Page 31 of Power of Draken

“I never turn down an invitation to watch a beautiful woman change.”

“That wasn’t an invitation!”

“It sounded like an invitation.” Logan is now strolling ahead of me down the corridor of my own dormitory building. His sweaty shirt clings to his arms and shoulders, leaving nothing to the imagination when it comes to his muscles. “I’ve experience in such things.”

Several heads turn toward us, following our progress. Great. As if there aren’t enough rumors going around about me already. “Can you at least keep your voice down?”

“Why?” He opens the door to my room before I can and stands aside, gallantly letting me go in first. I’d strangle the man if I could. Since I can’t, I do damage control by moving the conversation into my room as quickly as possible. No, not a conversation. We aren’t having a conversation.

I grab a dry uniform from my drawer. “Please tell me you aren’t really going to watch me change.”

Logan closes his eyes, but leans his back against the wall, clearly not moving.

“Why do you care?” I ask, shimming out of my shirt. Over the last week of training, Logan has seen me puke, get dizzy mid motion and flop to thesand like a dying fish, and fight back in tears from sheer frustration. If he wants to stay in the room while I change, I don’t care all that much. There isn’t much further down for his opinion of my body to go.

He shrugs but keeps his eyes shut. “Because I do.”

“Again, why?”

He shifts his weight and for a second I think he actually looks uncomfortable. “Maybe because I think we are friends.”

I stop with my pants halfway down my thighs. “We are literally each other’s punishment, Logan. You try and teach me to stay alive and I—well, theoretically, I’m helping you not fail academics, but you won’t come to a single study session.” I quickly finish changing my pants, Logan being two paces away and all. I sigh. “Look, up until two days ago, you still flinched away from the scars on my face. We know nothing about each other. So no, I don’t think we qualify as friends by anyone’s definition. You can open your eyes by the way.”

He does, but he stays at his post by the wall and says nothing for several moments. The way his head cocks to the side reminds me of a dog in thought. “What do you want to know?” he says finally, as if he’s come to some decision. “About me, I mean.”

“Really?” My eyes narrow. “I can ask anything and you answer?”

Logan raises his chin in challenge. “Go ahead.”

I cross my arms. “Fine. Why didn’t you show up to work on the history paper?”

“Didn’t need to. It’s done.”

I shake my head and sit on the edge of my bed to pull on my boots. “Right. I failed to specify that the answers had to be truthful. You got me. I concede.”

“The paper is done because Alyssa wrote it for me,” Logan says calmly. “I believe you were there when I offered my gratitude.”

“Oh.” I open my mouth to say something else, but close it without anything intelligent coming out. I’d fully presumed that Logan was taking his pleasure that day. I don’t know what to make of the knowledge that it was the opposite.

"I've not been with her since, if you care to know,” he adds.

"None of my business if you were. Maybe you can find someone to watch next time. I hear she likes that."

He grins that smile of his, but it doesn't fully reach his eyes. “My turn,” says Logan. “Why don’t you go by Ainsley?”

I’m about to point out that I never agreed to a quid-pro-quo arrangement, but find myself telling him the truth. “I’m an embarrassment to the Ainsley name.”

Logan’s head jerks up. “According to who?”

“My mother, the queen, and everyone who’s watched me trip over my own feet for the past few years,” I answer with the same unwavering cadence he’d used when speaking about Alyssa. Logan’s jaw hardens with my answer, but I don’t give him the room to press. “Where do you go when you cut class?”

“The woods. Far enough to not hear all the people.”

My brows climb in surprise. Logan is always in the center of attention, usually with a girl or two sitting in his lap. If I had to peg someone in the triad for a loner, I’d have picked Grayson.

“What happened between you and Grayson yesterday?” Logan asks, as if picking up the direction of my thoughts.

I reach for a hair brush to wrangle my hair into some sort of order, buying myself a few seconds to think in the process. I am not sure what makes me finally teeter toward truth, whether it’s Logan’s attentive ear or my bursting need to tell someone—but I decide to just go for it. “He kissed me. And then left.”

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