“Would it be one of your men?” I asked after a deep sip of tea, the warmth of cinnamon and cloves coating my tongue. “Am I even allowed to ask that?”
“You can ask me whatever you like, freshling, I just can’t always answer,” Kieran reminded me. “But yes. It would likely be someone from my unit.”
I allowed myself to take the slightest of comforts in that. If any of the guards could keep her safe, it would be one of Kieran’s own.
“Good,” I murmured, staring at my boots. “That’s good.”
Kieran and I sat in stark, but somewhat comfortable silence for several minutes before he spoke again.
“So what are your plans for the rest of the morning?” he asked, and I shrugged.
“Not much. I was just going to go home and study before meeting up with you for lunch later. You showed up too early, stalker.”
I tried to keep my tone light, playful as we so often were, but the words came out a bit more brittle than I intended.
Kieran still smirked at the accusation, though, and for a moment the weight of the last twenty-four hours seemed to lift from my chest as his pearly white teeth gleamed, peeking out from behind his lips.
“I don’t see you complaining about the personal tea delivery service,” he replied smoothly, without missing a beat. He was right, of course. This was exactly what I’d needed.
“That said, I did promise Hans and Jer that I’d review some of the new combat training protocols they’ve been working on. You wanna come with?”
“Am I allowed to?” I asked, raising a brow.
Most of Kieran’s men didn’t seem to mind whenever I hung around, but training protocols with his lieutenants seemed like privileged information, and I didn’t want to push my luck.
His smirk stretched into an all out grin, seemingly entertained by my hesitancy.
“I’m more of an ‘ask forgiveness’ than an ‘ask permission’ sort of man these days. Come along, Little Conduit. Let’s go give the boys a chance to show off.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kieran
When I arrived on the training fields with Arken in tow, my lieutenants exchanged a look, but said nothing. By now, they were accustomed to her presence, even if my excuses to bring her along were often flimsy at best. I appreciated their trust immensely, for a variety of reasons. Today in particular, though, because I just… had a certain sense that Arken was in dire need of a distraction.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” I called out jovially. “You get a much prettier audience than usual today. I picked up a stray Conduit on the way here.”
Arken snorted, jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow as she waved to Hans and Jeremiah. Simply accidental on her part,I’m sure. They waved back to her before resuming their light sparring session.
“We’re just warming up, Captain,” Jeremiah said, barely containing his smirk. “Give us a few.”
I led Arken over to the other side of the field where a few sets of raised benches offered a better view. I smiled as I heard her snicker beneath her breath at the volley of quips the two men shot back and forth as they parried one another’s strikes.
“You three seem so close,” she said as we took a seat. “I can see why, too. They’re fucking hilarious.”
“Who, Hans and Jer? Yeah. They’re my second and third in command in the scouting unit. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the years,” I explained.
“Which is which?”
“Hans is second. Jer is third.”
“For some reason, I would’ve thought it was the other way around.”
I snorted. That was a valid assumption.
There was a reason why I was so close to these two men in my cadre in particular—I had been the one to promote them both in the first place, hand-selecting them as my direct reporting officers within our unit. There was also a reason why Hans was second-in-command.
Hans Deering was a royal pain in my ass, but he was also an exceptional fighter. He was among the minority within the Elder Guard in that he wasnota Conduit. The man was completely non-Resonant—but he had learned how to adapt to what he perceived to be a weakness by developing his own combat style, designed to exploit the weaknesses of Conduits in particular. He had spearheaded this project.