“Do you think because I haven’t indulged in the pleasures of the flesh I don’t understand desire?”

“I don’t want to—” Dropping his hands, Duncan stared, those green eyes both fascinated and appalled. “Ever? No sex, as in seriously ever? No, no, don’t tell me. Talk about weird.”

“Body,” Mallick continued easily, “mind, spirit. There are some who find a mate in all three.”

“I’m not looking for a mate.”

Mallick nodded, sipped more wine. “When you don’t look, you don’t see.”

Enough, Duncan thought as he pushed to his feet. Just enough. “I’m going for a walk.”

Mallick sat where he was as Duncan strode out. The boy would brood, he thought. He’d also check the sentries, the security levels, do a spot check on the newer recruits.

The boy was a born soldier, a born leader, though he still had much to learn.

He would walk off his frustration and his brood, just as he would, eventually, meld his considerable courage with a faith he didn’t yet trust. He’d make his way to where he needed to be.

The world depended on it.

CHAPTER THREE

Fallon spent time with her maps, studied images in her crystal—and slipped into it to gather more intel. Out of habit, she trained before her family rose, in the dark before dawn, conjuring ghosts to battle.

She helped mix balms, potions, tonics because they were needed and the skill in creating them needed regular honing, like a good tool. She went on hunting parties, scouting parties, scavenged, as those skills required practice as well.

She’d learned from her parents that she couldn’t lead a community without being part of it. From Mallick she’d learned that training, studying, looking could never cease.

As she walked to the barracks, the air sang with the ring of steel against steel, the thump, thump of the dummy bullets (real ammo remained too precious for training), the whiz of arrows in flight.

She watched soldiers and potential soldiers fight their mock battles, with Colin shouting orders and insults with equal fervor.

“Fuck it, Riaz, you’re dead. Get the damn rocks out of your boots and move your feet! Get off your ass, Petrie. Catch your breath?” She heard him layer in so much incredulity, she snickered as he grabbed Petrie’s sword and used the enchanted blade to mock-slit Petrie’s throat. “Try breathing without a windpipe. Now give me fifty.”

Petrie, easily twice her brother’s age, rolled over. He may have snarled—silently—but he started counting off the push-ups.

The brand on Petrie’s wrist gleamed with sweat. He’d train, she thought, and would take orders from a teenager because he knew what it was to be a slave of the Purity Warriors.

The cult formed by the fanatical Jeremiah White branded magickals on the forehead with a pentagram. Then tortured and executed them. People like Petrie, the non-magickals, they marked as slaves, used as they chose—in the name of their merciless god.

So Petrie would train, he’d do the fifty, pick up his training sword, and fight back.

Some wouldn’t. Some freed from slavery or oncoming death wouldn’t pick up a sword or bow. That, she thought, was their choice. There were other ways to fight back. Planting, building, tending stock, teaching, sewing, weaving, cooking, treating the sick or injured, tending to children.

Many ways to fight.

Petrie had chosen the sword, and as he sweated out those fifty—arms quivering on the last five—she saw the potential soldier.

He’d train, she thought again, then she glanced over at the shouts.

Travis whipped another squad out of the woods, across the field, and through the last, brutal section of the obstacle course. A girl held the lead—maybe sixteen, Fallon judged, pale, pale white skin flushed now with effort. Delicate features, and a fierce determination in exotic eyes as she high-stepped through the old tires. She had a red streak—like a slash of defiance—in her hair while the long black tail of it bounced as she leaped onto the rope wall.

Climbed it like a lizard up a rock, Fallon noted with approval. Sweat soaked her shirt, ran down her face, but she swung over the ropes, charged up a narrow ramp to vault onto the next wall. She found her handholds, flipped over and down, then bolted over the finish.

A spotter called out her time. Twenty-three minutes, forty-one seconds.

Impressed, Fallon walked over, offered a canteen as a couple others hit the final wall.

“Thanks.”

“Marichu, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a damn good time.”

Marichu swiped away sweat. “You still hold the record at twenty-one twelve. I’ll beat it.”

“You think?”

“I’ll beat it.” She handed back the canteen. “I want to go on the next mission.”

“How long have you been here? About three weeks?”

“Five. I’m ready.”

“That’s up to your instructors, and you have three more weeks to meet the minimal eight.”

