Whirl (Ondine Quartet Book 1) (18 page)

"Yes."

Of course, I had no intention of heeding that
warning. Ryder had already promised I could practice with him in
secret. He probably just wanted to spend more time with me alone,
but I wasn't going to pass up that opportunity. And what Gabe
didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.

He nodded, looking somewhat satisfied. At
least his vein stopped throbbing.

Amused suspicion colored Tristan's eyes as if
he didn't quite believe me. He seemed to find that funny.

I chose to ignore him.

Without a word, he turned and followed
Gabriel back to the center of the mat.

I settled back on the bench and couldn't help
giving a smug smile to the recruits. Cam rolled his eyes, but Ryder
and Alex both grinned.

"Today Prince Belicoux and his men will go
over the basics of staking," Gabriel announced. An excited murmur
spread through the class. This was what they trained for, what
fighting Aquidae was all about.

Tristan walked to the front. All eyes
followed, filled with admiration and respect. He stood before the
class, calm command emanating off him.

I felt a slight thrill go through me.

"How can an Aquidae be killed?"

"By destroying the Origin scar, either
through staking or decapitation," Ryder said. "Staking is the
easier of the two."

"Why is decapitation harder?"

"Because when the head is separated from the
body, the Origin must be severed in half. If the scar is left
intact, either on the head or on the torso, the Aquidae can
regenerate."

"And the weapon used for staking?"

"The
kouperet
, a silver blade infused
with Essence," Alex answered.

Tristan nodded. "And if there is no
Essence?"

"Anything silver can hurt an Aquidae. But it
won't kill them," Cam spoke up. "Unless it has Essence, it won't do
any lasting damage."

"Good." Tristan paced in front of the class.
"Let's break it down further. How effective is a
kouperet
?"

"An Aquidae would be in a lot of pain
wherever you manage to cut them with it." Cam tilted his head. "You
can use the
kouperet
to slow them down so you can get close
enough to stake them."

"Yes." Tristan stopped, his face solemn. "The
Origin is the only vulnerable spot on an Aquidae. It's small, no
larger than a few millimeters, and located here," he pointed to his
own neck, "on the carotid artery. Combined with the speed and
strength of their movements, the difficulty lies in being precise
enough to get the blade through it.

"Imagine trying to hit a bull's eye that's
only a few millimeters wide and moving at high speed." His face was
grave as he looked at the young recruits in the room. "An Aquidae
may even wear clothing that covers its Origin, which means you need
to have a secure enough understanding of anatomy to still stake it
accurately. Unless you get your blade through that bull's eye, you
have not succeeded in the kill. You may have injured it, but it
will not die."

His statement silenced the room. This was the
thing that made Aquidae so dangerous. It was difficult to locate
the tiny Origin scar on a person's neck. Often times, Aquidae were
unidentified until they moved to attack.

And by then, it was usually too late.

Gabriel spoke up. "Prince Belicoux and the
other gardinels will work with you on practicing offensive
maneuvers that allow you to get close to the Origin."

The class divided into four small groups,
each one working with a gardinel. Although the recruits were
demillirs with heightened speed and strength, they paled in
comparison to the superhuman selkies.

The gardinels were fast and quiet, with no
hesitation in their movements. It was almost as if they could see
what was coming before it happened. None of the class was having
any luck against them.

My eyes immediately went to Tristan and his
group. The faces of the recruits shined, thrilled to be working
with the best. The very qualities that made Tristan a strong leader
also made him an excellent instructor. Patient and understanding,
he noticed every detail, honing their movements with precise
explanations. He taught with the same serious diligence and
consideration he'd used when answering my questions at the
cove.

"So, what'd you think?" Ryder and I walked
down the hallway after class. He gave me an eager glance and I
realized that he wasn't asking about the class. He hoped I'd been
watching him. I felt a twinge of guilt. My eyes had been following
a certain dark-haired prince the entire time.

I noticed how nice Ryder's eyes were.
Friendly and open, and always with that tint of admiration towards
me. He made me feel good.

