Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

DACRE

Icould barely concentrate on anything Kai was saying.

My head was fucking pounding.

“I’m worried about what they’ll do if they don’t find anything soon. They are restless, and impatience can be the death of a rebellion.”

“I’d say they’re more than restless.” I crossed my arms as I looked out over the current recruits as they trained. “My father has been bloodthirsty since the moment we left the palace without my mother.”

Far before then, actually.

Kai nodded, and I could see the same ghosts that haunted me clouding his gaze. His father had been lost in the same siege that took my mother.

It was a fool’s mission, and we had all paid the price for it.

“Where’s my sister?” I looked around the training grounds and avoided asking the question I actually wanted to know.

Where was Nyra?

I had gone too far last night, been too rough, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Because even though I hated Nyra, I desperately wanted to touch her again.

She had been so pliable under my hands, so eager for my touch when I was sure she was going to push me away.

And even if she looked at me with nothing but disgust on her face when she had walked away with Eiran, all I could do was smile.

Because she wanted me as badly as I had wanted her.

“I haven’t seen her.” Kai’s voice interrupted my thoughts, and I looked back to my friend as he chuckled. “Are you worried about your sister or her new little tagalong?”

“I couldn’t care less about Nyra besides the fact that her ass isn’t here training. She’s liable to get one of us killed with how bad her combat is.”

“Right.” Kai rubbed his hand along his mouth that was lifted in a knowing smile. “That’s why everyone at breakfast this morning couldn’t stop talking about you and her and apparently the ass you made of yourself last night.”

Frustration crawled through me at the thought of anyone talking about me and her at all. “I didn’t make an ass out of myself. I was an ass. There’s a difference.” I watched the two men in front of me and made a mental note to correct the stance of the one on the right whenever they finally stopped.

“If you say so.” He chuckled again before a rash “Fuck” left his lips.

“What?” I looked back to him.

Kai’s gaze was fixed ahead of us, near the back of the cave, and when I turned to look there, blood rushed in my ears.

“Nyra.” I cursed under my breath as I shot forward in their direction.

Nyra was leaning heavily on Wren for support, and I could see the worry in my sister’s face as her gaze bounced back and forth between Kai and me.

“What happened?” I asked as I got closer. There was a bloodied bandage on Nyra’s arm that she cradled close to her body, and from the amount of dried blood that coated all the way to her fingertips, I knew she had to be in pain.

“Just a bit farther,” my sister spoke calmly to Nyra, but I had yet to see her face.

“This isn’t good,” Kai practically growled, and I watched as Nyra lifted her head and met his gaze before she finally turned to look at me.

Anger clouded my vision like thick ice over a black pond, and I clenched my fists until my fingers turned white.

There were yellow marks all along her delicate neck, and the unmistakable marks were already beginning to turn a deep purple along the edges.

Someone had their hand around her throat.

“What the fuck happened?” My voice boomed, but I couldn’t control my anger.

“I’m fine.” Nyra’s eyes didn’t leave mine, but I could see the desperation she was trying to hide beneath the depths. “I just need to sit down for a second.”

She was lying.

I shifted forward and clenched and unclenched my fist before I took Nyra’s body weight against my own and helped her sit on a large boulder at the edge of the cave.

“I’m not going to ask again, Wren. What the fuck happened?”

Wren’s hands shook as she fidgeted with the hilt of one of her daggers, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Kai.

“Our father took us up.” Wren spoke so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her, but her words hit into me as if she had screamed them.

My hands stilled on Nyra as I stared at her injured arm. “Excuse me?”

“Davian.”

“I know who our father is,” I snapped, and Nyra bristled and finally turned to look at me.

“Don’t be an ass to her.” The marks on her neck were darkening with every second she sat in front of me, and here she was defending my sister against…me.

“I’m not being an ass.”

“Yes. You are.” She huffed and turned back to Wren who started talking again.

“He was looking for you, and when I told him that you weren’t feeling well, he wanted me on the field with him. He didn’t care that Nyra only had a few days of training. He wanted her there too.”

Guilt coursed through me. Fuck. If I had been here, this would have never happened. He wouldn’t have taken Nyra, let alone Wren up there with him. He already knew how I felt about him putting Wren in unnecessary danger.

But her life wasn’t important to him. She was just another soldier.

We all were.

“And then what happened?” I said much more calmly, even though I could barely contain my rage as I gently unwrapped the soiled gauze from Nyra’s arm to check the wound beneath.

Wren opened her mouth to speak, but then she looked to Nyra. Whatever it was, it was either bad or they didn’t want me to know.

“What happened?” I repeated as I pulled away the gauze from Nyra’s wound and she winced as some dried blood pulled away with it.

I examined Nyra’s injured arm. The wound was deep but clean as if a blade sliced through it easily.

I gently ran my thumb over the dried blood to see the wound better and Nyra whimpered.

