I hated how defeated she looked.

  Wrye dipped out before I could answer. I felt my ears pop as Miel sat down across from me at the circular table for eight.

  “Should you be doing that?” I looked up with my eyes to indicate the privacy bubble. “In here?”

  “You need privacy and I’m giving it to you.” Miel folded her arms as she glared at Jovena. “Who’s this girl?”

  “Vena, this is Ether’s mom, Miel.” I motioned between the two, then tilted my head towards Justia and Aelin, who were balancing four trays as they went through the line. “What about—?”

  “I keyed it to your seal, so anyone who is part of your group can walk through the barrier.” The ivory woman tapped her clawed fingers on the table. “I didn’t ask her name. I asked who she was.”

  “Vena was one of the potential members of my team, but got passed over for Shelly.” I waffled my head. “She said she wanted to join my harem and I promised that she could later once we got back with everyone.”

  “You’re taking in members of other teams that you’re going to be competing against?” Miel sighed. “Seriously, kids these days.”

  “Ignore her.” I took Jovena’s hands. “Are you okay?”

  “Wrye has been helping me with some of the stuff and he’s been having Phila Dronii show me how to use my gear better.” Jovena sniffled. “When are you coming back? I hate it here.”

  “We’ve got to go get Rix…” I cut myself off. While I trusted Vena, I had only known her for a couple weeks. Without a seal, I wasn’t sure how much information I should be sharing with her.

  “You’ve got a space on your team?” Jovena’s blue eyes brightened.

  “No, we just sent her to go get some training gear and we’ve got to go pick her up.” I said the first thing that came to mind that might seem plausible.

  “You…” Her shoulders sagged. “Oh.”

  “Is being on the yellow team that bad?” Ether jabbed her thumb in the direction that the rest of her team had gone.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Alos was running a higher-level team for the Dispatcher’s school in Harror.” Jovena shook her head. “So it’s about like where I was in Tres, only with fewer people, but…” She swallowed. “He’s a Tank, so he’s focused on locking down the monsters and shooting from safety. All his lectures are about how to trap monsters and where to hit them to kill them while they’re restrained.” She shivered. “It’s boring.”

  This was the thing that we’d been worried about. Jovena liked to do things her way and she wanted to be in the thick of the action. Since Alos was teaching his team how to set up fights methodically, the silver woman was going to spend a lot of time standing around waiting for the go-ahead to shoot at the target. Her boredom had a very low threshold; then she would take matters into her own hands.

  I was starting to see where Alos’s frustration was coming from as well as her broken spirit. The Dispatchers were famed for being able to restrain Adventurers who broke the law and harmed other Adventurers, so I had no doubt that the Minotaur would use his skills to incapacitate Vena in a way that would leave her out of the action while also forcing her to watch the others participate in the fight she wanted to be in.

  “You’ve got to at least make it through the next semester.” I squeezed her hand. “I’ll try to figure something out where maybe you can get on one of the other teams.”

  “You’re not going to take me?” A tear formed in the corner of her blue eyes.

  I wiped away the tear with my thumb. “You staying here at the Cathedral is the goal. Staying on a team is the top priority, but if that’s not an option, I’ll let you stay with us.”

  Miel cleared her throat.

  “Ether is always in my bed at night, so we’ll have the extra space…” I realized that there was a question I hadn’t figured out. “Where are you going to stay?”

  “The open floor plan of the dorms isn’t going to work for a harem.” Ether chuckled as she answered for her mother. “Trent is moving us to a house off campus.”

  I realized what the sound of displeasure from my mother-in-law was for. If we were off campus, there was no way another team was going to approve of Vena staying with us.

  Jovena seemed to reach that same conclusion. She reached up and pushed my palm against her face. “Can’t you just make room for me now?”

  “Sorry, our team is full…” I nodded at the two approaching members of my team and realized they were with two other women. I knew they were part of my year because I recognized them as part of the Mundane-born section when the teams were divided. I didn’t remember the green woman’s name, but the silver woman, I remembered.

  Ether’s gaze hardened into a glare as she focused on the blonde I’d recognized.

  “Look who I found!” Aelin set down her tray as the green woman sat down next to Ether and slid my wife’s tray in front of her.

  I tensed as Bridget Tres sat down on the other side of Jovena and leaned onto the table as she pushed my tray to me with two fingers. I couldn’t help but notice that the collar of her shirt was very loose as she twisted around Vena. Her voice was sugary sweet as she winked at me.

  “Hello, luvah.”

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  RR Writer's Guild