"Not bad, Ry. But I still don't think you're
ready to take me on."

He laughed. "You're unbelievable." He stopped
at the doorway to the locker room and gave me a cryptic look. "But
I have something planned for tonight that just might change your
mind about me."

That piqued my curiosity. "What?"

"You'll see," he said with a broad smile.
"Meet me by the oak trees behind the demillir dorms at eleven."

***

Later that night, I slipped past the sleepy lobby guard and met up
with Ryder. He still wouldn't tell me what was going on, but
motioned for me to follow.

The full moon provided more than enough
illumination as we wound our way deeper into the woods. As we crept
through the lush greenery, the scent of the ocean grew stronger.
Ryder's feet moved silently over the ground, and I trailed behind
him as quietly as possible.

Other than the soft murmurs of the ocean and
the occasional hoot of an owl, the night was still. The trees
gradually thinned out, revealing a faint glow beyond the edge of
the woods.

We arrived at a beach that stretched along
the coast. The southern side ended at a huge wall of rocks that I
recognized as one of the borders around the cove below Nexa's
cottage. The glow came from a bonfire, halfway between the tree
line and the ocean. The fire flickered, casting a faint light upon
the faces of Chloe, Aubrey, Alex, and Cam.

"Thought we should have a little celebration,
considering you're the first ondine in history that managed to talk
her way into a chevalier class." Ryder shook his head in disbelief.
"I still have no idea how you do the things you do." His face
glowed with admiration.

A lump suddenly formed in my throat and it
took me a few seconds to speak. No one had ever celebrated anything
I did.

I pulled myself together and put a hand on
his arm. "That's because you have yet to understand the full extent
of my charms."

He laughed and led me over to the fire.

"A toast," Cam said as we approached. He
raised his drink in mock salute. "To the great
sondaleur
."

"Quit calling me that, Cam, or I'll have to
knock some sense into you."

"You can try," he said pointedly. "But I
think it'll take more than one visit to our class for you to have
those kinds of skills."

I flipped him off and he snickered. I swear
the guy got off on provoking me.

Everybody scooted over to make room for the
both of us. Ryder unfolded an extra blanket and we huddled
underneath. The fire provided a pleasant warmth, but the evening
was still a bit chilly.

Alex handed me a drink in a red plastic cup.
I immediately took a gulp without thinking and almost choked. The
alcohol tasted like gasoline and went down my throat in a fiery
blaze.

My eyes watered. Cam laughed harder. Chloe
slapped his arm.

"What is this?" I gasped out.

"I grabbed some whiskey out of my dad's
liquor cabinet when I went over there for dinner the other night."
Alex was sprawled on the sand, wearing a grey t-shirt that said,
"Meh," in block letters. "It gets better the more you drink
it."

"I still can't believe she did that," Aubrey
said, continuing the conversation that'd been going on before we
arrived.

"Who?" I took another cautious sip and forced
myself not to wince.

"Aislynn Katsley," Chloe replied, her eyes
worried.

I dimly recalled seeing her around school—a
tiny, petite blonde who looked frightened of me half the time.

"What about her?"

Aubrey shot me a surprised look. "You haven't
heard? She went Rogue. Ran off last night with the gardinel
assigned to her mother. They'd been together secretly for
awhile."

Everyone shifted uncomfortably and I suddenly
noticed my chest hurt.

"Don't they know what's going to happen?"
Chloe shuddered.

No one said anything. We all knew the
consequences. Once ondines came of age they had until the age of
twenty-three to bind themselves to a mate of human blood. The
mating process would infuse the ondine with enough human essence to
complete the transformation to a mortal.

Although selkies could shape-shift to human
form, they didn't have human blood. An ancient race far older than
the ondines, it was said that selkie blood was made of pure
magic.

Mating with a selkie wouldn't finish the
conversion process an ondine needed to become mortal. Which meant
that when poor Aislynn turned twenty-three, her full ancestral
traits would kick in and she'd be forced to return to the ocean as
a dessondine. Frozen for eternity as an immortal underwater
creature, she would never be able to return to land.

