Page 15 of Dance of the Phoenix (Cloak of the Vampire #3)
Aileen
Ragnor was actively avoiding me.
The Hecatomb was just a little over a week away. The hovering threat of it was beginning to become far more present than before, and now Ragnor was avoiding me.
Before, he had given me the excuse of his being busy, which I’d accepted, since it sounded quite plausible with everything that was going on.
Now, unless it was during training, which now consistently included Magnus as my literal punching bag, he kept himself out of my sight and even vicinity. At night, when I came back to his suite, sore and aching from training all day, he was never there and left no notes as to where he was.
It reached a point when his sheets no longer smelled like him, he’d been gone for so long.
I had no idea where he spent his nights or where he slept. Since he always seemed no worse for wear when he came to pick me up for my individual training, I assumed he was sleeping.
Just not with me.
I’d thought he was going to go all alpha male on me after getting all jealous that day with Magnus, but instead, he raised a cold wall between us, reminding me of the first few weeks of our initial acquaintance. That did not make me feel good.
If only I had a room of my own to hide in rather than the suite I shared with him. Funnily enough, after our return from the altercation with the Jinn, Ragnor and I had begun living together in his suite without even discussing it. It was as if we both saw it as a natural course of events.
Now I realized it might’ve been too early in our relationship to move in together.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one going through a rough time privately, though. CJ had been looking worse and worse with every day that passed to the point he looked as if he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in ages.
To forget my own problems and try to help him with his, I offered to have lunch with CJ. He took me up on it but was very tight lipped during the entire meal, evading my questions.
Until I asked, “Is Jada at least coming out of her room now?”
That’s when CJ looked away and said, “Yes.”
And that was that.
Every day seemed to crawl by while the training sessions turned more and more brutal, until finally, the first week of training reached its end.
And the first day of the mixed training with the Gifted Hecatomb participants arrived.
“I’ve asked our Lord for his permission to attend the Hecatomb.”
Zoey and I stared at Isora, while our forks were halfway to our mouths. “No,” I blurted before I could stop myself.
Isora rolled her eyes. “Well, he agreed, so fuck you.”
“Are you serious?” Zoey said, arching a brow. “The Hecatomb isn’t some theatrical play.”
She was right. According to the briefing we’d gone through on the first day of training, the Hecatomb was basically a battlefield. Depending on the assigned monitor, there could be some additional entertainment, but that was definitely not the point.
The point was to see who filled the arena with more gore and death.
Isora glared at her for a moment before taking a sip of her coffee. “Obviously, it’s not. But my two friends are going to participate, so I have to be there.”
Part of me was touched, but another, bigger part felt uneasy. “Renaldi is going to be there,” I told her, eyeing her closely.
She gave me a serious nod. “I know. That’s another reason why I want to go.”
“To see Renaldi ?” Zoey asked, her disgust palpable. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Isora smiled cryptically. “I have some unfinished business to discuss with the asshole.”
“I don’t like it,” I murmured.
“Lucky for me, it’s not up to you to decide what I do or not,” Isora retorted sweetly before rising up. “Don’t you have training to get to?”
Before either Zoey or I could respond, she stormed off, evidently upset. Zoey and I looked at each other, and she said, “What did she expect? That we’ll support her coming to see a bloodbath, along with her traumatic former Lord?”
Sharing the exact same sentiment, I could only sigh and massage my temples.
After days of training my powers, the pain was constant even when I wasn’t actively using my magic.
It sometimes turned even more painful when something lay heavy on my mind, like the fact Ragnor actually approved of Isora coming to watch the Hecatomb.
Since I’d had it up to here with Ragnor, this was just another thing pinned to my mental board of what the hell do you think you’re doing?
After quickly finishing our breakfast, Zoey and I left for training. It was to take place in a larger gym, and I wondered who our mentor was going to be. George had told us it was going to be someone different.
I just hoped it wasn’t Ragnor, because I didn’t think I could handle having him give me the cold shoulder during the morning session as well. It was hard enough as it was when it was just Magnus and us.
Unfortunately, when Zoey and I arrived at the gym, we found out who was going to be our mentor, and that vampire was the only vampire other than Ragnor I’d wished I wouldn’t have to see in close quarters again.
