I settled in on a nearby bench, content to flip through my notes and steal glances at them all glistening with sweat in the midday sun. Kieran smiled when he caught my eye a few minutes after I’d arrived, glancing towards the clock tower with a raised brow.You’re early,he mouthed. I shrugged and nodded towards my textbook to indicate I didn’t mind waiting, but he still jogged over in between a round of sprints.
“Hey you.”
“Hey,” I replied with a smile. “Class ended early today, but I’m in no rush. Is it alright if I just hang out here until you guys wrap up?”
“Yeah, of course. I think you might be distracting my recruits though,” he said, still breathing hard. It seemed like he often joined his trainees in whatever drills he was running them through, and I wondered if that was expected… or just Kieran being Kieran.
“Ah yes, distracting them with my feminine wiles,” I replied sarcastically, glancing behind his shoulder where a small gaggle of prospective guardsmen were indeed standing together, eyeing us both, and giving each other slight nudges.
“Exactly those. It does give me an excuse to make them work harder, though,” he grinned. “Speaking of which, please hold.”
I raised a brow.
“If you’ve got time to ogle her, you’ve got time for another lap!” he shouted across the field, his voice taking on a low rumble of authority. “Get on it, freshlings!”
I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. At least I wasn’t the only one who got assigned dumb nicknames, though I had a feeling that my other one was a little more exclusive.
“It’s gonna be about another twenty minutes or so here, and then I’ll clean up and we’ll head out, okay? Hang tight. Your academic education will resume shortly, Little Conduit.”
Yeah, that nickname. It had sort of grown on me over time, though. I’d found the diminutive irritating at first, but these days it felt friendly and affectionate, and only made me blush sometimes—depending on how he said it and in what context.
I also couldn’t help but notice the way Kieran’s voice softened into a husky rasp when he was directing it towards me instead of the recruits… but maybe that was just because he was out of breath.
“I’ll be here,” I chirped cheerfully.
As he jogged back towards the center of the field, I attempted to return back to my texts, reviewing the notes I had taken on the theory of arcane fractals and opposing aetherflows.
The key word there beingattempted. I found it fairly difficult to focus on my academia as Kieran shrugged off his uniform jacket, revealing the black sleeveless top he wore underneath and the way it hugged his torso.
I was only human. Given the choice between the intricacies of the aetheric spectrum and the deep golden tan of the scouting captain’s muscled arms—now freely exposed and glistening with sweat as he dropped to the ground and held himself in a plank position…
I was going to look respectfully.
He was instructing his recruits to mirror his pose, counting down from sixty. My abs hurt just watching them. Just when I felt like this couldn’t get any more distracting, Kieran hopped back up to his feet with an irritating degree of effortlessness and grace.
“Keep it up!” he called out with that same sharp, authoritative tone.
I had to admire the nuance he was able to command among his men, because while there was no doubt an aura of seniority and leadership that he carried about him at work, he was also encouraging and respectful. You could tell that he was pushing these recruits to challenge them, not to break their spirit. That wasn’t always the case when it came to people in positions of power, and I admired him for it.
Though speaking of admiration…
I swallowed hard as Kieran stretched one arm behind his back, biceps flexing. He was still watching his recruits as they held their planks with pained expressions, but I was watchinghim.
What struck me first was how much of his tattoos were visible now that he had taken off his jacket. Even from a distance, the dark black ink embedded in his sun-bronzed skin was a stark and mysterious contrast. The strange, jaggedmarkings peeked out beneath his shirt, appearing to cover the entirety of his right shoulder blade at least, creeping up one side of his neck. If I had to guess, it was some kind of script... but with so much more of Kieran on display right now, I could not be bothered to wrack my brain to guess the language.
My gaze drifted over him lazily, and I realized that his trousers had slipped down dangerously low on his hips. That skin-tight undershirt of his was riding up just enough that I could see… Gods, I could see a lot. Too much. This was just rude, really. Had he been carved out of fucking marble?
I really should’ve just looked away, but instead I was hungrily studying the toned dips of his hip flexor muscles, and that thin trail of black hair traveling from his navel to… well.Lower.
Fates above, I needed to stop staring. As I quickly glanced back up and attempted to recover, Kieran caught my eye… and winked.
Fucking Hel.
That man was a menace to society.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kieran