Order of the Alpha #2

17

CHAPTER 17:

"Just open those eyes."

I stare astutely at the very image in front of me, he's writing down notes in such a concentrated form. Ember eyes conduct a form of strategy on the battlefield. Or rather, Elrond's battlefield, since Rowan thought it would be intelligent to place Creed in charge of sending Elrond, Taylor, Serenity, Genevieve and fourteen other potential candidates into the deep end of the simulations we'd done previously, "How ruthless would you get?" I ask him.

He looks up at me, "Have you finished going through the scrolls?" He asks me.

I give him a long look, "If you people invested in technology—I wouldn't be so inclined to run through section after section of maps that hold nothing different from each other except for an artists name or a researcher's opinion. Right and wrong. Left to right. There is nothing in these scrolls, I'll need to look elsewhere."

This was the fifth library we came to and while he helped me search maps and scrolls and research in the four other distinguished, old libraries, none of them held what I needed. The map to the mating runs pool that could identify the root of my problems—however, that can't happen if we can't find this stupid pool.

He glides his eyes back towards his battle notes, "There are three other libraries we can search, before the head capital may be the only option." He murmurs, I was still surprised he was helping me.

My phone vibrates on the table.

The twenty-fifth call from Athena Darkling.

Creed side-eyes the phone, "She won't stop until she hears from you."

"What can you tell me about your relationship with the so-called head kingdom of all that it surrounds?" I ask him, leaning back in my seat, getting comfortable while he moves his eyes over each line, likelihood of each new simulation that creates a whole new wave of nightmares for the students forced to go through with this.

"I am a freelance soldier." He accentuates.

I tilt my head at him, moving a lock of hair in front of me, "Kill for hire?"

He purses his lips, "No. I kill on my own terms, in case you didn't recall that professor who tried to hurt you, and a certain other species." He made note of, obviously.

"Yes, you keep shooting my enemies too early." I retort, giving him a flat look.

"I never did get a 'thank you' from one of those saves. Chivalry isn't dead in this realm—not yet at least. It must only run in the Darkling nature, along with that Elias fellow—where abuse was wrongfully used." He murmurs, eyes on me now and not the page in front of him.

"Speaking of, where is Elias?" I wondered, I smelt Elias on him a couple days back.

The smell of blood had been prominent.

"Well, in case his vial runs out, we can always get more." He mutters, making no expression as he turns the page on his notes.

I lean my arms on the table, "How are you defeating an elemental?" Elias is who I meant.

A muscle in Creed's jaw ticks. I stare at him, expectantly. He flicks the pen between his fingers and continues writing, "You learn what makes specific elementals tick, what they enjoy. What they dislike in passing times, what they crave and everything they lack and if respect, loyalty and plain choice isn't corrected in that, it's a soldier's job to correct such a thing. I am well-acquainted with pinpointing how this specific elemental ticks." He's torturing him somehow.

I purse my lips, "For information? That's what you're doing this for?"

"You understand the laws of justice, don't you?" He asks me.