“That’s good,” she says.
“Is it?” I counter, delivering a quick combo of punches that force her to utilize both arms to block. But she’s clearly been practicing because her reaction time is the quickest it’s ever been.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
The corners of my lips wiggle a fraction. “Don’t forget that you can attack me too.”
She smiles, sidestepping and forcing me to counter. I had been intrigued when Aria came injured to our last meeting, and that curiosity had turned to outright fury when she tried to be covert about how she had gotten hurt. But I had spent the pastfive years skinning the flesh from those who harmed others because they wanted to take what was never theirs to begin with. And while I never interacted with the victims, Shen did. I wanted her to be the good they saw, while I was the monster in the dark. But she told me, sometimes, when we’d meet up for a briefing, what the victims had said. What they felt. How, in some cases, they would downplay their abuse with an “at least it wasn’t worse” statement.
Aria swings her right fist towards me, and I lean back to dodge it, straightening just in time to catch her guard a little too high, punching the space beneath her ribs on her side. She hisses out a breath, adjusting her guard as she keeps her feet moving. Where fear once rattled her every time I so much asbreathedin her direction, determination now blankets her soft features.
I had thought a lot about what she said and how I responded in the days since our last meeting. Aria is a siren, a being I have hated since I learned about The War Of Five Kingdoms. But she is also a female subjected to the same cruelty of rulers, a victim to those who take what they want without asking. Something had pulled at me from within, warning that if I did not show her that she had the ability to protect herself from whatever dangers might come her way, I would not be fulfilling the bargain between us. In the same breath, however, something else whispered that it was more. That the urge tocarefor her had nothing to do with whatever was magically binding us together. But that voice was easy enough to silence, especially when I could distract myself with what my father was doing with the guards, the dragons, and the abduction of mages.
Fuck, things are really going to shit around me.
Aria and I continue our sparring until evenmyarms begin to burn and sweat drips down my back. It works to relieve some of the unspent energy humming beneath my skin. IfI’mfeeling this way, she must be completely fatigued, but she doesn’t complain.Not once. Using my forearm, I swipe at my forehead and tuck my hair behind my ears to get it out of my face. Aria’s eyes go straight to them, and I watch her reaction for signs of disgust. Or some other lingering prejudice against the fae that might have become ingrained by her queen. I’m met with only open interest. She stares at them like one would look upon a full moon. I’m reluctant to call it awe, yet that’s the only word that comes to me. When she realizes I’ve caught her looking, she drops her gaze to the ground, her hands bracing her hips. Even wearing the baggier tunic, the silhouette of her body is unmistakable beneath it, and a jolt of desire shocks me from where it pools low in my gut.
I grind my teeth together and palm the dagger at my thigh, content to ram it through my leg to stop whatever is happening to me. “Go grab your blade—”
“Actually,” she interrupts, her head snapping up so her eyes can meet mine, “I was wondering if we could revisit how we sparred last time.”
I tilt my head, releasing the hilt of my dagger. “What do you mean?”
Aria purses her lips, thinking her words over as she reaches up to play with a few strands of her curly hair. I had been unable to stop myself from touching it as I bandaged her arm in our last meeting, an annoying curiosity overtaking me as I reached up to see if the strands were as soft as they looked. It had been a lapse of judgement, a momentary and fleeting response to having her so close and unguarded. “I froze last week. When you attacked me from behind. It’s because when she—when Lore—came at me, that’s how she did it. And I froze then too, only able to eventually fend her off because I had the element of surprise.” I work hard not to show a reaction, despite how tension rides my shoulders. Aria offers a small smile in response, as if she can somehow tell what I’m feeling. “I just want to make sure I candefend myself from anything. As much as I can with the limited lessons we have left.”
The reminder that we are on the tail end of our time together should give me a feeling of elation, but paired with the image of someone holding Aria against her will, all it does is sour my stomach. Weeks are all we have left, and that isn’t enough time to teach Aria everything she needs to know to defend herself. Fuck, it had taken meyearsof dedicated training before I could best Navin. Then again, what are the odds that Aria is fighting a trained warrior? IsLoresomeone who has years of training over Aria? But despite how the question attempts to slip free, I keep it locked behind my lips.It isn’t any of my business.
