Page 32 of Power of Draken

Logan pushes away from the wall, incredulity shaping each line of his gorgeous face. “He kissed you? Grayson kissed you? You have got to be kidding me.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence there.” I say it with jest, trying to hide the sting of Logan’s shock. I know men who look like Kai Grayson—or Logan, or Kyrian—don’t go after women who look like me, but there was no call to rub my face in it. I finish taming my hair and pull it back into a ponytail. “Are you going to mathematics in a wet training uniform? And no, you don’t get to ask a question in return for answering that. Game’s done.”

Logan ignores me, his hands in his pockets as he paces the small expense of my room. “Grayson kissed you. You are certain?”

Gods, he's still on that. I open my palms. “I don’t know, Logan. I kissed so many men yesterday that it’s near impossible to keep count. Maybe it was someone else. Just fill in whatever name you’d find more appropriate in the scenario and let's go with that.”

“Well, my name for starters,” Logan says, as if that much is obvious. He stops suddenly and twists to me, glaring as if this is all my fault. “Where does Grayson get off telling Kyrian and I to keep our wits about us, when he is out there kissing you himself?”

“He what? No, don’t answer.” I pause. “Wait. You want to kiss me?”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“There are so many answers to that question,” I mutter, because I can't tell up from down anymore in this conversation.

“He kissed you and walked away?”

“Is there an echo?”

A mischievous glint appears in Logan’s eyes. "How would you like to make the asshole suffer a bit for his choice?”

Chapter 16

Kai

“Any word on the next auric steel shipment? It’s been… Kai!” Kyrian snaps his fingers in front of my face as we walk together into the mess hall and its cacophony of banging utensils and overcooked meat. “Are you listening?”

“Not at all,” I answer honestly. I know I should be listening to Kyrian. He usually says smart things. But right now, I’m too busy not looking around to see whether the alchemist is already here. It’s lunchtime, so she probably is. Plus, in the week since I walked out after kissing her in the workshop, she seems to be… everywhere. Beautiful and alluring, and—more often than not—in Logan’s very close company. The fact that their sudden coziness started the day after that kiss can’t be a coincidence. No, it’s a purposeful show for my benefit. Or enlightenment. Or punishment.

Most likely punishment. For kissing Rowan or for walking away? Or for just having the gall to imagine that maybe there was a universe where she and I could be something more?

As if there was a universe where I could do right by both Rowan and Lilith.

Neither Logan nor Kyrian have confronted me about the kiss—but they obviously know it happened. How did they find out though? Does Rowan confide in one of them now? In both of them? Or had Ulyssus told the other draken, who’d then informed their riders?

It’s insulting you think I’d care enough to bother, Ulyssus chimes into my mind.

I haul my mental shields up in reply. That they’d been down to begin with is another sign of how distracted this mess with Rowan is making me.

“Auric steel shipment,” Kyrian enunciates the words as he thrusts a lunch tray into my hands. “When is the next one?”

“I don’t know yet.” I force my attention back to the conversation. Over the past two years, we’ve successfully disrupted over half the shipments of auric steel coming from Spire East. Sometimes directly, with an ambush on a moonless night when humans couldn’t see for shit; other times, whispered words in shadowy taverns did the trick. Not everyone in Eryndor thinks the war is worth fighting.

Destroying the auric steel shipments one wagon load at a time isn’t the solution, but it helps keep the alloy-coated weapons away from Eryndor’s armies. And more importantly, from the secret facilities where they take the draken they take alive. The ones we’re yet to undercover.

I focus on Kyrian’s question. “I expect the commandant to summon me for one thing or another soon. When I’m in her—” My steps falter, my thoughts derailing spectacularly as I catch sight of the corner table where Rowan and Logan huddle over a spread of books and papers.

No, they aren’t just huddling. Rowan lounges on Logan’s thigh as she writes something on the charcoal slate before them. His face is so close to hers that another inch and he’ll be licking her ear. Is that really necessary? No. Stop. You’ve exactly zero ground to tell Logan to cut it out. Weren’t you the one who’d ordered both males to do whatever is necessary to win the alchemist’s trust? Just because you weren’t strong enough to go through with your own orders, doesn’t mean the others aren’t.

Is that what Logan is doing now? Does he have his wits about him, and is now just building up the human’s trust so she comes with us willinglywhen the time comes? Is all this cozy touching between them a way to divert her attention, so she does not realize what we are really about until it’s too late? Or is there more to this?

I reach out to my draken with the question and get an irritated huff in response.

It’s Logan. How much ahead does he ever think? Ulyssus grunts. Now stop bothering me with frivolous concerns. I’m busy with what little hunting this forsaken kingdom offers.

Ulyssus hauls his shield up, shutting me out with the experience of a five hundred year old draken. I know better than to push.

At their table, Logan says something to Rowan. Whatever it is makes Rowan throw her head back in laughter. The sound doesn’t carry over the general noise of the mess hall, but I can imagine it perfectly—bright and melodious, like wind chimes in a summer breeze.

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