The Academy Read online

  “Hold out your finger,” he said.

  Hesitantly, I held out my right index finger—the one I had swabbed. “Are you going to—”

  “I’ll make it quick,” he said and jabbed the tender pad of my finger with the needle.

  I let out a startled yelp and was about to put the hurt finger in my mouth but North shook his head.

  “No, don’t. We need the blood.” Then he jabbed his own finger and put down the needle.

  “For what?”

  “For this.” I watched as a bright crimson drop welled on his fingertip and then North pressed his wounded finger to mine, mingling our blood. “Now,” he said, “Repeat after me: You are the brother of my heart, the brother of my soul. I swear here and now to be true to you, to stand ever at your side in times of peace and times of danger. I will let nothing come between us—not war, nor women, nor wine. I will live by your side and die by your side, true even unto death. So swear I this sacred pact by the blood we now share.”

  “Wow,” I whispered, taking a moment to absorb the words. It was a heavy oath—not that I minded taking it. I wanted everything North was offering me—wanted it badly. I just wished I could offer myself to him as wholeheartedly and unreservedly as he was offering himself to me. But for right now, this was the best I could do.

  “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. If you don’t feel it,” North murmured, studying me intently. “It’s not something to be taken lightly. These words will bind us together. Forever.”

  I realized I had taken too long to repeat the oath. “I know,” I assured him. “And I want that—want us to be bound together. I’m just…trying to take it in.” I looked into his eyes. “But I do want to say it to you, North. Very much.”

  “I’m glad.” In the dim light of the bedside lamp, his pale blue eyes seemed bottomless. I realized I could sit there staring at him all night—he was so perfect. So beautiful. For a moment I had a twinge of conscience. Here I was promising him absolute fidelity and he still didn’t know my deepest secret. But I couldn’t back out now.

  It’s just friendship he’s offering me, I reminded myself uneasily. A very strong and committed friendship but it’s not like he offered me his heart or his love.

  Taking a deep breath, I repeated the words of the solemn oath, looking into North’s face as I did. I only stumbled over the words once or twice and he helped me, murmuring the correct wording so I could finish taking the vow. When I finished, he nodded his head. “Good. Now for the token.”

  “What kind of token?” I asked, taking back my finger and blotting it on the sleeve of my pajamas. It didn’t take much blotting—the small wound was already almost closed.

  “I told you, it has to be something we both wear. Hmm…” North looked around his room, frowning in concentration. “When they used to do this as a more formal ceremony, they have special rings already made up. Or sometimes they do a gold chain with the symbol for brotherhood stamped on it…” He smiled at me. “I’ve got it.”

  “What?” I asked, wondering what he would come up with next.

  “This.” Reaching up, he unfastened one of the platinum and onyx studs he always wore. They were so much a part of him his right ear looked naked without the small but precious adornment.

  My heart leapt into my throat. Though it was common for males to have their ears pierced, no lady in my home province of Victoria would ever consider it. Putting a hole in your body, no matter how small, was a sign of your willingness to be penetrated elsewhere. In other words, only prossies pierced their ears.

  “Oh no, North,” I protested as he held the small black and silver stud out to me. “I couldn’t.”

  “Of course you can,” he said roughly. “I want you to.”

  “But…but they must be special to you,” I pointed out, trying to think of another reason to refuse that wouldn’t hurt his feelings. “You never, ever take them off.”

  “They were Jamie’s last gift to me,” he admitted. “That’s why I never take them off. But it’s also why I want you to have one.”

  I began to protest again but he put the stud in my palm and closed my fingers around it. “This is important,” he murmured, looking me in the eyes. “Jamie…he wouldn’t mind. He’d be glad I found someone so…so important to me. Another brother.”

  “Another brother,” I repeated softly. Those words as well as the look in his piercing blue eyes melted all the rest of my resistance. There was no way I could refuse what he was offering. “All right, North,” I whispered. “I’ll be proud to wear your token. But you’ll have to put it in for me—at least the first time.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because, my ears aren’t pierced.” I tilted my chin, showing my unmarked earlobes. “See?”

  “Right. I didn’t know that.” He frowned. “Do you really want me to do it—to pierce your ear?”

  I took a deep breath. “If it’s the only way I can wear your token then yes, I want you to.”

  “It’s going to hurt,” he warned, as he ripped open another alcohol swab.

  I thought of the caning he’d taken in my place, of the intense physical anguish he had endured for me. “I don’t care,” I said, lifting my chin. And I don’t care what anyone back home would think either, I told myself defiantly. The gesture that North was making when he offered me his token to wear was more important than any pain or censure I might bear because of it. “Just do it,” I told him, closing my eyes. “Do it and make it quick.”

  “As quick as I can,” he promised. I gasped when I felt something cold touch my ear and North laughed. “That’s just the alcohol, shorty.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I protested. “You know I don’t li—”

  But my words were cut off when North grasped my right earlobe firmly between his thumb and finger and pierced my flesh with the long, silver needle.

  I gasped again and jerked but by that time it was already over.

  “Easy now, it’s okay,” North murmured. Swiftly he removed the needle and replaced it with the silver and onyx stud which he had cleaned thoroughly with the third and last alcohol swab. “There.” He sat back and studied me critically, admiring his own handiwork. “All done. And not too bad a job considering the way you jumped.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” I put up my hand and touched my throbbing earlobe gingerly, tracing the foreign shape of the stud now fixed in my flesh. I held my hand in front of my eyes and studied my fingertips suspiciously but there was no telltale crimson mark to show that I had been pierced. “I’m not even bleeding,” I said, surprised.

  “These swabs contain a coagulate,” North said, gathering up the used swabs and cleaning the needle before putting it back in the mending kit. “That’s why I coated the post with it before I put it in your ear. You’ll be fine.” He clapped me on the back and smiled. “You feel okay, right?”

  “Yes…” I whispered a little uncertainly. It felt strange to have something foreign piercing my body. Strange and a bit unsettling. And there was also the fact that anyone from Victoria would think I was peddling myself if they saw me with the small, simple adornment in my ear. But I tried my best not to think about that.

  “Hey…” North put a hand on my shoulder and ducked his head, looking into my eyes. “Are you sorry? Do you want to give it back?” His voice was tight but he held his face under control well. Only his eyes, blazing in the dim light gave away his emotions.

  “Never,” I assured him, wanting to ease the uncertainty I saw in his eyes. “I want this, North. I want to be this—to be a…a brother to you. And I’m touched that you want to be a brother to me.”

  “A brother. Right.” He looked at me for such a long time I began to feel uneasy again.

  “That is what you said, right?” I asked. “You said we’d be sworn brothers.”

  “Of course.” North sighed. “Come on, squirt, let’s get to bed. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

  I snuggled down beside him in bed, close enough this time to