Stepping close enough to her to count the freckles on her cheeks, I say, “Show me how she restrained you.”
She spins until her back is to me, holding her arms out to the side. When she feels me at her back, she tentatively reaches for my wrist, delicate fingers wrapping around it, and positions my arm around her torso. “One arm was like this whilethisarm”—she reaches for my other limb, tugging that one so that it’s banded across her chest—“was like this. And we were—”
I tighten my hold, her back becoming flush with my chest. Her breath stutters at the movement, heart fluttering fast beneath her ribs as I take in a deep lungful of air that is tainted with something sweet. Like honey, but not quite.
“Like that,” she rasps, bringing her arms down to her sides. Our height difference makes it so that my chin ends where her forehead begins, and as I assess our positioning, my mind briefly makes note of the way shefitsin my arms. With an internal growl, I push the thought away. Someone had fuckingattackedher like this. My muscles flex as if meaning to tighten my hold on her, as if that will somehow protect her from what has already been done. “Now what do I do?”
“Normally, I would tell you to go limp in their arms. That alone would force them to try to regain control so that they don’t drop you. But under water, that technique isn’t going to work.” I narrow my eyes as I cycle through different poses in my head, each one tailored to fighting on land. To counterattack, Aria will need to focus on different points of contact. Elbows. Hands.Claws.I lift the arm crossing over her chest to grab at her wrist, my fingers splaying over the back of her hand. “Instead of one fluid movement to take an opponent down, you will have to do a series of quick ones with the intention of not besting them but getting away.”
Her hand twitches in my hold. “What if I don’t want to just get away? What if I want to hurt them?”
The words are spoken softly, but the intention behind them—thegravitas—has my own throat working to swallow roughly. “So violent,” I murmur, my breath disturbing the strands of hair near her ear.
Aria huffs an unsteady laugh. “In the Siren Queendom, if someone is attacking you, more often than not, it is with the intention to kill.” She shakes her head, her soft curls brushing at my jaw. “I can’t bet on simply escaping. I need to know what to do once I’m free to ensure that they can’t harm me—or anyone else.”
The addition at the end of her statement reminds me of the reasoning she gave me weeks ago about why she wanted to learn how to fight. It was to protect someone close to her. Someone she cares about deeply. I lean back until inches separate us again. “The first thing you need to do is think about how to create space with your attacker. You’ll start by arching your back and sending this elbow”—I mimic the movement slowly with her arm—“behind you, aiming for the space between their ribs.”
“How am I supposed to know where that is?”
“You’ll know when you hit bone because it will hurt, but you’ll be sure you’ve hit the space between when you hear the air squeeze out of their lungs.” I position her arm back at her side, my hand sliding away before banding my arm around her front again. “Try it.” Aria attempts to wiggle enough to give her arm some leeway. It works, and she is able to send a relatively gentle hit into my ribs. “Good.” I can’t see her face from my spot behind her, but I watch the top of her cheek lift in a smile at my praise. “Next, you want to use your hands and those menacing little talons that decorate them.”
“Menacing?” she questions, growing them out from the tips of her fingers.
“To anyone attacking you? They should be.”
She hums, the vibration of it skating over my chest. Stars above, I am overdue for a kill. Or a fuck. Or some other carnal form of physical movement because I’ve never been so innately aware of someone else without being engaged in either of those two things.
“You need to force one of my arms away so that you can spin and face me. To do that, you’re going to drive the heel of your left palm into my right forearm.” She does the move slowly, testing that she’s hitting the right spot. “Now spin in the same direction.” Again, she follows my instructions until we’re face to face, my left arm now wrapped around her back. She lifts her hands between us but hesitates laying them on my chest, her gaze lifting to search mine.
“Now what?”
