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Sloane could understand why Malek asked people to burn all the dead’s belongings instead of building graveyards. Reading Liam’s letters made it hard to breathe, as if her heart was tearing open. Every second that Sloane spent reading her brother’s words, she prayed that the god of death would take her, too.
Then again, she would rather torture herself than give up those letters.
The letter that Violet had given to her this week was so precious to Sloane (it contained an inside joke between the two of them that she had once thought they’d be able to laugh about together in person), that she had it tucked into her leathers, right into her waistband. She didn’t care that doing so risked someone noticing that she still had something of Liam’s even though she wasn’t supposed to. She needed to be able to pull it out whenever this fucking college got the best of her.
Which it was doing today. Or, to be exact, Imogen was getting the best of her. On the mat. Again.
“That was shit,” Imogen said from above Sloane. Imogen had slammed her onto the mat so hard that it had taken Sloane a few seconds to recover. “Why aren’t you getting any better?”
Sloane felt a blush creeping up her cheeks, which pissed her off. She scrambled to her feet and said, “I don’t know. You’re the one who’s supposed to be teaching me. Why aren’t I getting any better?”
Imogen scowled. “At least you’re not getting worse, I suppose.”
“Small mercies,” Sloane muttered, mostly to herself.
The door to the sparring room opened as Imogen and Sloane set up for another round of fighting. Sloane’s back was to the door, but the tingling along her neck told her exactly who had entered the room.
Aaric.
Her body seemed to be attuned to his, much to her dismay. Sloane couldn’t explain why she reacted to him the way that she did. But it had been happening since the moment they met on the staircase leading up to the parapet.
As if getting beaten by Imogen wasn’t bad enough, now there would be an audience for Sloane’s shame.
Sloane shook off any more thoughts of Aaric and focused on Imogen. She managed to get a few good hits in, but nowhere near as many as Imogen. The two women danced around each other for longer than they had before in this practice session, until Imogen pulled off an impressive roundhouse that sent Sloane flying to the corner of the room, precisely where Aaric was planting quick punches on a bag hanging from the ceiling.
Aaric paused, placing his hands on the bag so that it stopped swinging towards his face. His eyes landed at his feet, where a small bundle of papers lay.
Sloane realized that the impact of Impgen’s kick must have jostled the letter that she had tucked into her waistband. Panicked, she hurried over to Aaric, but he had already bent down and picked up Liam’s letter.
Sloane snatched it out of his hands. She had no idea what possessed her to say, “My brother’s…” But she slammed her mouth shut as soon as the start of that sentence escaped her lips.
Alaric’s piercing green eyes locked on her for a moment, then down at the letter that Sloane clutched in her fist. Sloane could almost see the moment when his mind put the pieces together. She stilled, wondering what he would do with this information.
She was surprised when his shoulders lifted slightly. Not quite a shrug, but the ghost of one. He simply said, quietly so that only she could hear, “I have a few skeletons in my closet, too.”
Then he turned back to continue delivering hard hits to the punching bag.
Imogen didn’t spar with Sloane much longer after that. Mainly because Sloane did so poorly. Imogen ended the session early, thinking Sloane was tired. In reality, Sloane was too distracted, wondering what exactly Aaric had to hide.