17. Quill

CHAPTER 17

Quill

The bell for the early shift’s evening meal rang. Rider barked a harsh command to Mikel and Duran to pick up their bags of rocks and start running, then growled at Rue to grab the bag of practice daggers and take them back to the indoor practice hall.

With a huff, he gruffly dismissed the rest of the novices who hurried back to the Tower, moving quickly despite the afternoon’s strenuous lesson as if they were afraid Rider might change his mind and extend the day’s training.

And rightly so. He’d been hard on them and his wolf was still barely under control.

It was a miracle he’d just stood by and didn’t fight one of the fae — or me — in an attempt to vent his anger and regain control. And yet despite the hours the lesson had taken, he still looked like he needed a fight. Which only spoke to how pissed off he was over the whole Talon-Sawyer situation.

“So what happened?” I asked, keeping my attention on our surroundings, ensuring there wasn’t anyone within earshot.

This wasn’t a conversation I or Rider wanted anyone else to hear, but I also didn’t want to wait until we’d climbed the stairs to either of our suites at the top of the Tower.

Sawyer had been a shivering, whimpering mess when I’d set him on his bed, looking more like the child Talon thought him to be than the man the humans claimed.

I’d never seen Talon’s magic do that to someone before. Sure, when the shadow had been particularly hungry, some of the women attending the court at the Gold Tower had thrown themselves at Talon, but they hadn’t desired anyone else — like Sawyer seemed to be with me — and they hadn’t been on the verge of passing out after Talon had given in to his shadow’s hunger.

“I have no fucking idea,” Rider snarled, not needing more of an explanation to know what I was talking about. “Talon came off the trail, his shadow shot out of him, and just attacked the boy. You’re closest with him. Has his shadow ever done that before? ”

“Not that he’s told me.”

This was bad. If the shadow was getting more aggressive, it was going to be harder to keep it a secret. That realization must have scared Talon and he’d yanked it back before it had properly fed. It was the only explanation why Sawyer had still been a wreck when I’d carried him to his room.

“He should have just let it feed,” I said, “not left Sawyer hanging.”

Even barely knowing Sawyer, that would have embarrassed him. But better a mess in his pants than his current state of suffering.

“He did,” Rider said, unbuckling his sword belt and shoving it — along with his sheathed sword and three long daggers — into my hands.

“But Sawyer?—”

“Was still fucked up on Talon’s allure? Yeah. It’s a problem. Just like the other novices getting it in their heads to take Sawyer’s training into their own hands.”

He shrugged out of his jerkin and added it to the pile in my arms, the heavy fabric made heavier by the extra daggers attached to it.

“I need to hunt before I kill someone,” he said. “Take a meal to the boy and check on Talon. If I’m not in the Garden when it’s time to meet Ash, tell him he better be best friends with Mikel and his gang or close to the boy by the end of tomorrow because Talon just painted a target on his back, and I can’t properly discipline anyone until they’ve done something.”

He yanked his shirt off over his head, revealing the thin white scars that streaked across his bulky chest, partially hidden by a dusting of dark hair. They were a testament to how many shadows he’d fought and survived during his time in the Guard.

With a growl, he pulled off his boots and shucked his pants, leaving them in a pile at my feet, and then, with stomach-churning bone crunching, he shifted into his massive black wolf.

I shuddered, grateful I wasn’t a shifter. As much as I’d do almost anything for magic, I would rather it be anything other than the ability to change into an animal. Rider had confessed one drunken night before we’d seen our first half century that shifting was excruciating and it didn’t matter which way he shifted, beast to man or man to beast, it hurt either way.

He huffed at me, his breath hitting me in the chest, then bounded away. Given how he’d practically been vibrating trying to control his wolf during the training session, I doubted we’d see him in the Garden. He’d probably meet up with Kit and Payne and join their hunt.

At least I hoped he did. Even turning into a vicious creature easily twice the size of a regular wolf didn’t mean he could win every fight against every shadow he came across while alone .

The question now was if he had enough control over his primal nature to think that clearly.

I gathered the rest of Rider’s clothing, marched back to the Black Tower, and climbed the stairs to the top of the main tower to Rider’s suite where I set his clothes on the couch in his sitting room.

His room was identical to the rooms Talon and I had been assigned, as well as the guest suite — the only other suite on this level. That room should have been Ash’s when he wasn’t undercover, but he’d refused it, keeping his small, single suite in the Tower’s left wing instead.

Each room had a private bathing room, a bedroom, a sitting room, and shared a balcony with the room beside it, but if I hadn’t known this was Rider’s room, I’d never have been able to figure it out.

With the exception of a weapons rack filled with a variety of weapons all showing signs of use, there was nothing personal in his sitting room, as if he’d never fully moved into the position of Lord Commander even though he’d held the job for forty-three years.

