Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Before I leave, I have a shower and I change into some fresh clothes. I put on underwear that fits. I wish I could sleep, because I’m absolutely exhausted, but I know they’ll just send someone to wake me up every time I miss a class.
I go back out the same gate I came in, but before I go out, I take a small charge and detonator combo, and I throw it over into some bushes. It sparks and explodes in a puff of smoke, making a small fire.
Brian is on that fire in an instant. He’s also no longer anywhere near his post. The book Elements of Deception and Disguise by E. A. Bitten wins again. I slip out of the academy.
They liked to tell me I’d never graduate.
I guess they were right.
CHAPTER 7
Kirin
The most beautiful woman in the world kicked me in the balls today.
I’ve spent every minute since I met her trying not to show how attracted I am to her, and now Darcy is apparently our group mate.
Not going to lie, I’d much rather have her to myself. I’m the one closest to her age. She’s about twenty, and I’m twenty-five. That’s the kind of age gap that’s considered wrong sometimes. But Rafe is thirty-three, for god’s sake, and I’m pretty sure Einar is over forty, which is ridiculous. She should be mine, and mine alone.
After she stole our van, we went back and got the bikes. They’re much faster than the van, they let us split traffic, and I really like mine. The feeling of power rumbling between my legs, propelling me down the winding hills is an excellent panacea for a bruised ego.
It’s getting on to midday by the time we get back to the city and regroup. I assume there’s a plan. There’s always a plan.
Our first problem is that we can’t seem to find the van. Then we do.
“Van’s been impounded,” Einar says. He pulls out the tracker unit, which shows the current address of the vehicle. “It’s in the police lockup.”
I see Rafe try and fail to hide his smile. He likes how fucked up this girl is. He likes the fact that she keeps doing things that get her into trouble. But he also didn’t pay for the van. I did. My estate pays for a lot of our toys. All of these bikes came out of my coffers. It wouldn’t do to mention it, but I am not pleased at the prospect of having to replace the vehicle.
Einar looks a lot less amused.
“The van doesn’t matter,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s Darcy we need.”
“She’s probably run back to the academy,” Rafe says.
“Maybe, but I doubt we will get the same jump on her again. She’s not going to be sleeping at night for a while. My guess, she’s curled up somewhere right now, asleep.”
“I’ve got an idea. We go to the academy, and we get a release for her. That’s possible. They have an external recruitment sector, remember? We can just ask them.”
“Ask them to release their only female shifter cadet? One intended for the king’s bed?”
“Someone has to be protecting her. She’s twenty, and she hasn’t been taken to the palace. You know the king’s tastes. Usually, the second it’s legal, he has them in his boudoir.”
“She’s not ready for the palace. She might not be considered acceptable at all,” Rafe says. “Can you imagine her speaking to the king the way she spoke to us?”
“She wouldn’t do that. She’d be respectful,” Einar says.
Rafe and I laugh at that. Even Einar smirks slightly.
We haven’t known Darcy long, but we’ve known her long enough to know that any facade of propriety she might put on for a monarch would be the thinnest of veneers, and she’d show her true nature sooner rather than later. The academy knows that. They’d have to know it.
“You still have pull there,” Rafe says to Einar. “It might be time to try an official application. See if you can’t take her on as an apprentice or similar. You know she’s got to be pissing them off.”
“I left the academy years ago,” Einar reminds him. “They’re not going to hand over a rare shifter female to us just because she’s annoying sometimes. She’s a card they’ll be able to play one day, and they know that.”
We’ve pulled off the main street and have our bikes leaned up in a parking space while we have this discussion. All around us, Eclipse City is performing its usual bustling mass dance. Everybody here is stressed the hell out and on something. Either a stimulant, a sedative, a dissociative, a psychogenic, or all four at the same time.
A delivery bike races past us at full speed, splitting traffic, winding in and out of cars before it hits a curb, spins into a passing vehicle and explodes. I feel the heat of the combustion in my face from hundreds of feet away. Whatever was stacked precariously on the back of that thing needed a dangerous goods tag.