"I can't imagine what she was thinking."
Aubrey shook her head. "Of all the human choices in the world, why
would you pick to be with the one person that would cost you your
mortality?"

Her words haunted me and an image of silken
hair, golden skin, and deep, dark eyes suddenly flashed through my
mind.

No. I shoved the thought down into the
deepest recesses of myself.

Aislynn's story was a sobering reminder of my
reality. I did
not
need any more complications in my
life.

After a few more minutes of speculation about
Aislynn, everyone moved on to other topics and I tried to throw
myself into the spirit of the party. I could at least convince the
others I was having fun, even if my heart wasn't into it.

At one point, Ryder began to hold my hand
under the blanket. I looked at him in surprise.

He hesitated, unsure of my reaction.

Emotions were only useful for achieving a
specific purpose. It was the reason why mom had taught me to
control my Virtue. By turning it on and off, Empath became another
tool, a means of discerning necessary information.

Allowing genuine emotional attachments was
something I was never supposed to do. It created extra, unnecessary
difficulties.

Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I was just tired.
But I suddenly found myself smiling at Ryder and squeezing his hand
back. Relief lit up his grey eyes.

Cam and Chloe sat close together, engrossed
in their conversation. There was something going on there. It was
obvious from the way they looked at each other. Aubrey and Alex
bent over her iPad, laughing at a video she found online.

Aislynn's story, combined with seeing the
four of them gathered intimately around the fire, triggered
something in me. Even as I held Ryder's comforting hand, I felt
angry. Frustrated. Suffocated. Like I was witnessing a scene as an
observer, and not as a real participant.

The fire slowly dimmed. I desperately wanted
to hit something.

"I'm going to get more kindling." I stood,
brushing sand off my pant leg. Gathering wood would give me time
alone to clear my head.

"I'll come with you." Ryder shifted to
stand.

"No." My voice came out harder than I
expected. "I can get sticks by myself, Ry."

"Yeah, I know. Just thought we could spend
some time alone." He gave me a cute, flirtatious look.

It's not his fault. You're the one who's
such a bitch.

I forced myself to smile. It felt brittle.
"It'll only take a few minutes."

Instead of heading back the way we came, I
explored the woods further north. As I made my way deeper inland,
the murmured conversations from the beach faded, leaving only the
occasional rustle of branches and the distant echo of waves. The
lush, earthy smells of spring filled the night air.

I stomped through the bumpy undergrowth,
stopping to pick up several dry sticks and branches that littered
the ground. What the hell was wrong with me? I was suddenly
needing
things — things I'd never even thought about before
coming here.

Ryder was offering me a chance to be normal.
To date someone who was sweet and funny and crazy about me.

And for some reason, Chloe and Aubrey seemed
to give a crap. They'd stuck up for me, supported my schemes. I'd
gotten back at Dylan because I instinctively didn't like the
thought of that asshole hurting Chloe. They were offering me a kind
of friendship I'd never had. But that was the beginning of a
slippery slope that would leave me vulnerable and at a
disadvantage.

I couldn't decide if I was angry because I
wanted what they offered or because I didn't.

A dim light shone through the tall, shadowed
trees several feet ahead. I was surprised that there were lights
this far along the campus perimeter. The trees abruptly ended at a
small, open clearing. It looked like a mini-park, with a few wooden
benches scattered around. A lamp post provided soft illumination
over the area.

"Sweet iris, we meet again." God, men
everywhere.

"What are you doing out here?"

Julian LeVeq lounged on a bench directly
beneath the lamp, reading a battered paperback of
The Complete
Poetry of Arthur Rimbaud
. The light cast blue-white shadows
across his handsome face.

He smiled lazily and sat up, taking me in
with his icy eyes.

"I like the feel of the moonlight," he
drawled. "There's nothing quite like reading poetry outside, away
from the stuffiness of Haverleau society."