Page 49 of Creatures of War
It almost felt like I was choking.
A door clicked open, and I whirled around, ready to charge for the front door and make a break for it. Except it was our bathroom door that opened, Aylia standing in the doorway.
“Oh, you’re here.” She came over. “Are you okay? Did the king hurt you?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She frowned. “All students are to be in their rooms. As soon as the attack happened, they started sending us all back to our dorms.” Aylia came over and stood with me, staring out the window. Something about her was off. She was quiet and a little too calm.
“We need to get out of here,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because…” I waved my hand out the window at the chaos. I didn’t realize I needed to explain the situation to her.
“But they want us to stay here. And it’s safe here.”
I snorted. “For me, but what about my guys? I need to get to them.” And I didn’t want to stay here and twiddle my thumbs waiting for the king to come back for me.
Aylia made a small, dismissive sound as she walked over to her bed and sat down. She casually grabbed the textbook she had on the bed and began slowly flipping through it.
“Aylia!”
She looked over at me.
“Why are you acting like this? Like you wouldn’t mind knitting right now even though the Fae are right outside our window.” As if to prove my point, our room shook briefly.
“What can we do?” she asked. “We have to stay in our rooms. I don’t have a dragon, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to even fight back. We’d just get ourselves killed. So let’s just stay here and let what happens happen.”
“What happens happen…” I repeated her words slowly.
It sounded so weirdly worded like that. I stared at Aylia, taking in the hardness that seemed to have taken her over. She was no longer the cute, soft-looking friend that I knew.
“Are you part of it?” I asked.
“What?” That seemed to get her attention. Good. Something had to.
“Are you working with the king? Spying for him?”
She blinked, and then she broke out laughing. “Never. He’s the biggest creep to ever exist. I’d never want to help him.”
“That’s bullshit. It makes sense. You feed him information about me, give him all my weaknesses. That has to be why he knows all the right buttons to push, why he’s able to control me.”
“Rayna.” Aylia was in front of me, grabbing my arms. “Take a deep breath. I promise, I’m not helping the king. I’d never help him.”
I yanked out of her grip, not wanting her to touch me. It felt wrong. There were only three touches I wanted right then, and none of my guys were nearby to give me the comfort I wanted from them. I couldn’t even feel them like I was beginning to all over again. The king must have revamped the block the academy had locked over our bond.
I wanted to scream, feeling too alone and separated.
“Rayna, calm down.” Aylia tried to approach me. I jumped away from her, needing distance.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped.
She froze, her hands dropping to her sides, her face twisting in pain. “Rayna, I know things are confusing. I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through with your mates and the king. But I can say this. We are safe here. No one is going to hurt us.” She tried to give me a smile, but it was a bit weak. “I won’t let them. I’m here with you, okay.”
I nodded jerkily, my heart rate finally calming down, my thoughts slowing from their dangerous whirlwind.
As my inner self calmed though, chaos erupted all around me. There was a loud boom, but it didn’t stop with just the wall shaking. Instead, all around us, debris flew, slamming into me. I grunted as pain erupted over my back.