Page 22

Raelan

IT WAS HARD TO TELL through the desire and heat flooding my body, but I felt a threat, felt eyes roving over us, felt a curious intensity that made me pull back from Alina and scan the cobblestone road. Though I saw nothing, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been watching us.

The entire way back to the academy, I was quiet, focusing my full attention on scanning our surroundings and ensuring Alina—and her dizzying scent—didn’t distract me. After that moment in the alley, I felt nothing else, but I’m still on high alert even now as I sit with Alina and her roommates in the stands flanking the runeball field.

I’ve never been interested in sports, and I don’t believe Alina is either, but energy thrums through the onlookers, and it seems the students are grateful for time away from their studies. The smells of spun sugar and toasted cinnamon pecans fill the air, making my mouth water. Perhaps I’ll go to the nearby cart and purchase some—maybe even try to enjoy myself while I’m here, seeing as Alina doesn’t seem eager to leave anytime soon.

“Which one is your brother?” Lyra asks. She’s seated on Alina’s other side, some sort of apple-scented sticky-pop held in one hand. Her tongue is stained green from sucking on it.

Maeve lifts a hand and points, bracelet jangling on her wrist. “There. The big one.”

All our gazes follow her finger, and I home in on a player who towers well above the others. His long hair is pulled back into a messy bun, the sides of his head shaved just above his pointed ears. His skin has a slight green tint to it, and small tusks protrude up from his bottom lip—an orc, then.

Together, we all look back at Maeve. She pushes her glossy hair over her shoulder and says, “We’re stepsiblings. My mom married his dad.”

That would explain it.

“It’s Aric, right?” Lyra asks.

Maeve nods.

In what I’ve come to know as being typical of the fire witch, Lyra pushes to her feet, waving her hands in the air, and screams, “Go, Aric!”

His gaze shifts in our direction—along with the gazes of everyone else in the vicinity. Between Maeve and Lyra, Poppy sinks down, looking humiliated to have so many pairs of eyes on her. But Lyra just screams again, “Crush them!”

I’m not even sure who the other team is—it looks to me like they’re all Coven Crest students of varying ages—but the sentiment makes Aric smile, and he thrusts a burly fist into the air.

“Lyra!” Poppy whispers. “Sit down! Everyone’s staring!”

“Oh, it’s fine, Pops.” Lyra takes her seat on the bench and slips the sticky-pop back into her mouth, waggling her fingers at the other onlookers who’re still staring at her.

Beside me, Alina laughs. It’s a beautiful sound.

A horn blows, echoing over the stands, and the players arrange themselves on either side of the field, seven per team. With another blast of the horn, the game begins, the players launching into movement. They converge on a glowing sphere—it looks like a ball enchanted with elemental magic—and the team opposing Aric’s takes control of it.

“Come on!” Lyra yells, fingers curling into a fist. A little tendril of smoke rises from her clenched fingers.

I’ve never seen this sport played before, and I have to follow the game closely to understand how it’s played. It seems the teams are trying to control the sphere and put it through their opponent’s goalposts. As they move through different areas of the field, the colors and characteristics of the sphere change, affecting the players’ ability to control it.

“See those runes?” Alina asks, leaning slightly closer to me. I can hear her just fine over the din of the crowd, but I make no move to shift away from her. “They activate when the arcane sphere passes through their zones. That one”—she points to the rune that just flared to life on the grassy field—“is the fire rune. ”

Sure enough, the sphere bursts into flame, and the players have to change their tactics, using their wind magic to move it rather than kicking it or tossing it.

And I see now why Aric, being as big as he is, doesn’t necessarily have an upper hand on the smaller players. Each student has the choice to move the sphere using their magic rather than just throwing or kicking it, and those players with powerful elemental abilities seem to reign.

Aric seizes control of the flaming sphere, and he sends it flying through another rune zone. The flames sizzle out, and the sphere becomes covered in a layer of shimmering ice, making it difficult to catch or hold.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Lyra chants, very nearly vibrating out of her seat.

