I land a hit on his ribs. He answers with one to my thigh. My practice sword cracks down the middle and I throw it aside, grab another. His shatters against my block and he does the same.
We're destroying the training yard.
Wooden splinters litter the packed earth. The weapon rack is half-empty, discarded hilts scattered around us. At some point one of us knocked over a training dummy and neither of us bothered to right it.
"You're a monster," I pant, circling him, my fifth sword of the morning clutched in hands that are starting to ache. Sweat drips down my spine, plasters my hair to my neck. I've never felt more alive.
"So are you." He's breathing hard too, golden eyes bright with something that looks almost like joy. "Two monsters recognizing each other."
"Is that what we're doing?"
"Isn't it?" He feints left, strikes right. I block it, barely. "You're the first person who's ever matched me like this. The first one who could."
"What about your warriors? Carter?"
"They hold back. Even when I tell them not to." Another exchange, another crack of wood against wood. "They're afraid of hurting me, or afraid of what happens if they actually win. You're not afraid of either."
"I'm not afraid of anything anymore." The words come out fiercer than I intended. "I spent years being afraid—of my heats, of what I was, of what I might do. I'm done with fear."
"I know." He catches my blade with his, holds it there, our faces close enough that I can see the gold of his eyes, the sweat beading at his temples. "That's why you're still alive. That's why you're the first one who survived me."
We're both breathing hard, both trembling with exertion, both still pressing against each other's swords like neither of us wants to be the one to give ground.
"We should stop," he says. "Before we break every practice blade in the yard."
"Probably." But I don't pull back. "This is the most fun I've had in months."
"Me too." His voice drops, goes rough. "Centuries, maybe."
The moment stretches between us—charged, electric, balanced on a knife's edge.
I close the distance first.
The kiss is nothing like the soft one this morning. I crash into him with the same ferocity I've been fighting with, teeth catching his lower lip, tongue demanding entrance. He groans and drops his sword to grab my hips, hauling me against him, and I feel the hard length of him pressing against my stomach through our sweat-soaked leathers.
I bite down on his lip—hard enough to taste copper—and he snarls into my mouth, fingers digging into my hips hard enough to bruise. For a moment we're not kissing so much as devouring each other, all teeth and tongue and desperate need, the violence of the sparring transforming into something just as fierce.
Then my stomach growls, loud and insistent, breaking the moment.
He pulls back, breathing hard, blood on his lip from where I bit him. And then he laughs. Actually laughs, a real sound of genuine amusement that transforms his face into something younger, lighter, almost unrecognizable.
"There's the ravenous appetite," he says. "Come on. Let's get you fed before you start eyeing me as a food source."
"You'd be stringy," I say, lowering my sword. "All muscle, no fat."
"Flattering."
We return our battered swords to the rack—what's left of them—and survey the destruction we've wrought. Splinters everywhere. Four broken training dummies. A crack in one of the stone walls where someone—probably me—missed a block and a blade went wide.
"The guards are going to talk," I say.
"Let them." He sounds almost proud. "Let them know the king has finally found someone who can match him."
Something warm blooms in my chest at that. Not just the words, but the way he says them—like it matters to him, like having an equal means something after three centuries of being alone at the top.
"Food," I remind him, because if I think about it too hard I might do something stupid like kiss him. "You promised."
"I did." He gestures toward the castle. "After you."