“I’m ready,” Marichu repeated and walked away to stretch.

Fallon waited for Travis, waited until he’d seen the last man over the course, ordered his squad to hit the showers before the next round—tactics, the classroom session their father taught today.

“Marichu,” she said.

Travis nodded, guzzled water. Lanky, his hair sun-streaked, and lately sporting a trio of thin braids on the left side, he glanced toward Marichu as she headed for the barracks with the others.

“Strong, smart, and freaking fast. Damn near elf fast. Well, a slow elf.”

“But she’s not an elf, right? Faerie.”

“Yeah. She’s the one who escaped the PWs before they got her to one of their compounds—but not before they’d raped her, knocked her around, and busted one of her wings beyond repair.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“She was in pretty bad shape when we stumbled on her—heading here, she said. That was me, Flynn, Eddie, and Starr. Fever from infection, half-starved, still hurting bad. Still, she had a stick she’d sharpened like a spear, and would’ve jabbed the shit out of us if she could before we convinced her we were the good guys.”

“I wasn’t here when you brought her in. The healers tried to fix her wing. Mom tried.”

“Couldn’t. Too much damage, too much time between the break and when we got her back. Rough for her, but I gotta say, she’s compensated. She’s good with the bow—not great, but she could be. Sloppy with a sword yet, but … She’s got speed, endurance, agility—nobody in her group comes close.”

“Thoughts, feelings?”

He blew out a breath. He’d been raised not to poke into people’s private thoughts—not that he hadn’t done so now and then. Now, since Petra had infiltrated and attacked, it was part of his job.

“She’s good at blocking out the poke, I gotta say. But I get she’s pissed, more determined, but pissed, too. She wants to fight. She likes learning to ride, wants to learn to drive. It’s normal stuff, Fallon. No underbelly there, I can feel. Oh, and she’s figured out Colin’s got a thing for her.”

“What?”

“He keeps it to himself, because she’s kind of young, and a recruit. But he’s got a little thing there. I didn’t poke in—I could see it. Anyway.”

“Anyway,” she echoed for lack of anything else. “How many are ready for a mission?”

“You should ask Dad.”

“I will. And Poe and Tonia and Colin and all of the instructors. Now I’m asking you.”

He hooked his thumbs in his front pockets as he chewed it over, bite by bite. The fact he’d think carefully was the very reason she’d asked him first.

“Four, maybe five. Anson, Jingle, Quint, Lorimar—and maybe Yip. NM”—non-magickal—“elf, witch, NM, and shifter. In that order.”

“Okay, thanks. See you later.”

She moved over to where Tonia’s archery group rotated out.

Duncan’s twin—and it was impossible to look at her and not see him even though Tonia’s features were more delicate, her eyes a summer blue instead of a forest green. The humidity had her hair curling wildly as if it fought to free itself from the restricting band.

She nocked an arrow, let it fly. And hit the straw-man target heart center.

“How’s it going?”

Tonia nocked another arrow. “Not too bad. I’ve got one or two in the batch I just finished with who probably won’t shoot an arrow or bolt into their own foot.”

“Do you work with Marichu?”

“Sure. She’s got potential, and I’m thinking of switching her to a crossbow. She’s got the strength, and I think she’d work better with a crossbow than a compound. She tends to drop her left shoulder—and that’s probably from the damaged left wing. We’re working on it.”

She shot a third arrow. The second had pierced the straw head between the eyes. The third went straight through the groin.

“No straw babies for you,” Tonia said, and smiled. “Music in the gardens tonight. How about we hang?” Before Fallon could answer, Tonia laid a hand on her arm. “We reclaimed it, Fallon. We won’t let Petra or her bitch of a mother take it from us. You said it yourself.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Petra, she thought, her cousin, daughter of her birth father’s brother—and murderer. Blood of her blood.

She pushed it back. “I did,” she repeated. “We won’t.”

“But you hardly ever come. Plus, there’s a guy I’m looking over. You could give me your take.”

Fallon envied how naturally, easily Tonia could “look over” a guy. And if the looking over part hit the mark, move to the next step.

“What guy?”

“Anson, recruit, worked his way up here from Tennessee. Totally cute accent, killer abs, and so far not an asshole.”