“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a low voice. Heat spread throughout my body.
I stepped back and reset my stance, tightening my grip on Angelborn. I watched for his usual hint of reluctance. Malakai preferred not to train with spears since he’d given his over to me, but we’d decided to work them into our routine. It was a good challenge for him, I thought, but I didn’t miss the way he sometimes winced when handling any weapon.
“You were asleep when I returned last night,” I said as we began slashing our way around the space.
The tightening of his expression was due to more than the maneuver I made. “You got back late.”
True.
“I had work to take care of.” A beat, shadows around his eyes deepening. “Are you okay?”
Are we okay?
For a few minutes, he didn’t respond. We continued to spar, and only when I had my weapon at his ribs did he ground out, “Just tired is all.”
I froze with Angelborn against him, taking in the angular planes of his face that had turned harder each day since we reunited. His sunken cheeks and muted green eyes. Only his skin glowed, training sessions recovering the sun-kissed tan he’d lost in the years he was captured. But it couldn’t disguise the pain lingering within him.
“Malakai,” I whispered, voice low.
He shook his head. “You win again.”
I swallowed the sting of denial. “Are you prepared for this week?” In a few days, he and his mother would officially say goodbye to Lucidius. Twisted as their relationship became, I knew it haunted him.
Again, he shook his head.
“Talk to me.” My voice cracked. “Please.” My Bind ached for the ease of our prewar life.
But Malakai seared me with an accusatory stare and backed away.
I deserved it. I’d avoided him as much as he had me, but my heart cracked with each inch between us, rejection flooding the space. These clipped responses were all we’d been giving each other, too busy spiraling down into our scars. The communication between us turned stiff and guarded, nothing like what it used to be.
My mind went back to three nights ago, the eve of the Rapture, when we’d been alone in our suite. One moment, his hands had been at my waist, his lips warm against my own. The next, we were shouting at each other. And another moment later, my legs were wrapped around his hips as I tore his clothes off and he buried himself inside me, my back against the wall. We had turned into a riot of fighting and fucking, too much fire between us to handle it in any other way. The latter became my way out.
So when he backed away in the arena, I did the same, and that wall slid up between us. We began our final set of exercises in silence, aggression in every swing. For each lie, I struck. For each secret, I slashed. And for every piece I’d been broken into—I did not hold back.
So that we may always come back to each other.
Come back to me.
No more damn secrets.
We’d sworn that was it, that we were going to move forward and heal, but here he was again, shielding things from me.
And here I was—blaming him.
At some point, the rest of the arena fell away. It was only us, toiling through this dance of steel and unspoken accusations. Going blow for blow, the spear’s power pounded through my veins like the second heartbeat I’d come to know.
Malakai met my strikes and got in a few of his own despite having not completed the Undertaking. Neither of us aimed to harm. Neither relented either. The only noise was our heavy breathing and the clash of weapons.
Until a quieter, chiming sound cut through the air.
Confused, we both froze, looking around for the source.
“Did your spear just break?” my sister called. At what point she and the others had stopped training to watch our heated battle, I didn’t know.
Jezebel pointed at my feet where a small, jagged piece of gold no bigger than a coin now sat. I bent to pick it up, but when my fingers closed around the metal, it stung.
“Fuck, ouch,” I cursed, dropping it.
