Dark Empathy Archibald Bradford (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📖

my friend Madeleine at the boarding school so it looks like we’re going to split up again. Really Erica, I wish you had said something sooner!”

The Katje shrugged at the slight rebuke.

“Planning is for planners. I’m a doer, and Imma do you later, hot stuff.” She put her fingers in a V before her lips and waggled her tongue between them with a saucy wink.

Ophelia turned a bit pink at the incorrigible cat’s meaning and couldn’t supress her smile, or the erotic shudder that went through her at the idea of Erica acting out what her crude gesture implied.

The Katje, like most of her kind, was a phenomenally talented lover.

“I suppose that leaves the two of us to keep each other company tonight, eh Milly?” Volka said with a teasing look at the Minotaur.

It was Milly’s turn to go pink; she and the angel hadn’t been intimate as of yet, though they were both intrigued with the prospect.

“I-I suppose.” She said breathlessly.

Their Flutterby bond-sister shook off her arousal as she once again tried to get them back on task.

“That all sounds lovely. But we can’t do any of it until we finish in the city!”

She all but shooed them out of the quartermaster’s offices, again much to the relief of the staff there.

Their conversation, while intimate, was hardly private.

As they left and walked back out into the city, Nameless noticed an immediate difference in the way people looked at him.

Though he was slight of frame, the uniform he wore was widely respected, the Aegis having high standards for the people they let into, and keep within, their ranks.

Indeed, the first week of training had been a nightmare for the young man; he did more push-ups in those seven days than in his entire life, it always seemed like everything he did was wrong and the instructors weren’t shy about telling him so, loudly and frequently.

He had taken some comfort in that he wasn’t the only one struggling or being yelled at, there were twenty-five other recruits in his class that started their training when he had, not including their own monster girls, and with few exceptions they seemed to fare just as well as him.

They were now down to fourteen.

Without his bond-mates, he doubted he would have been able to go on.

Whenever they felt his resolve wavering, or felt the sensitive young man’s emotions getting the best of him, they would flood his mind with their own determination, usually accompanied with thoughts of recent love-making.

With that intense portion of their training behind them, not to mention having finally figured out how to properly stand at attention so as not to get yelled at, the real work for the cadets was about to begin.

The white uniform Nameless now wore was therefore an impressive achievement, and people knew it.

Many in the street who would otherwise not give him a second glance were openly smiling at him, some even nodding their heads in respect.

And that was aside from the company he kept, because as impressive as his new uniform was, the residents of the city of Garland were in complete awe of Volka Gundrsdotter.

Word had long since spread of her battle with Evadne in Divinity Square, though details were a bit sketchy as to who and what the reclusive Chimera was.

Most knew that the Valkyrie and a small group of Amazons had fought... something, and that Xalanth had interceded, breaking most every window in the city when the Dragon breathed on Jonathan and the dark monster.

Any complaints that might have been aired about the catastrophic loss of glass faded to nothing when people saw the state of their beloved city center.

Evadne’s magic had left a multitude of deep circular holes all around the cobblestones square, while Xalanth’s destructive contribution was a blackened swath of rippled and glassy-smooth stone near the statue of the Aegis and the last Valkyrie.

Meanwhile vibrant moss, roots and vines had sprung up all over the corner nearest the Bastion where the Dryad groves had tended to the wounded, including Nameless.

So needless to say when people saw the Valkyrie in the street they took notice, even Nina drew less attention, despite how rare Gigas were on this side of the Sansee.

With little understanding of where she had been or why, the local monster girls would stop whatever they were doing to take a moment to welcome the angel back, tearful hugs abounded the first few times that she went into the city.

Initially the humans were more reserved, nervous in the face of the angelic warrior, but that tapered off once they got a taste of her easy laughter and the warmth of her spirit.

Not to mention her sense of humour; word soon spread about her proclivity for silly pranks.

It was like she had been set loose on an unsuspecting population; no one was safe, even Margaret Bloom, the scar-faced councilwoman in charge of overseeing the entire academy, woke up one morning to discover that her entire bed had been moved right next to one of the Undine training pools, with her still in it.

No one knows how the angel pulled that one off. Though they would all remember the sight of the furious woman in her drenched nightgown as she stormed back to her chambers.

None of Volka’s activities could ever be traced back to the mischievous angel, though Nameless would often contend that he got more push-ups than anyone else due to her games.

Today was no exception in terms of the attention that the Valkyrie drew, but walking beside her with his crisp new uniform, Nameless no longer went unnoticed.

Chapter 3: Potential

Erica had split up with the others, heading back to the market quarter on her mystery mission, while the rest accompanied Ophelia to the boarding school on the edge of