Chapter 55

Chapter 55

I shrug a little, letting him see through my summer camp lic. He just laughs, shaking his head as we

draw close to our targets.

“Bullshit, if you ask me,” the tall blonde says, sighing as he gathers his arrows off the floor and I pull

mine from the target’s body. “We’re forced to embarrass ourselves on the first day just because we

haven’t trained in an antiquated form of weaponry? I mean honestly, who even uses archery anymore

on the battlefield?”

“I don’t know,” I say, popping my arrows into my quiver as we turn around and start back. “I see the

logic in being able to handle all weapons.”

The blonde shrugs, conceding the point but clearly expressing that he’s still not happy with it. “I’m

David, by the way,” he murmurs.

“And I’m Hai,” the other says, nodding to both of us.

I smile at them, but we’re all lost in our thoughts about how to improve as we make our way back to the

line.

“Again,” says the Captain, nodding. We all get into our stances and raise arrows to bowstrings, ready to

fire.

The Captain has us going for hours, until my arms ache from drawing my bow. As we fire round after

round, he works with each of us, giving more basic pointers to the other two and working with me to

refine my shot. By the end, I hit the bullseye with consistency, and I can’t keep the smile from my face.

At the end of our four–hour class, the Captain tells us to return our bows, his face blank. We do as he

says as he gives us instructions for how and when to practice, letting us know that this gym will be

available to us twenty–four hours a day and suggesting that we make use of it. My smile deepens at

the prospect – I like marksmanship, always have. The idea of having this be my homework, when I get

sick of Chemistry?

God, does that sound like a relief.

As we finish hanging our bows the Captain tells us we’re dismissed and we troop for the

Chapter 55

door, me going last as I stack my arrows neatly in the quiver, probably being more picky than I need to

be.

As I turn towards the door, I’m surprised to hear the Captain’s voice call to me lightly.

“I’ve got quite literal money on you this year, Clark,” he says, leaning against the wall and giving me a

little smirk. “Don’t make me regret it. I don’t like to lose.”

“Really?” I ask, turning to him with wide eyes.

“Surprised?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“By the fact that you’ve bet on me, or by the fact that the professors actively gamble on the success of

their students?” The words fall from my lips before I have time to consider them, but to my relief the

Captain just laughs, pleased.

“Not with the other professors,” he says quietly. “With some old friends who have a stake in the

Academy itself. Though I do admit,” he says, cocking his head a little, “I was surprised when your Uncle

Roger didn’t take the opportunity to bet on his own nephew. Didn’t comment at all when he saw your

name on the list of Marksman cadets.”

I do my very best to keep all emotion off my face as the Captain studies me, and I wonder again how

much he knows.

The result is that I awkwardly stand stock still in front of him, saying nothing for far too long. The

Captain just grins, shaking his head and laughing as he lifts his chin towards the door. “Get out of here,

Cadet. Good work today – keep it up. Don’t embarrass me.”

I nod, eager, and head out.

Because even if the Captain knows my secret, or is starting to suspect? He’s clearly not pushing me to

reveal anything.

I hurry out of the classroom and down the hall. I have an empty afternoon next, so that I can study for

our Chemistry class tomorrow, and I’m on strict orders to head directly back to the rooms with no pit

stops. Rafe, predictably, flipped out about the idea that I’d be walking through the castle by myself, but

even Jesse had taken my side and told him he was going a bit overboard with the protective stuff.

I’m a cadet, after all. If I can’t even survive walking from the classroom to the dorm, what chance do I

have on the battlefield?

I consider that, a little, as I head for the brass elevator at the end of the hall, climbing in and pressing

the button for the dormitory floor. Because today, in Marksmanship, I considered for the first time –

perhaps naively that we really are being trained for combat.

–

I don’t know why I hadn’t really thought about it before – perhaps I’m just naïve but…I don’t know.

Something about running obstacle courses and getting class schedules and learning the chemical

makeup of poisons had made it seem…theoretical. Part of a game, and a class, rather than preparation

for the real world.

But today, shooting real weapons?

I don’t know – something about it made me really realize that…I’m being trained as a weapon myself.

And that I’m going to be asked to kill people.

Especially if I become a sniper, as the school clearly hopes I will be. Am I prepared for this? For the

reality of looking down a scope at a human being, and pulling the trigger?

A shiver runs through me as I consider it, and honestly I don’t know what the answer is to that question.

I gnaw on my lower lip, troubled by it, as I cross the hall and head up the winding stairs to our top floor,

still completely distracted as I work the key in our door and push into our room.

The only thing that breaks me out of my reverie is the…silence.

–

I look up and around the room suddenly, and realize that actually for the first time in weeks I am…

completely alone. Like completely alone not just in absence of my brother and my cousin, but by

myself.

And a grin takes my face, even despite my troubled thoughts.

I push the door shut and lean back against it, heaving a long sigh. I’ll talk to Rafe later, I decide, about

my bigger questions of what it means to be part of a military organization at

war.

Because right now, for a few minutes? I am going to just be alone.

+5

I immediately indulge, whipping my hat from my head and then stripping my shirt off, dropping it onto

the floor before working at the clasp of my pants, stepping out of them as I walk towards the couch in

my stupid boys underwear and the chest–flattening sports bra Daphne made me, my hands already

unbraiding my hair so that I can run my fingers luxuriously against my scalp.

I sigh, collapsing onto the couch, my mind flashing – just a second hands felt in my hair, however

briefly they touched it. But then I scowl at myself, and sigh, – to the way that Luca’s and will my mind to

turn elsewhere, desperate to think of something else.

Because Luca – he’s being so weird. I mean, at least he didn’t blow my secret at breakfast, but what

the hell is he doing, pretending it never happened?

I mean, is it possible? That he…actually forgets? We forget dreams all the time, but the dream state…

it’s different, right? I, for one, remember everything.

But it was my dream – Alphas, they’re just the guest stars. Could he really have forgotten…

– –

I groan, and shake my head, realizing that I’ll never know.

But that tonight, it’s my turn to corner him and make demands of my own. I absolutely need to know

what he knows, and what he’s got planned if, indeed, he has figured out the secret that I’m a girl.

And not just a girl – the nation’s Princess, and his mate.