Chapter Thirteen
Now all I could picture were the times when he and I had ... aggressively kissed and the way he would sweat, which made his skin taste of salt. Something I probably should have found disgusting, but currently the idea of running my tongue along the strong cords of his neck made me lightheaded.
“Fine,” I said, standing up, hoping that he couldn’t tell how much I wanted to kiss him.
“As always, your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he teased.
“Are you certain you want to do this?” I asked. “Maybe I’ll be the one making you sweat.”
“Doubtful,” he said with a grin. What had gotten into him?
“Swords?”
He took a few steps back and balled up his hands in front of his chest. “No. We’ll do hand-to-hand combat. Because you may find yourself in a situation where you’re unarmed and need to keep fighting. Ideally the best scenario would be if you’re armed and your opponent is not.”
I raised my own hands. “I don’t know if I could kill an unarmed person. That is so dishonorable.” Demaratus had drilled that into me. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t killed Lysimache. Not wanting to act out of anger, needing answers, and she was unarmed.
I had seriously considered it, though.
“Honor has its place, and I would argue with your Daemonian battle master that the battlefield is not one of them. Survival is the goal.”
It didn’t surprise me that Xander knew where I had learned that lesson. “Demaratus would make you run miles if you said something like that to him.”
The light in his eyes dimmed slightly. “Promise me that if you have to choose between honor and your life, you will always choose to live.”
“I promise,” I said, shaking my head. It was such a silly request. “Are you ready?”
“Always.”
“Dea Erinys,” I said and swung my right fist at him as the power surged through me.
Again, he was lit up like the sun.
He grabbed my arm and twisted me around, pulling my back to his front. “This seems familiar.”
What he didn’t realize was that he was currently feeding more power into me by touching me. I spun around and dropped, pulling him as I went and tossing him over my head. That caused him to flip over me while I got away.
He started laughing as he got up. “What was that?”
“You gave me more power.”
“How?”
“I told you about the light people emit and how we can use it.”
“And I do that?” he asked.
“Yes. You do. It’s not everyone—Ahyana and I tested it. It’s only specific people, and we’re not sure why. But you’re brighter than anyone else I’ve seen so far.”
“So you touch me and it makes you stronger?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” he said as he took a step toward me.
But I was ready for him. I punched him in the jaw hard enough that his head flew back. I felt the sharp crack of pain in my own jawline.I was about to apologize for hitting him so hard when I spotted his fist coming around on my left side. I ducked out of the way, something I’d never been able to do with him before.
“You’re so fast,” he said admiringly.
