Hide and Seek by Alex Lidell

Author:Alex Lidell [Lidell, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Danger Bearing Press
Published: 2019-09-06T05:00:00+00:00

9

Lera

By the time classes end for the day, I’m so exhausted, I decide to skip dinner and the Protector’s Guild meeting and go straight to bed. Coal will just seethe silently anyway, and I’ve not the stamina to argue. More to the point, I’m in no shape to tie my shoelaces much less patrol tonight.

I’m already crossing the courtyard toward the dorms when the problem with my plan strikes me like an anvil. Tutoring with River.

He’s expecting me, and knowing River, if I don’t go, he’ll let Coal know with concern that I skipped one of our “clerk” sessions because I wasn’t feeling well. Back to square one.

Shade’s balm has diminished the worst of my muscle aches, and a tight shin wrap now keeps my leg from feeling like someone is jamming a hot rod between my muscles—but that’s a long way from actual comfort. The first step up to River’s tower office makes me flinch, and by the first landing, sweat has broken out on my temples. I grip the railing, using so much arm strength to get up that my biceps start to ache.

By the second landing, I want to throw River and his tutoring off the tallest parapet on the keep.

No. Tutoring is good, I chant to myself. Climbing stairs is good. Even without the extra nuisance my failing the exams would create, the tutoring is the one touch point of trust between River and me. I’d never realized the intimacy sharing knowledge could have, River’s genuine pride twines with mine each time we conquer a new equation or text. Strange as it sounds, failing the exams feels like failing River.

“Leralynn.” The door to River’s study opens as I’m still climbing the last set of stairs, and the male’s impossibly broad shoulders and beautiful face fill the entryway. In his tucked-in white shirt with a golden sash and matching cuff links, he looks his usual controlled self, so handsome and polished that I feel like a sweaty rag doll next to him. Only the intensity in his gray eyes as he watches my approach gives away his inner tension.

I swallow. With the male’s busy schedule and my own avoidance tactics, this is the first time I’ve returned to his study since the night he made me whip him. I didn’t have time to worry about that while I was dragging myself up the stairs, and it hits me now. The memories of that encounter still rake my chest, not even drowned out by the leg-trembling kiss that followed it. My cheeks flame. Unable to help myself, I glance at River’s forearm, his shirt’s snow-white linen concealing whatever bruises may still linger.

“I’m a bit sore.” River answers the unspoken question, his voice too understanding. Too perceptive. A tiny corner of his mouth twitches up. “I hear you might be as well. Do I want to know what it was you did to antagonize Coal?”

Stars, has anyone not yet heard of my morning? I brush down my dress’s crinkly

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