Page 33 of Enchanted Shadows
As Zara and Jessina joined in, I ran a hand down my face. This training group was different, there was no doubt about that. I had to ask the obvious. “What are you doing?”
“Dancing!” Molly provided. “We survived the first double run.”
“And sometimes you just have to dance it out,” Vivian agreed.
At this point they were all just dancing around. Every last one of them. Some were gracefully swaying. Vivian was arching her back and popping her butt out, making the others giggle and try the move.
“Want to join in?” Fern asked, her moves reminding me of a tree swaying in the breeze.
I shook my head. “I don’t dance.”
“Yes, you do,” Wren argued. And when she saw me cross my arms, she put her hands in the air. “Right, right. You aren’t my brother right now, who can, in fact, dance. You are the big, bad General Raikes.”
My sister was funny. Always had been. I couldn’t help my lips from twitching. “And don’t you forget it.” I turned, sweat dripping and ready for a shower. “Head in whenever you’re done dancing. Be sure to eat enough protein at lunch. Otherwise, you will not make it through River’s class awake.”
In my first training class, Krew and I had sparred to blow off steam. Occasionally beating the hell out of each other. Here the women were, tired and out of breath, dancing it out. These women were annoying most days, but I found them endearing too.
Later that evening, I was just falling asleep in my cabin when there was a knock at the door.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
I opened it to find Miles. Miles, who I had just had an hour meeting with. Our weekly meeting about the upcoming events and all that would happen.
“Yeah?”
“It’s your training group.”
“What about them?” I asked as I reached for a shirt. If another Dixon Hill showed up, I had no issues handling that again.
“They snuck out.”
I stilled.“They what?”
“They snuck out. To a party in Savaryn.”
I ran a hand down my face. These women were going to be the death of me. “How?”
“Apparently your sister has a friend on Team Two. The girls snuck out while they knew you and I would be in a meeting.”
That was actually some good strategizing if I wasn’t pissed off enough to consider it. “Why couldn’t they just sneak in booze like the rest of us?”
“At least they’re resourceful?” Miles asked. “I’ve got Alvarez waiting at the wall for you. He said he didn’t know they would go over the wall and sneak out; he’d just been asked what time they swapped out, who kept watch at the wall.”
Again, not a bad strategy if they weren’t actively breaking rules with this little stunt.
“I suspect he was just trying to impress your sister by being on Team Two.” And then he had to go and add in explanation, “Because she is rather attractive.”
“Stop. Talking.”
“Right. Sorry.”
I let out a curse. “Let’s go find my team.”
CHAPTER 12
Apparently, I had been going too soft on them if they thought I would let sneaking out like this fly. They knew they weren’t supposed to leave for the full ninety days. Did they really think I was fool enough not to notice? They just thought they’d get away with it? Or did they not fear the ramifications of it? Maybe I was the fool for assuming they were smarter than this.
I supposed I could be impressed with their plottingandbe pissed at them. Efficient in my emotions.
