Page 27 of A Reign of Storm and Madness

“By all that is fucking Holy…” Ruen’s curse is cut off as he yanks, using his hold on me to rip me up from the ground and shove my back against the books. A shelf juts into the center of my shoulder blades and I wince. He pauses, eyes locked on to my expression. A beat passes and then, he bows his head. “I am not asking for you to pleasure me, Kiera,” he finally says.

“Then why did you drag me to the archives of the library, Master Ruen?” I inquire, not at all impressed by the fact that he stopped at the first hint of my pain. Every time I call him ‘Master’ his expression grows thunderous and then guilty and then pained. Perhaps I would do to relax my biting tone a bit, but … well, he brought my ire on himself with his conniving actions. Since I can’t exactly punch him in the face and slit his throat without giving myself away, these small defiant little words and actions masked under the guise of respect are all I have.

Respect is like fear—it must be earned, not forced.

His head remains bowed as he replies. “I dragged you back here because you need to know that it’s not just what you say, but how you say it that could be considered disrespectful. If the Terra here heard the way you just spoke to me—”

I roll my eyes. “What must they think of me right now?” I cut him off, giving up the pretense of politeness. “Do you truly think anyone would believe that I’m back here performing my duties for the one who was the reason for my punishment?”

Cool midnight eyes settle on my throat as he backs up a step, and then slowly, they lift up and up until they’re level with mine. “Even if I were that type of man,” he says, “which I can assure you, I am not, they won’t think anything of the sort.”

Another arched brow is my only response.

He sighs and takes a full step back and it isn’t until he’s leaning across the aisle against the other shelf that I realize how much heat he’d been emitting. A shiver steals over my shoulders and I cross my arms over my chest once again, staring at him as I feel my nipples pebble beneath my bindings and tunic. He waves a hand and a strange noise erupts on either side of me.

I pivot my head just in time to see the ends of the bookshelves extend outward, shooting down the room and disappearing into … nothing. My lips part and I jerk my head around, but it’s the same in the opposite direction. Just eons and eons of bookshelves with no end. I spin entirely and then look up, but the tops of the shelves are no longer several feet above our heads. Now they stretch on and on and on some more until the darkness above turns into the night sky. Stars glitter down, shining in a way that I’ve never witnessed before as if they’re so close that they’re providing us with their own light.

“What … how…?” I feel breathless, confused, and utterly awed.

“It’s to keep others from overhearing,” Ruen’s voice is quiet as he answers me. “And an illusion.”

As if my head is being controlled by a puppet string and the thread has been cut, my gaze falls back to his face. “An illusion?” I repeat.

He nods once. “It’s my ability,” he answers. “I set an illusion back in the reading area to make the others think that the two of us were sitting there, talking quietly. Everything your illusion says will be nothing but respectful.” And, no doubt, nothing of what I would actually say to him.

I stare at the man in front of me for a long, pregnant moment. I can’t say what it is that’s clued me in—the reveal of his ability or the look he’s giving me. It reminds me of the same look Regis would often give me when we’d been kids and he’d stolen some of my favorite daggers to use for target practice. I’d caught him every time, and every time he’d had this same exact expression. I called it the guilty puppy look.

“You cast an illusion on me.”

Ruen sucks in a breath and then blows it out. “It was necessary so that the librarians don’t—”

“No.” I shake my head. “Not today, during my punishment. That day in that arena, I thought I was going insane … I couldn’t feel the pain at first. There was a field and I felt like I was floating. It … you illusioned me.” My brow furrows, trying to comprehend. “Why?”

A vein ticks in Ruen’s jaw, and normally I’d think it was a sign of anger, but he doesn’t appear angry right now. That guilty puppy look is still there and then gone when he twists his head to the side and stares at the ground.

“Does it matter?” His question is nearly a whisper.

“It matters to me.”

He grits his teeth, but still, I wait. I don’t just want an answer, I damn well deserve one. After all that he did to put me in that position, why would he do something like that? Something else occurs to me and I eye him speculatively.

“Did you take away the pain or dampen it?”

“I can’t … take away pain,” he says, sounding for all the world like he doesn’t want to answer me. “I can only redirect it.”

My heart stills. “I didn’t feel it at all,” I say, thinking back to that day. It feels like a blur in my mind, no doubt a consequence of the illusion I’d not even known I’d been under. “Not until the illusion was broken, so how…” The truth hits me as his eyes flash up to meet mine.

Redirect, he said. Someone had to feel the pain and since it wasn’t me, it had to have been the one person in control of the illusion. He had taken my pain. Shock rolls through me.

But … why?

No one has ever taken my pain for me. Sure, Regis might have helped to tape or bandage me after Ophelia’s torture sessions or after a particularly rough mission, but no one had ever shielded me. The only person to ever do so is now dead. Why would he take my pain on himself if he truly sees me as nothing more than a nuisance and a danger to his brothers?

“You were right,” Ruen says, breaking the silence that surrounds us as my words have drifted off into oblivion. “I played the game and I fucked up. I lost. It was one of the only ways I could think of to make amends. Unfortunately, the illusion didn’t last as long as I’d hoped, and I’m sorry for that. I was…”—His face pinches tight as if he’s searching for the words to use—“not quite fully in control of my abilities as much as I usually am.” Because of his emotions or something else? I wonder. “Regardless, I never meant for you to get hurt because of my actions,” he continues. “I simply wanted you out of the Academy and away from my brothers.”

“Why is that?” I cock my head in the opposite direction, curiosity rising.

Ocean eyes flick to mine. “My brothers are dangerous,” he bites out. Just like a wounded wolf might snap at anyone that comes near. “You rile them and you do it on purpose. I see the way you play with Kalix and Theos, after you…” He drifts off and then completely changes back to Kalix. “You excite Kalix’s darker urges and I—we—can’t let him lose control again. Any more and you’ll find yourself broken and beyond repair.”

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