Chapter Five – One Bad KissWhen Gray went to bed that night, Rynn was already asleep, and so they couldn’t talk about Ames. However, the fact that she was in his room and not her own made Gray feel better.

  The next morning, there was such a rush to get out of the house and to the canteen that they didn’t have time to talk. And then there was breakfast and all the other people around.

  Rynn seemed the same, but Gray couldn’t be sure.

  But when she got up to get more charbrew, Gray leapt to his feet and hurried over. He wanted to clear the air sooner rather than ter.

  Rynn’s smile was too mysterious. “You want to know what I felt st night, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  The elf girl shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s not like you kissed her.” She paused. “Did you kiss her?”

  He didn’t want to have this conversation inside the loud and very public canteen, so he pulled her outside into the chilly morning air. They found an empty alcove on the side away from the doorway.

  Rynn sipped her coffee. “I think you wanted to kiss her.”

  Gray winced. “It’s not like I can lie, right? You felt my lust, right? Is that why you were asleep st night when I finally went to bed?”

  Rynn shook her head. “No. I was tired after our first day training and I hadn’t slept well the night before. Because of, you know, all of our nocturnal activities.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” He wanted to end his suspense. “Ames is pretty, and she’s jealous of us, and I think she’s attracted to me, and it’s driving her crazy.”

  “It’s a short trip.” Rynn shook her head. “I know you’re only human. I know that you might have to end up kissing everyone on our squad. I also know we’re bonded, and you can’t cheat on me, not without me feeling it.”

  “But it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “It is, Mr. No. It is. There are a million stories and a million tragedies when it comes to normal bonding but there’s even more when people try to make multiple bonds. Sure, you might not wind up bonded with Ames but—”

  He had to cut her off. “I don’t have pns to sleep with her, Rynn.”

  “Fine,” the elf girl said. “Not Ames. Let’s go with someone completely unlikely. Let’s say you sleep with Pinch. She’s very pretty.”

  “For a greedy, murderous bitch, yes, very pretty.”

  “Anyway, you could bed Pinch and nothing would come from it. Or it could sever your bond with me and create a new one with her. Best case scenario, I’d lose my bond. Worst case, it would damage my core, and I could never feel that bond again. Or it would destroy my core, and I’d lose my magic. In some cases, there’s been reports that I would wind up bonded with Pinch and you’d be left out in the cold. Poor Mr. No, all alone.”

  Gray finally had to ugh. “You’re not worried.”

  “I am very much not worried,” Rynn said. “I know you won’t risk it. In some cases, all three lose their ability to make any more bonds, or everyone’s cores are destroyed, and in some cases, one, two, or all three of the threesome are driven insane. Yes, there have been some who can handle multiple bonds, but generally, who would risk the lives of three people to bond with a fourth? Each time, there is a risk of something going wrong.”

  Gray thought for a minute. “The Widow Stone mentioned that some people can handle multiple bonds. Maybe once they get started, they don’t need to stop.”

  Rynn rolled her eyes. “I like the Widow Stone, but I think those are just wishful thinking from mages with lust resonances. Even with the Third Avatar, Accazel the Bound, there are some who think he pretended to have seven wives just to draw attention to himself and to get recruits for his army. I just don’t think it’s possible. Like, how big would our bed have to be to handle you and seven wives?”

  That made him grin. “Me and seven women, all at once, in the same bed? I could make it work.”

  The elf girl leveled her eyes at him. “I couldn’t. You’d be with them by yourself.”

  He took her hand and pulled her close, careful not to spill their charbrews. “Don’t worry. You’re my one and only, Rynn. There can be no one else.”

  She sighed and kissed him softly. “I feel the same way.” She then stepped away from him. “I am a little worried at how Ames will handle us being together, but then, I was worried about Tomi and Midj as well. They seem fine. I talked with them, and both aren’t interested in, uh, exploring other races like that. Midj finds humans weird and kind of repulsive. And Tomi said beds were made for sleeping.”

  Gray thought it was a bit more than that for Tomi. She used sarcasm and jokes to push people away. She didn’t want anyone to get to know her too well, and so being bonded would probably scare the hell out of her.

  “You know, Ames isn’t the only one who is having trouble with our bond. I think Settie is jealous of us. We’re getting to experience a love I don’t think she’s ever had.”

  Rynn’s mouth dropped open. “What? Captain Sevanya? Well, I don’t think she’d want you because, uh, she prefers…well. Let’s not talk about this. I trust you, Gray.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I trust you. You’re not secretly attracted to Freek are you?”

  Rynn made a face. “No. Only you. Let’s not get gross. Never.”

  He figured they’d go back inside to their breakfast—he had the st two bites of his lemon poppyseed muffin to eat. He loved the taste…just not how it made him feel. Then he was excited to get another chance to channel his mana into his meridians.