Lieutenant Margarita Wallen.
The woman who first introduced me to the Rayne League when I became a vampire and then tried to sabotage me right before the Auction out of pure jealousy over Ragnor and Logan.
The same one who threatened me more than once to keep my distance from her two favorite men.
And she was supposed to train me so I would survive the Hecatomb. Sounded legit.
Margarita’s auburn hair was pulled into a tight bun, her catlike green eyes on the man standing next to her as she listened to him speak.
Logan.
Right. He was also here, as a participant in the Hecatomb. Great.
“Wow,” Zoey murmured to me, her brown eyes on Logan. “I forgot how good he looks up close.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, pointedly looking at the gym’s entrance so as not to look at my ex-boyfriend. “He does. Though I would not make a move if I were you.”
Zoey sighed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side.”
I whipped my head toward her and saw her glaring at Margarita, who seemed oblivious, as she was transfixed by whatever Logan was saying to her. “I can tell you from experience she’s a hound dog, all right,” I whispered. “It’s a wonder she hasn’t sought me out to torture me since I came back.”
“You mean she’s like that with our Lord too?” Zoey asked, eyes wide. “That’s preposterous. He’s our Lord . She has no say in whether he dates you or not.”
My lips parted as I was about to say we’re not dating , but then I clamped my mouth shut. What were we, then, if not dating? The whole one-month-trial thing was postponed until after the Hecatomb, sure, but what were we now, then?
Ragnor and I weren’t friends, so we couldn’t be friends with benefits. Hell, it’d been a while since we’d benefited each other as it was. Were we lovers, then? That would entail dating, too, and considering everything going on, it wasn’t on the table at the moment.
I sneaked a look at Logan again. I knew everything there was to know about Logan. From the shallowest things, like which movie was his favorite, to the deepest ones, like what buttons to push to get my desired response.
With Ragnor, I didn’t even know what his favorite color was, let alone what he was thinking most of the time. In fact, the only subject I was intimately familiar with where he was concerned was what he liked in bed. And that was that.
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I was in love with Ragnor, but I knew absolutely nothing about him.
So was that truly love at all?
With Logan, things had been simple. I’d known the entire time we were together that I wasn’t in love with him.
I was infatuated with his good looks, sure, and liked his personality well enough, but that was the extent of it.
What I’d felt about Logan was closer to possessiveness.
I hadn’t seen him as a man with his own mind and thoughts.
I’d seen him as a thing that I considered mine and mine alone.
Which, I knew, was a whole bucketload of shitty. But unfortunately, that was the truth.
With Ragnor, I didn’t even know how old he truly was. Hell, I didn’t know anything about his past. Nothing about his human life. Which, I also realized, was what dating was for: to get to know your partner better.
And yet ... maybe, like with Logan, I wasn’t really in love with him after all?
My thoughts went to Jada just then. I’d seen her briefly after breakfast, heading into the kitchens with her shoulders slumped and her head hanging low.
The look in her eyes when she’d talked about CJ had been—despite the overwhelming pain—full of love, which had led to that despair in the first place.
Perhaps what I felt now, with Ragnor, was something similar to that.
Or was I deluding myself?
“Good morning, participants.” Margarita’s shrill voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I focused on her.
I realized a line had formed where Zoey and I stood with all other eight participants.
“We’re going to start with some basic warm-ups before Lieutenant Magnus and our Lord will join us for an assessment. ”
She looked us over, and I saw her eyes skip from Zoey on my left to Yelene, who stood to my right—avoiding me completely.
We were off to a great start. “As you know, in the Hecatomb, you’re going to fight in five pairs of one Gifted and one Common.
Today’s assessment will determine the makeup of the pairs. ”
CJ raised his hand. “What are the factors you’ll take into consideration?”
Margarita glanced at him briefly before she said, “Mostly, it will be about who complements who, ability wise,” she replied, almost uninterested in the question.
“Some Gifted’s Gifts might not be compatible with someone’s combat style, so the review will be to assess what would be the ultimate pairs. ”
She clasped her hands behind her back. “Now, let’s begin.”