Finally, Aric’s team sends the sphere through the opposing team’s goalposts, and Lyra leaps to her feet with a victorious scream. Beside her, Poppy shrinks away from the raucous outburst. Alina claps politely. Maeve looks bored.

“You know this game well?” I ask Alina.

She smiles. “I used to go to runeball games with my father when I was young. Though it’s been many years now since we last attended one together.”

Of all the royals, I probably know Alina’s father the least. He’s the quiet sort, not given to extroverted activities, and when not holed up in his office or the library, he’s often away on royal business. Having never been assigned to his duty, I’ve not come to know him with any sort of familiarity.

The reminder that my own father left when I was so young makes my stomach squeeze. Sometimes, I wonder where he is, whether he’ll ever return. If he did, my mother would undoubtedly take him back. Even all these years later, I know she thinks of him, misses him. I see it in her eyes sometimes, the faraway look she gets as if watching for him to walk through the door like nothing even happened.

I picture my mother’s scars, the horrific injury that left her marked and blind in one eye. And when I look at Alina, with her soft brown cheeks and windswept hair, I can’t imagine ever doing anything to hurt her.

Her leg touches mine, our thighs brushing on the bench, and though I don’t know if she did it on purpose, I still pull away, reminding myself that I’m a danger to her, that despite how badly I want her, I can’t ever put her through what my mother experienced.

I’m not sure I could survive it.

And if not for the chain around my neck, warm against my skin even now, I know I would’ve needed to refuse this post as soon as the king assigned it to me. Because without the magic keeping my beast in check, I fear I would’ve already taken her, claimed her, perhaps even hurt her.

The thought makes my stomach turn. I shift farther away, putting more distance between us. Alina glances down at the gap between our thighs, the space I occupied beside her now empty, and a complicated emotion flicks across her face.

“Alina!” someone calls, and we both look up.

An instinctual growl rumbles in my chest when my eyes find the man she was talking to in the dining hall— Tristan .

Alina glances at me, then back at him, and I’m almost led to believe the flirty smile she gives him is done purposefully to piss me off.

And it fucking works.

She waves him over, then tells me, “Can you make room for Tristan?”

I’m so shocked that I actually snarl at her—good thing her roommates don’t hear over the sound of the crowd—but she just smiles back, undeterred, then scoots closer to Lyra, squishing their hips together to make room for Tristan between us.

And I have to use every ounce of my willpower not to take him by the back of the neck and throw him clean into the runeball field. I’d probably like this sport a lot more if he were the one being tossed through the goalposts.

He eases past the other students on this bench, then says, “Pardon me,” as he brushes by me to sit next to Alina. On my knees, my fingers curl into fists, and the warmth from my chain ignites against my skin.

What the fuck is she doing?

“Hey, I just wanted to check on you,” Tristan says, settling in next to her and ignoring me as if I don’t exist, as if I couldn’t snap him like the scrawny human boy he is. “Is everything okay? I was worried about you the other day.”

Liar , I want to snap. Instead, I narrow my eyes and focus on the field, trying to distract myself from the violent fantasy playing out in my head right now.

“Oh, everything’s fine. Just some family stuff,” Alina lies smoothly. “But thank you for checking on me. ”

In my peripheral vision, I see her reach over and place a hand on his. My dragon thrashes against my bones. I fight not to let my struggle show on my face.

“Of course,” Tristan says. “I’m glad.” He pushes a hand through his mop of brown hair, and his smell makes me want to wrinkle my nose unpleasantly.

There’s something about him that sets my teeth on edge. His smell, the sound of his voice, the way he’s sitting way too close to the princess...

“Oh!” Alina sounds unlike herself, too giddy, her voice pitched slightly higher than usual. “I don’t think you’ve met Raelan, have you?”

“No.” Tristan shakes his head, then turns to regard me, as if just noticing I’m sitting right beside him. “I’m Tristan Colbrook.” He holds out a hand.