  But between them and the door stood the raven-haired Blythe, who was secretly a dragon, and Sindara, the other recruit to betray them. Sindara had her uniform unbuttoned to show a vast amount of freckled cleavage. Her hair was a bright red, and it matched her green eyes and her sultry smile. While it wasn’t polite to talk about a person’s resonances, it was clear that Sindara had a lust resonance.

  The redheaded woman walked up to him, hips swaying. Her eyes went from Gray to Rynn. “So it’s true.”

  Gray sighed. This was just more sea cow shit he didn’t want to deal with. Too bad his stick was back at the canteen, or he might’ve hit her with it. “What’s true?”

  Sindara came close to them and inhaled. “You two are fucking. Not st night, but the day before. You both smell so good.”

  “We don’t need to talk to them.” Blythe went to grab her friend’s shoulder, but Sindara easily slid away from her, dancing close to Gray.

  Sindara inhaled again. “I heard you talking…about multiple bonding. It can happen. What’s life without risk? What’s life without me? Sleeping with the enemy can be so much fun.”

  “That’s enough!” Mana filled Blythe’s hands. “Sindara, get away from him.”

  “No.” The redhead’s green eyes were locked onto Gray’s face. “Is it wrong that I find him even more handsome now that he’s bonded? It would be a bond I would love to break.”

  Rynn shot forward with mana-fueled speed.

  Sindara, though, showed that while she was a silly flirt, she had other skills. She dodged Rynn, and then grabbed the elf, spun her around, and shoved her back.

  Rynn staggered, about fell, but then got to her feet and attacked again. But Rynn wasn’t in her right mind. She’d let Sindara get to her, and the result was sloppy.

  This time, Sindara slid to the side, and shoved Rynn into the wall of the canteen. There was mana in the push, and Rynn smmed into the wall. She might’ve hit face first, but as it was, she got her arm up.

  Still, she was on the ground, her arm bleeding, and that was when Gray grabbed Sindara’s arm. It was muscur, her skin was soft, and Sindara only smiled, but she had tears in her eyes. “She’s right to be jealous, but then, she’s a rich elf, who was given everything. Everything! Not all of us are so lucky. You don’t know what it cost me to be here…what I’ve had to do, what I’ve had to endure.”

  “That was your choice,” Gray said. He then flung her back into Blythe’s hands.

  The dragon girl caught her friend, but it was clear, Blythe expected more fighting. Her skin had become scaled, and the pupils of her eyes were no longer round. They were slits of a snake. “Cut the shit, Sindara. This is not helping us.”

  Sindara wrestled herself away. “It’s not hurting us either, right? It’s just fun! Let me have fun!”

  Gray went to help Rynn up, but instead, Sindara was suddenly there, and within minutes, he was on his back. It was such a quick, savage attack, and really, Gray hadn’t been expecting it.

  On the ground, on his back, with Sindara straddling him, with her hair hanging over his face. “Caught you both off guard, but that’s not likely to happen very much, am I right? You have the better team. I might’ve gotten money, we might’ve won the bronze on Culling Day, but we all know who is going to win it all. Like her, you have everything. So let me have this one kiss.”

  Gray felt Sindara’s core ignite with a bright burst of lust, and he felt his own lust respond, and yet, this was insane. Ames was crazy, sure, but Sindara seemed equally on edge.

  Then she was kissing him, only, it was a one-sided kiss. She wanted him to respond, but there was no way he was going to do that. She was the enemy, in a very real sense.

  And yet, he could feel her sadness, her desperation, her crazed lust. And he felt his core rise up to meet hers. Then, before he knew it, he was kissing her but only for a moment. He’d lost control, clearly, and yet…

  He couldn’t fight against her smell, her taste, that ocean of desire he felt inside of her. For the briefest second, he drank in her kiss, which was a mistake. Dammit, it was such a mistake.

  He saw her, in the little rickety hut where she spent her childhood, far to the north, freezing in a little room. He saw her father, a grim-faced father feeding the st of the wood to flickering fire. No lust rocks for them. Nearby was a woman in a stinking bed—the mother, dying, for months and months, and all the money went to healers, but she was beyond healing.

  Every day death hung over their little hut.

  The father was a magus, though, a manamancer, who trained his daughter to the point of exhaustion because if she could learn to fight, she wouldn’t have to sell herself. There was talk of that…between father and daughter, however sad that was, but it was the reality of their situation. She was pretty, with her red hair and green eyes, and there were forbidden rituals, perfected by the Quelling, which could alter a core to prevent bonding from ever happening. And she had a lust resonance, a huge appetite for such things. There were ways, but they were risky. Sindara’s father had ties with the Quelling, the cambion elves, the sons and daughters of both elves and demons. It was how he had heard of First Field in the first pce.