“Davian was meeting with an informant,” Wren spoke, but I didn’t look up at her.

“Who?” I knew almost all of my father’s informants. I was the one who had obtained them for him.

“Faris,” Nyra answered before Wren could.

“And Faris did this?” I asked, nodding to Nyra’s arm.

She nodded as Wren spoke again. “He kept talking about the princess and how the king has gone feral that she’s missing.”

“She’s missing?”

“According to Faris. But the way he made it sound wasn’t like the king wanted his daughter back. He wants his heir. It’s like he wanted her dead.”

Nyra tensed in my hold and tried to pull her arm away, but I held firm.

I searched the side of her face that she was allowing me to see, but she was giving nothing away.

“Okay?”

“And then he saw me and Nyra,” Wren whispered and moved a step closer to us as did Kai. “He threw his blade at me before I even had time to react. It would have hit me in the chest if Nyra didn’t jerk me behind her.”

My heart pounded in my chest as I listened to Wren’s words. My sister had almost been killed, and it hadn’t been my father who had saved her. It was the little traitor in front of me.

She had been one of them her entire life, and still, she saved my sister.

“And her neck?” I nodded toward the darkening bruises on her skin.

“That was Dad.” Wren glanced away from me and toward where they had just came as if he might appear.

My hand on Nyra’s arm stilled, and I searched my sister’s face. “What?”

“He was furious after I killed Faris. He was so angry that Faris knew Nyra.” Wren’s gaze bounced around the room. “He did that to her while he demanded answers from her she couldn’t give.”

My grip on Nyra’s arm tightened involuntarily. “He fucking choked her?”

Without thinking, my other hand moved to cup her chin, gently turning it toward me so that I could fully see the marks my father had left on her. Her warm blue eyes met mine and where I expected there to be pain and fear, it was determination staring back at me.

“Where is he?”

“He said he was going to do damage control.” Wren crossed her arms and there was fear in my sister’s gaze. “Mal told me to get Nyra to you.”

“Mal was there?”

Nyra made the smallest whine, and I drew my gaze back to hers and loosened my grip on her arm. I was hurting her.

“We need to get this wound cleaned up.”

And I needed to get away from her before I did something stupid. The memories of touching her last night, of the things I had said to her, had been haunting me since the moment she walked away with Eiran, and seeing my father’s mark on her now, made me feel possessive over her when she wasn’t mine.

But I wanted to make sure that everyone in this entire damn rebellion knew that she was.

“If he doesn’t find something soon…” Wren stopped and chewed on her bottom lip before the next words passed through them. “I’m worried about him.”

“Wren, take her to see the healers, then to the springs.” I stood to my full height and ran my hands over my chest, cataloging my weapons mindlessly. “I need to have a talk with our father.”

I was worried about him too. Worried about the man he was becoming ever since we lost my mother. He wasn’t the father I once knew.

He had become a man I didn’t want to know.

My gaze met Kai’s, and I started to turn away. I needed to get out of here before I lost my shit, but Nyra’s hand clung to mine.

Her touch was a whisper against my skin, but she didn’t meet my eyes as she pulled her touch away and spoke. “I don’t want to go to the healers.”

“Nyra, you have to get your arm looked at.” Wren spoke softly as she took a step closer to Nyra. “And your neck.”

Nyra shook her head, and I hated the way she looked so lost. “I don’t want them to touch me. I don’t trust them to touch me.”

“We have to get you healed.”

I watched Nyra’s every movement, the way her eyes darted to my face before she quickly looked away. “Dacre can heal me.”

I felt both Wren’s and Kai’s eyes on me, but I refused to look away from Nyra.

“Dacre doesn’t heal,” Wren spoke in almost a whisper as if her words would upset me.

She wasn’t wrong. I didn’t heal. Not anymore. Not since the power I had inherited from our mother had failed me when I needed it most.

My mother had more healing powers than any other soldier in the warrior unit, as did I, but it hadn’t mattered when the magic that was used to take her life had been too strong to fight.

I had tried over and over to save her while my father screamed at me to do so. I could still feel her blood coating my hands as I tried to push as much of my magic into her as I could.

But it hadn’t been enough.

And I hadn’t healed anyone since.

Not until Nyra.

Nyra’s brows scrunched as she finally looked up and searched my face. “He’s healed me before.”

“What?” The sound of Wren’s voice was enough to wreck me, and I needed to get out of here.

“Come on.” I motioned to Nyra before reaching out my hands to help her stand. “Let’s go get this wound cleaned up so I can get a better look.”

“Okay.” She glanced back and forth between me and Wren, but she didn’t hesitate to take my hands.

“Kai, will you take Wren to get checked out? I want to make sure she doesn’t have any injuries.”

“I’m fine,” Wren argued, and the way she was watching me made me uncomfortable.

“Just give me the peace of mind.” I helped Nyra to her feet and pulled her in close to my body. “And let me know as soon as either of you hear of Father’s return.”