Love.
She was feeling love.
“You came,” she said.
“I promised I would.” I settled back in my seat. “So, what are we playing today?”
Palin tapped the board game on the table with a talon. “It’s a deck builder game. You have to gather points and trade with each other.”
Clayna put her book down. “We haven’t played this for a long time.”
And we hadn’t played the dungeon game since Fredrin died. It had been their go-to game, his favorite, and neither child could bring themselves to play without him.
I rubbed my hands together. “Well, let’s get stuck in.”
I reached for the board as a shadow fell over me.
“Master Luena.” Palin looked up in surprise.
The younger children’s housemaster and the war games coordinator for the older cadets, Luena was a hard-ass who didn’t like me. How did I know? I’d felt it.
“Back again, Dominus?” she said.
I looked up with a polite smile. “Luena, how nice to see you again.”
“The hours you spend here make me feel like we should employ you.”
It was a dig that I chose to ignore. “No need. I’m happy to entertain the children for free.”
“They are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves.”
She picked up the board game and replaced it with another. “You’ll play this today. The young ones wish to play the card game.”
Clayna sucked in a sharp breath, and Palin’s eyes grew sad. I stared at the lid to the dungeon game.
“Or maybe we can find something else?” I pushed back my seat and stood.
“No.” Luena faced off with me. “This is the game they will play today.”
Maybe she didn’t know what this game meant to them? Maybe she didn’t realize how this was upsetting them?
“Can I have a word?” I jerked my head toward the exit to indicate she follow and made to walk away.
“We can speak here,” Luena said.
I looked down at the children then back at the master’s stern face. Fuck it. “This was their favorite game to play with Fredrin.”
“I know,” she replied. “It’s an excellent game.”
“But I’m sure you can appreciate how it might be hard for them to play it now he’s … gone.”
“Which is all the more reason they should play.” She clicked her fingers at a nearby table, and a slightly older child pushed back his chair and joined us. “Barker will join you in the game. He will replace Fredrin.”
Clayna made a small sound, part distress, part pain.
Anger flared in my chest. “You can’t just replace someone.”
She stared levelly at me. “Yes. Yes, we can. It’s what we must do on the battlefield. If a comrade falls, we reinforce our ranks, and we fight on.”
“They’re not on the battlefield. They’re children.”
“They are potential reapers. Soldiers in training. They are not human children.” She took a breath through her nose and released it slowly, and it hit me. She was pissed off, like mega pissed off, but she was controlling it. “We’re training an army here, Dominus. Please allow us to do our job.” She indicated the doorway. “I’m sure you have other duties to attend to.”
Was she telling me to get out? Shit, she was totally telling me to get out.
I looked down at Clayna, who was staring up at me with tears in her eyes. Palin shook his head slightly, his gaze darting from Luena to me. They were children. Orphaned children. Had it even been their choice to become soldiers?
This was wrong. I stood taller. “I’m not going anywhere. These children just lost a friend. What they need right now is understanding and compassion and—”
“Dominus Dawn.”
My head snapped around to find Conah striding toward us. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you. A word, please.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond, but instead gripped my arm and practically hauled me from the room. Shock stalled my tongue for a moment, but as he tugged me around the corner and down the corridor, I finally found my words.
“What the fuck, Conah?”
“Not here.” His grip on me didn’t loosen as he led me up a short flight of steps and down a narrow corridor that looked like it led to a serial killer’s hideout. He shoved open the door at the end of the corridor and finally released me.
“Please.” He swept his hand toward the room beyond.
It was a masculine room with a wide desk, a lamp, and a huge window that was letting in enough sunlight to attract a horde of cats in need of a nap.
I stepped over the threshold, and he followed, closing the door behind him.
I rubbed my arm where he’d gripped me a little too tightly. “I’m going to give you a pass on the arm grabbing this time, but do it again, and I won’t be so compliant.”
His eyes narrowed. “The situation warranted quick action. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He hadn’t hurt me physically, but my pride was another matter. “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s not your day.”
“I don’t need permission to come to the Academy, Fee. I had business to attend to. They only just discovered the vault’s been raided.”
“You have a vault here?”
“Yes, containing valuable items.”
“You think the Dread did it? Do we know what’s been taken? Shit, could that have been the real reason for their attack on the Academy?”
“We don’t know. The stuff in the vault is ancient, and the log of items has also gone missing.”
“We need to figure out what was taken. There must be another log somewhere. A copy?”
“There is. The Beyond has it. I’ve sent a message to Uri.”
The anger at being dragged from the lounge had faded a little in light of this news. The Dread had taken something, and the fact we had no idea what that was meant they were several steps ahead of us. “What is their agenda?”
He frowned at me. “What?”
“You never told me what the Dread want. I mean, what’s their purpose?”
His smile had a patronizing air that fed my annoyance. “They’re monsters, Fee. They want to feed and kill and thrive.”
His tone was complete arrogance, and it grated.
“Uh-huh, and how does raiding your vault and taking something serve that purpose? There must be more to it than that. If we can find out what they took, we can maybe figure out what their agenda is.”
“You give them too much credit.”
“And maybe you don’t credit them enough.”
I was beginning to get a picture of the demons, and the Dominus in particular. They thought themselves superior, important, better than the creatures they hunted. “Every living thing has a purpose, Conah. Even the Dread, whether you think it’s important or not, and the key to stopping them is to figure out what their goal is.”
“With all due respect, Fee, I’ve been a reaper and a Dominus for much longer than you. I’ve fought the Dread, hunted them, and been hunted. They want nothing more than to spread like locusts on this land and devour it. You’ve only seen the lower-level Dread, the ones with the crimson eyes and ridges on their nose, but there are others who look completely human. Charismatic Dread, able to attract prey.”