His body flashes, I blink, and he’s abruptly out of the hole he’s dug.
The wooden end of the shovel barrels into my chest, stealing the air from my lungs. With a windless gasp I stumble back, quickly regaining my wits—
As his axe flies from his back.
“Fuck the True,” I curse, earning another rare smirk from the huge man.
He comes at me methodically, swinging the axe wide. With his long legs and far reach, he could cut a man in half standing ten fucking feet away with that thing.
I duck and roll under his arc, coming up shielding against another attack. I’ve seen him at his worst—fighting assassins, fighting an ambush to try and save us in the Tanmount tower. He’s hardly using a fraction of his speed and ability, which angers me and makes me attack recklessly.
“So much aggression to get out,” he murmurs behind his axe.
“I’ve been gonethree fucking months! What do you expect?”
Clang!
His strike jars my forearms when I parry in an X, wheel around, and push him away. I try to dance to his side—
His knee comes up and catches me in the stomach.
More burning lungs, less air.
Gritting my teeth, I close the gap and launch at him before I can double over from the pain, fighting it off like I’ve been trained. My swords drop as I go feral, waist-level with the huge vampire, and try to knock him off balance.
He doesn’t expect me to come at him this time. He takes a step back, sending a plume of dirt and grime into the air. The cloud envelops us.
I spin and knock him in the spine with my elbow.
Vallan grunts, stumbles forward, reaches back—
I’m already gone in the haze of brown.
My fist flies up to uppercut his jaw.
He catches my wrist inches from his face, twists my arm behind me. I growl as pain sings down my forearm and shoulder.
Vallan spins me around.
I feel something hard pressing into my back. Even through the pain my smile returns.
My boot finds purchase behind his heel, unbeknownst to him. Ithrowmyself back, reeling into him with all my substantial weight, using the leverage of my leg behind his to topple him to the ground.
My back lands on his chest. Before I can blink up at the sky I roll to my side so he can’t get me in a hold—
Too late, his larger body rolls with me. Now he’s on top. His breath is hot and fervent on my face.
Vallan pins my arms above my head as I continue to squirm and struggle fruitlessly under him.
I debate kneeing him in the balls but figure that would be counterproductive. He barks a dark laugh when my eyes move to the throbbing mound between his legs, noticing my scheme. “Bad idea,” he says.
“I know.”
I move to do it anyway, knee rising—
He catches me with the inside of his thigh, turning away, and I push up from my backside. My arm wraps around his neck, momentum spins me across his body, and then we’re both on our knees with me behind him.
My hand moves fast, roving down his front. He doesn’t move, remaining in the position and pretending he’s getting choked by my single arm-bar across his throat. He’s giving me the dominant position and loving it.
