Page 108 of He Who Ignites The Flame
Of three things, I was certain.
Barrett was Thalia’s mate.
Thalia and Barrett—no matter how much they tried to hide it from the world, tried to ignore it—had harbored feelings for one another for centuries.
I would do everything in my power to ensure they had the chance to be together, and I would be more than willing to share if it meant I could give Thalia everything she could ever want.
Some males might have felt jealousy, but there wasn’t a scrap of it festering within me. There was only the sadness and utter adoration I felt for her, knowing she would choose me over her mate, her fated—the one her soul was created for by Celestia.
Thatshehadchosen me.
I loved Barrett dearly, had grown close to him in the centuries since we’d met, and there wasn’t anyone in all the realms I would love more to bring into our relationship than him.
Barrett halted at the edge of The Outpost’s training yard, his skin slick with sweat from the hard run he’d just put the new recruits through. The way they slumped the moment he halted, their heaved breaths rattling their bodies, made it clear they were completely unprepared for how hard the training had been. That, or he had gone particularly hard on them, for he’d been in a foul mood all morning.
Thalia glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes immediately averting before their gazes could meet as she focused all efforts on throwing her own recruit to the ground. I grimaced at the way he hit the dirt. It was a bit harder than she probably needed to, but Barrett hadn’t been the only one in a foul mood. She blinked when it took a moment for the recruit to rise, pain plastered across his features, and she seemed to realize how hard she’d thrown him in her desperation for a distraction.
Gods, could they be more obvious?
I approached them, offering Thalia’s recruit a hand to pull him up. “You’ve gotta stay aware of your opponent’s movements. You didn’t even try to avoid that, let alone counter it.”
“I didn’t expect her to throw me,” he rasped as he rose to his unsteady feet before brushing the dirt from his training gear.
Thalia cleared her throat and crossed her arms. “Do you expect the darklings to go easy on you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said stiffly as he tried to straighten his posture, like a rickety house threatening to collapse. I had to give the male props for toughing it out; I might not have been so quick to get up after being thrown like that.
“You’ve got them terrified of you,” I whispered with a laugh as he slipped away for a much-deserved drink of water.
“Do you expect me to coddle them?” she asked, sighing as she checked her hand wraps.
“No, but they’re new. You could give them a break every so often.”
She gave me a sidelong glance and shook her head before moving to the next recruit. Her steps faltered as Barrett approached, and the dark bags lingering under his eyes left me wondering if he had suffered as little sleep last night as Thalia had.
Before he could get any closer, she turned, brushing past me. “Can you take over this group? I need to see to something.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she was gone before I could get the chance, and Barrett frowned when I turned to him.
“She all right?” he asked, his eyes tracking her hasty retreat, and I shrugged.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I lied, thankful he didn’t harborNousabilities to see through it.
She wasn’t all right, not by a long shot. Guilt twisted my gut as I remembered how I’d remained quiet the night before as she opened the box Lucia had left for her, disguising that I’d awoken. The scent of her emotions had flooded the room with such panicked intensity, it would have awoken me either way. I wasn’t sure what exactly was in the box nor what the note had said, but it had shaken her.
Barrett let out a huff and stalked off to get a drink of water alongside the recruits he’d just drilled into the dirt. Whatever task Damien had dumped in his lap, it was taking a toll on him. I took the chance to slip away, eager to see where Thalia had wandered off to.
