Page 20 of Shattered Darkness

Everyone is watching him cautiously, and I can’t blame them. Cain knows so much too much, which means he has a direct line to the Goddess, which is unlikely, or I guess that it is possible that he is some kind of seer and has been gifted by the Goddess the foresight of what is going to happen.

Cain nods, “I do. To answer your previous question, yes, all of those who have the warrior mark will gain extra gifts when the time is right to help protect Sage and yourselves in the future that awaits you.”

“Why do I feel like you know something about this future?” Cole asks.

“The way that you worded it then did sound rather ominous,” Erin adds.

Cain chooses not to reply and instead turns around and heads toward the door, “I’ll meet you back here in two days' time, and then we will train every two days unless something comes up. We may switch it up between training and learning about the Warrior bond, but I haven’t completely decided about that yet. Due to the current circumstances, I think training might be more of a priority. Oh, and talking about the ongoing situation with teachers and Kronos,” his voice lowers, and I’m not sure we’re supposed to hear the next part as he mutters, “fucking jealous twat.”

“What was that?” Kysen questions, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who heard it.

Cain lifts his hand and waves it in the air dismissively as he steps through the door, “Don’t worry about it.”

Once he’s gone, the rest of us just stare at each other in silence before I say, “Well, that was unexpected.”

“I’ll fucking say,” Erin agrees as we head toward the door again. She then adds, “You were fucking badass in the air though!”

I grin, “Thanks, I had no idea I could do that.”

“Do you think he’s legit?” Jax asks me.

Before I can answer though, Erin interrupts, “Shit, one second, guys, I forgot to move the shield from the gym to us.”

We all stop moving as we wait for Erin to do her thing, which doesn’t take very long at all, and once she’s done and we’re heading back to our rooms, I answer Jax.

“I think he’s legit. Cain is one of the reasons that I’m still alive. If he hadn’t given me the skills that he did, I likely wouldn’t have survived. Not only does that mean that I trust him, but none of my instincts have gone off to say otherwise either, and the Goddess hasn’t popped up to say that we shouldn’t trust him; all of those are reasons to think that he is legitimate,” I reply.

“I still think that we should be cautious though, because there is obviously so much that he knows, things that he probably shouldn’t and I think that he has a link to the Goddess too, one that may even be similar to Sage’s,” Harry suggests, with a worried frown on his face.

“I agree. Hopefully, he’ll open up more the more time we spend together.” Kyle says. “I think with everything else that’s going on at the moment though, we should definitely proceed with caution and not give away everything that we know at once.”

“That’s smart,” Levi agrees as we finally make it to our floor, and I feel Erin’s magic pull back. “For now, I think a good plan is to go to the training sessions that he’s providing; we could certainly do with the help and especially any knowledge of the Warrior Bond, which we have absolutely no idea about.”

“And we need to keep an eye on the teachers too. It’s clear that we need to be extra careful whenever we’re with them and never let them isolate us away from the rest of the class or each other,” Hunter suggests.

“Erm, that’s a slight problem for us,” Cole says, his eyebrows furrowing with a heavy frown.

“He’s right. We don’t share classes with anyone else; we’re the only ones in there,” Erin adds through a yawn.

“Actually, that might be why you’re separated from the rest of the students; maybe they’re trying to isolate us. Think about it: if something happened to us, then our Bonded would be so focused on that they wouldn’t notice anything else happening, or if they did, they would be so focused on us that they wouldn’t do anything about it,” I suggest.

“That’s possible. I know from my perspective that if you went missing, there is absolutely no chance that I would be focusing on anything but finding you. The world could be set ablaze, and I wouldn’t care. My sole focus would be on you,” Kai replies, honestly.

“Aww, that was really sweet,” I reply, without meaning to, my heart melting. I probably shouldn’t find it cute that he’d let the world burn in order to find me, but I do.

“But how are we going to get around that?” Kysen asks. “I highly doubt that they’re going to let us sit in with you.”

“No, not after they put a guard outside the door,” I reply, trying to think of a solution and coming up blank.

“I don’t feel comfortable being in that room like sitting fucking ducks,” Cole replies.

“You managed just to walk out today without too much trouble; you could always just not go,” Jax suggests.

“We could, but then we’re still going to be sitting ducks if we come back here. We will still be isolated, and if that’s what they want, then they will take advantage,” I reply.

“Shit, you’re right,” Levi replies, looking worried and running a hand through his hair, avoiding his horns.

“Why don’t you stick to what you have been doing? That way, you won’t be raising any suspicions because we want them to remain as in the dark as possible, and we don’t want them to know that we’re onto them.” Kyle suggests, although he doesn’t look that pleased about the suggestion.

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