15. Rowan

Chapter 1 5

Rowan

T he following morning I climb into the sparring ring with the single minded intent of baiting Logan into putting me out of my misery. He doesn't, but he does keep his mouth shut and works me hard enough that by the time I crawl off the sand, my mind is too drunk on fatigue to feel the jagged edge of Kai’s rejection. Mostly.

“Want to talk about it?” Logan asks as I gulp a third ladle of water, spilling half of it down my shirt. Not that it matters, given how sweat-soaked I am to begin with.

“About?”

Logan vaults over the fence with all grace and no effort, then snatches the whole water pail and drinks from the lip. “Grayson.” He lowers the pail just enough to keep me in his line of sight, his thick black hair glistening with the few droplets of water he’s just splashed on it. “You know—tall, blond, broody, likes to order everyone around?”

I tense. Had Kai told Logan about the kiss? Does Kyrian know as well? And what did he say exactly, if so?

Fuck.

I’ve just spent two hours trying to get Kai Grayson out of my head and now he ’s right back here, taking up unwelcome residence in my mind once more. Reminding me of the way his kiss lit up every fiber inside my body, rousing me higher than Collin ever had. Higher than I thought was possible. I shake my head, frustrated with myself.

Logan snorts, then studies me and his expression turning solemn. “Did he hurt you, little rabbit?” he asks quietly, pushing sweat drenched locks away from his face. For a moment, Logan doesn’t seem his usual gorgeous-scary self. Instead, there is concern there. A strange protectiveness.

Right. Like a wolf being protective of his fresh kill. Or did you miss the rabbit part?

“No. It wasn’t like that,” I assure him quickly. The possibility of Kai hurting me physically hadn’t even entered my mind yesterday, which was probably a mistake. The man could break me with one hand. With half an order. But my gut said he wouldn’t. Not physically, at least. As for the rest of it… I wince as I realize that I’d just confirmed Logan’s suspicions about Grayson’s involvement in my current mood.

“How was it, then?” Logan pulls himself up to sit on the fence, waiting for me to find words that are escaping me en-mass. Framed by thick black hair, his honey eyes seem golden in the reflecting light, stirring a memory I can’t capture. Logan’s question hangs in the space between us.

What am I supposed to say, though? Gods, I don’t even know what to say to myself, much less to Logan. Something like, I’m upset because Kai’s kiss shattered all my notions of kisses, and I don’t know where that leaves me now? Or perhaps that I’m disappointed with how quickly the commander of our whole year came to his senses about me? Or maybe that, for a moment yesterday, I thought I saw the real Kai and it hurt to see him walk away? None of that sounds right, even to me. I may not be smart enough to have stayed away from Kai Grayson, but I’m at least smart enough to keep my mouth shut in front of his best friend.

“Nothing,” I tell Logan, who’s still awaiting my answer with preternatural stillness. “It’s nothing important.” The bell chimes saving me fr om the conversation and to signal the end of morning training and start of academics. “I need to change. See you soon.”

I start walking toward the enchanter dorms, only to hear a soft patter of boots as Logan comes up beside me. The cadets already on the path take one look at him and step to the side, clearing out of the way. He doesn’t even acknowledge them.

“Talk to me, rabbit,” says Logan.

“There is nothing to talk about.” I stop at the entrance to the enchanter barracks and point to the building where the combat cadets bunk. “You live over there. Unless you intend to come in and watch me change?”

Logan reaches past me, his woodsy scent brushing my cheek, and opens the main door. “After you.”

“Seriously?”

“I never turn down an invitation to watch a beautiful woman change.”

“That wasn’t an invitation!”

“It sounded like an invitation.” Logan is now strolling ahead of me down the corridor of my own dormitory building. His sweaty shirt clings to his arms and shoulders, leaving nothing to the imagination when it comes to his muscles. “I’ve experience in such things.”

Several heads turn toward us, following our progress. Great. As if there aren’t enough rumors going around about me already. “Can you at least keep your voice down?”

“Why?” He opens the door to my room before I can and stands aside, gallantly letting me go in first. I’d strangle the man if I could. Since I can’t, I do damage control by moving the conversation into my room as quickly as possible. No, not a conversation. We aren’t having a conversation.

I grab a dry uniform from my drawer. “Please tell me you aren’t really going to watch me change.”

Logan closes his eyes, but leans his back against the wall, clearly not moving.