Even Talon and I had added a few personal touches to our suites, and we only used the suites when we were in the Gray training novices or for special meetings. Our primary residences were in our respective Towers, me in the White Tower and Talon in the Gold.

I stepped back into the hall. The top floor of the Black Tower’s central tower was an unusual design with a large hole in the center — protected by a waist-high railing — that allowed the light from the skylight above to shine down to the library below. The skylight feature didn’t add as much light in the Black Tower as it did in the White Tower because the sun hardly ever broke through the clouds and mist in the Gray, but it did help alleviate some of the oppressive darkness in the library, something the human Guardsmen probably didn’t notice but the fae Guardsmen did.

Across the opening lay the doors to my suite and Talon’s. For a moment I contemplated checking in on him since I’d already climbed all the stairs, but making sure Sawyer was all right and had something to eat was my first priority.

Talon was probably worried and angry at himself for losing control, but he’d survive. He, at least, hadn’t been banished to his room and could go down to the kitchen to get something if he was hungry. Sawyer couldn’t. That, and Sawyer was in complete shock. I wasn’t sure, even if he wanted to and had permission, if he’d be able to make it to the kitchen.

Not to mention, if I asked Talon, he’d tell me to check on Sawyer first. He was probably worried out of his mind that he’d seriously and permanently hurt the boy. And as much as Talon displayed a fun-loving, relaxed persona, he felt everything — love, joy, heartache, worry — deeply, and he’d be upset if I didn’t have an update on Sawyer’s condition.

With that decided, I grabbed a large evening meal from the kitchen and took it to Sawyer’s room. I didn’t know how hungry he’d be. From his shivering, pale complexion, and unfocused eyes, he looked like he’d been drained deeply, more deeply than the shadow had drained anyone before.

Except he’d still been under the influence of Talon’s allure which suggested the shadow hadn’t actually drained him.

Regardless, if he’d been drained of vitality, he’d be hungry. If he hadn’t been, and if the allure was still raging through his system, he’d be hungry for something else.

If he asked, would I give him what he desired? He wasn’t fae and he wasn’t who I wanted… because I wanted his sister.

Having sex with him, even if it was just sucking him off, could affect whatever working relationship we needed to have. Humans didn’t see sex the same way fae did and they certainly didn’t see sex between men the same way at all.

Talon had been almost certain the boy hadn’t fully realized he was attracted to other men until he’d stumbled across him the other night in the bathhouse and that was something many humans struggled to come to terms with.

No, given what I’d observed from Sawyer over the last couple of days, he wouldn’t ask anything of me no matter how much Talon’s allure was raging through him.

Which then begged the question, would I push the issue? Could I let him suffer for the rest of the night or— hell! I had no idea how long he’d suffer. Could I let him suffer when I could release the need I knew was thrumming through him?

Talon’s magic had never affected anyone like this before, and I had no doubt Talon and Rider were wondering what was different. Was it something to do with Talon’s shadow or something to do with Sawyer Herstind.

And if it was something to do with Sawyer, did that also mean his sister was special? Would that explain why I couldn’t stop thinking of her, why every time I closed my eyes, I saw her staring at me, her brown gaze shocked and filled with terror.

Goddess, half the time I looked at Sawyer I saw her. Even coming out of the Tower at the beginning of this afternoon’s training, I’d thought for a heart-stopping moment that it had been Sawyer’s sister sitting on the ground in front of Rider.

My pulse irrationally picked up at the thought of her. Sawyer had said she was safe, but was she? The human realm was dangerous for women. They had no say in their lives. The only women I’d come across who had any say, sold their bodies and even then not all pleasure houses let their women be as independent as the pleasure house in Lehyrst that the Guard frequented.

I gritted my teeth against the urge to demand he tell me where his sister was so I could take her to safety and knocked on his door.

It’s only a fascination. The feelings aren’t real. I’d never experienced a soul bond before — and without any magic the chances of being bound to a woman were slim to none — so I couldn’t possibly think that what I felt for Sawyer’s sister was a bond.

But Goddess it felt like one.

Hope and need and aching desperation flooded me. Somehow I had to convince Sawyer to tell me where she was so I could get her, at the very least, into the fae realm. She still wouldn’t be a full citizen like our women, but at least she’d be treated with more respect.

Jeez. Talon wasn’t the only one losing control.

But maybe if I got her to safety that would ease my mind. Maybe that was all I needed to do and I’d be able to stop thinking about her.

I knocked again. “Sawyer, it’s Quill. I’ve brought your evening meal.”

“Just set it outside,” he said, his voice barely audible and strained.

Crap. That didn’t sound good at all. “I need to know you’re all right.”

“I’m all right,” he called back. “Please. Just leave it.”

Something thudded on the other side of the door. It didn’t sound heavy enough to be a body… but his body was rather small… “Sawyer? I’m coming in.”