  “Get off him!” Rynn shrieked.

  And then Sindara was flung away. Blythe was bsted off her feet.

  Gray was caught in the bst of her venting her core, and it felt like someone had kicked him in the belly. He couldn’t breathe for a moment, but seeing Sindara, connecting to her without even meaning to, he felt the fury at how the world was a dark pce, and tragedy waited around every corner, and everyone had a heart-crushing story.

  It shouldn’t be this way. It should be different. Midmere wasn’t the love nest of the gods, it was a sewer of sorrow and hate and death. Sickness and violence were around every corner, and every day was a new day when something incredibly awful could happen.

  Gray felt that anger at the world, and yes, he could use it to fill his core. He had more than enough to channel magic into Rynn’s empty core, which not only kept her on her feet, but filled her muscles.

  The elf girl was seething, hands curled into fists, radiating power.

  Blythe managed to stand, but Sindara stayed on the ground, hands covering her face. She was weeping. She knew that Gray had gotten a glimpse into her soul.

  The dragon girl faced off with Rynn, eyes locked.

  By this time, recruits had poured out of the canteen to watch the coming fight.

  Gray was trying to get off the ground, but he’d caught Rynn’s bst in the gut, and he still couldn’t breathe. He could just watch and make sure he kept his bonded filled with mana.

  Blythe’s skin lost her scales, and her eyes went back to being human. “I’m sorry for Sindara. I don’t know why she kissed your man.”

  Rynn didn’t say a word, but she was so angry and hurt. She’d felt him lose control. She’d felt him kiss the redhead; Gray knew it. Fuck. She’d taken Ames’s insanity with a grain of salt but there had been no kissing and no delving…as Tomi put it back when he’d found her core.

  Squad 23 had come out, and Ames was there, at the front, sighing.

  Tomi was there as well, with a smirk on her face. “Go Gray! Kisses for everyone!”

  Ames sighed again.

  Midj, though, stood there looking worried. She knew this could turn bad at any moment. Where was Captain Settie?

  Blythe’s squad worked their way through the crowd to stand behind her. They were all human, powerful, from all over Midmere, and they were there to back them up.

  Rynn took a step forward. “You stay away from us. We’re going to win Soulshred Week like we won Culling Day, with only the five of us. No games. No bullying. No fucking kissing. Stay the fuck away from us.”

  Blythe ughed. “You’ve changed Rynnanatha. I never thought the shy little schoolgirl without a single friend in the world would have such spirit. But the reality is, you do only have five recruits in your squad, and with what’s coming, that is going to be your undoing. Remember how you were almost culled during Sixblood? Well, history is going to repeat itself. I am going to love watching you and your fucking bitch of a captain lose.”

  From out of the corner of his eye, Gray saw Freek break from the audience and walk over to help Sindara stand. The redhead immediately threw her arms around the big orc and pushed her face against his chest. Freek held her, eyes closed. It was clear there was something going on there.

  Gray managed to get to his feet. “Sounds like you know what Soulshred Week is going to be. Care to clue us in?”

  Blythe ughed. “Oh, I don’t know. But you only have five, and we have seven of the best. We’re the Fire Flyers, Squad 49, and we’re going to fucking win!”

  The recruits around her raised their fists. “Fire Flyers!”

  Right then, Gray knew he didn’t want his squad to have a name. Squad 23 was fine.

  Dame Hek Bckpaw shoved her way through the crowd. “All right. All right. Break it up. If you’re going to kill each other, go down to the training fields. I don’t fucking want to clean up your blood. But remember, the penalty for murder is immediate execution. It’s the one fucking rule we still have.”

  Blythe smiled and ughed. “Yes, Dame Hek. We know. But we’re done here. Right, Sindara?”

  The redhead stepped away from the orc, her face clear of tears, and she smiled. “I’m never done because I’m never satisfied. Sorry, Gray, but that was the worst kiss of my life. Poor Rynn, to think she is bonded to a man who doesn’t know how to kiss. But I could teach you. Just get in touch. I love teaching both boys and girls how to kiss.”

  Freek, who was normally smiling and gregarious, had a scowl on his face. Every word seemed to cut into his heart.

  Sindara tossed her hair, hooked her arm through Blythe’s, and they both sauntered off with the Fire Flyers trailing them.

  Gray went to Rynn, who grabbed his hand.

  “Sorry I’m a bad kisser,” he said.

  The grin took a while to curve Rynn’s lips, but finally, she let out a sigh. “You’re just too popur, Mr. No.”

  “Good thing I’m Mr. No then. Because everyone gets a ‘no’ except for you.”

  She then kissed him for everyone to see.