“Why do you care?” I ask, shimming out of my shirt. Over the last week of training, Logan has seen me puke, get dizzy mid motion and flop to the sand like a dying fish, and fight back in tears from sheer frustration. If he wants to stay in the room while I change, I don’t care all that much. There isn’t much further down for his opinion of my body to go.

He shrugs but keeps his eyes shut. “Because I do.”

“Again, why?”

He shifts his weight and for a second I think he actually looks uncomfortable. “Maybe because I think we are friends.”

I stop with my pants halfway down my thighs. “We are literally each other’s punishment, Logan. You try and teach me to stay alive and I—well, theoretically, I’m helping you not fail academics, but you won’t come to a single study session.” I quickly finish changing my pants, Logan being two paces away and all. I sigh. “Look, up until two days ago, you still flinched away from the scars on my face. We know nothing about each other. So no, I don’t think we qualify as friends by anyone’s definition. You can open your eyes by the way.”

He does, but he stays at his post by the wall and says nothing for several moments. The way his head cocks to the side reminds me of a dog in thought. “What do you want to know?” he says finally, as if he’s come to some decision. “About me, I mean.”

“Really?” My eyes narrow. “I can ask anything and you answer?”

Logan raises his chin in challenge. “Go ahead.”

I cross my arms. “Fine. Why didn’t you show up to work on the history paper?”

“Didn’t need to. It’s done.”

I shake my head and sit on the edge of my bed to pull on my boots. “Right. I failed to specify that the answers had to be truthful. You got me. I concede.”

“The paper is done because Alyssa wrote it for me,” Logan says calmly. “I believe you were there when I offered my gratitude.”

“Oh.” I open my mouth to say something else, but close it without anything intelligent coming out. I’d fully presumed that Logan was taking his pleasure that day. I don’t know what to make of the knowledge that it was the opposite.

"I've not been with her since, if you care to know,” he adds .

"None of my business if you were. Maybe you can find someone to watch next time. I hear she likes that."

He grins that smile of his, but it doesn't fully reach his eyes. “My turn,” says Logan. “Why don’t you go by Ainsley?”

I’m about to point out that I never agreed to a quid-pro-quo arrangement, but find myself telling him the truth. “I’m an embarrassment to the Ainsley name.”

Logan’s head jerks up. “According to who?”

“My mother, the queen, and everyone who’s watched me trip over my own feet for the past few years,” I answer with the same unwavering cadence he’d used when speaking about Alyssa. Logan’s jaw hardens with my answer, but I don’t give him the room to press. “Where do you go when you cut class?”

“The woods. Far enough to not hear all the people.”

My brows climb in surprise. Logan is always in the center of attention, usually with a girl or two sitting in his lap. If I had to peg someone in the triad for a loner, I’d have picked Grayson.

“What happened between you and Grayson yesterday?” Logan asks, as if picking up the direction of my thoughts.

I reach for a hair brush to wrangle my hair into some sort of order, buying myself a few seconds to think in the process. I am not sure what makes me finally teeter toward truth, whether it’s Logan’s attentive ear or my bursting need to tell someone—but I decide to just go for it. “He kissed me. And then left.”

Logan pushes away from the wall, incredulity shaping each line of his gorgeous face. “He kissed you? Grayson kissed you? You have got to be kidding me.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence there.” I say it with jest, trying to hide the sting of Logan’s shock. I know men who look like Kai Grayson—or Logan, or Kyrian—don’t go after women who look like me, but there was no call to rub my face in it. I finish taming my hair and pull it back into a ponytail. “Are you going to mathematics in a wet training uniform? And no, you don’t get to ask a question in return for answering that. Game’s done. ”

Logan ignores me, his hands in his pockets as he paces the small expense of my room. “Grayson kissed you. You are certain?”

Gods, he's still on that. I open my palms. “I don’t know, Logan. I kissed so many men yesterday that it’s near impossible to keep count. Maybe it was someone else. Just fill in whatever name you’d find more appropriate in the scenario and let's go with that.”

“Well, my name for starters,” Logan says, as if that much is obvious. He stops suddenly and twists to me, glaring as if this is all my fault. “Where does Grayson get off telling Kyrian and I to keep our wits about us, when he is out there kissing you himself?”

“He what? No, don’t answer.” I pause. “Wait. You want to kiss me?”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“There are so many answers to that question,” I mutter, because I can't tell up from down anymore in this conversation.

“He kissed you and walked away?”

“Is there an echo?”

A mischievous glint appears in Logan’s eyes. "How would you like to make the asshole suffer a bit for his choice?”