I stare at it coolly. A long-enough moment passes that he glances back at Alina questioningly. But she’s looking at me, blue eyes challenging. Is this some sort of game to her? Watching me struggle like this?

I won’t let them win.

Shoving my hand into Tristan’s, I give it a firm shake. “Sir Raelan Ashvale.”

“Good to meet you,” he says.

I tighten my grip. Slowly, the expression on his face shifts as he no doubt notices the crushing strength of my hand in his, his bones protesting against my tightening hold.

“Likewise,” I say, giving him a pleasant smile. At least, I try to make it pleasant. It might look more like a snarl.

Behind him, Alina narrows her eyes at me .

Tristan keeps a smile on his face as he yanks his hand from mine, attempting to disguise how he rubs it uncomfortably with the other and flexes his fingers as if trying to determine if they still work properly.

Good. I hope it hurts. It’ll remind him to—

“Raelan,” Alina says, “would you mind getting us some of those toasted pecans? I’ve been dying to try them.”

She’s trying to irritate me. It’s growing more obvious by the moment.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” I say, adopting my cold professional tone. “I’m not permitted to leave your side. But perhaps Mr. Colbrook would be willing.” My eyes flash to his.

Alina opens her mouth, probably to argue, but Tristan quickly says, “Sure, I’d be happy to.” He pushes to his feet, much too eager for my liking. “I’ll be right back.”

I deliberately don’t move, making it more difficult for him to slink past me. Once he’s out of earshot, Alina narrows her eyes at me and hisses, “What’s the matter with you?”

I sit up straighter. “I told you before, I don’t trust him.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Why? He hasn’t done a single thing to draw your suspicion.”

I can’t argue with her—not without having to tell her that I haven’t quite determined why Tristan sets me so on edge. Other male students speak with Alina—walk to class with her, greet her in the hallways—and while that does make me seethe, there’s still something about Tristan that feels off, and I’ve yet to determine if my dragon distrusts him because of his interest in Alina or because it has detected something about him that the human part of me has yet to home in on.

We fall into a tense silence. Alina’s scent changes slightly, tinged now with her hot anger.

And it makes my dragon coil inside me, pushing against the magic in an attempt to get out. It likes the ferociousness in her ice-blue eyes, likes the sharp set of her jaw as she regards me unflinchingly.

Perhaps for the first time, I feel why she’s my mate. Despite having seen me in my true form, despite knowing what I am, she stares back at me fearlessly, meeting me glare for glare.

Fuck, I want her.

The crowd cheers around us, the roar loud against my sensitive ears. But Alina doesn’t look away, doesn’t turn her eyes from mine to watch the players sprinting across the field. My gaze flicks to her lips, traces the soft shape of them. I know now from experience that they fit mine perfectly, know how they taste after a cup of tea, warm and plush and—

“Toasted pecans!” Tristan announces from behind me.

I turn my eyes up to him, barely restraining the urge to growl. He makes to step around me and reclaim his spot beside Alina, but I shift at the last moment, pressing myself close to her despite the strain it puts on me. She draws a small surprised breath.

“Thanks,” I say, reaching out and snagging the paper bag from Tristan’s hands. He looks surprised but doesn’t voice any complaint as I pop a few of the toasted pecans into my mouth. They’re warm and coated in cinnamon sugar. I pass the bag to Alina.

“Thanks, Tristan,” she says.

Heat rises inside me at her use of his name.

“You want to watch the rest of the game with us?” she continues.

Tristan hesitates a moment, his eyes flicking between me and Alina. Finally, he smiles and says, “Absolutely.”

He sits beside me, and Alina reaches across my chest to offer him the pecans. Her scent drifts around me, and a floaty strand of her hair brushes my chin.

And I know she’s doing it all on purpose, driving me crazy like this just because she can.

But at least I’m between them now, in the spot right beside her.

In the spot where I belong, whether it’s painful for me or not.