mine. It was like he was peeling back my protective layers one by one and trying to stare straight into my soul.

I had so many questions. Why did I see heartbreak in his eyes? Who broke it? Me?

He finally looked away and it felt like I was suddenly all alone. Confused and alone.