Jarek shifts, adjusting his stance. It’s barely a step, but it’s more than I could force from him two weeks ago. He tilts his head slightly, a flicker of approval in his expression. Then, he changes the rhythm. His next movements are smaller. Tighter. More efficient.
Before I can adjust, he sidesteps inside my reach, blocking my knife with his forearm. The next thing I know, my wrist is knocked wide, my balance is gone, and I hit the floor hard. My knife clatters across the stone.
Jarek stands over me, breathing evenly, his blade hovering just above my collarbone. The fight is over.
He grins, offering me his hand. “Better.”
Jarek pulls me up with an easy grip, his palm rough, his stance already resetting as if we hadn’t just gone through that brutal exchange. My muscles ache, sweat slicks my skin, but I keep my breathing steady as I prepare for another round.
But then movement catches my eye. Two mats over, Thane and Garrick are sparring.
Shirtless.
Thane moves like a predator—every motion is measured, efficient, devastatingly precise. His blade flickers in the dim light, his muscles shifting with each fluid strike, honed by years of training.
The sweat on his skin catches the glow of the overhead braziers, tracing over the ridges of his chest, the hard cut of his abdomen, the powerful curve of his shoulders. He’s all coiled strength. A living weapon. Every line of him built for war, for dominance.
And I cannot look away.
Garrick drives forward, forcing Thane to parry. Their blades clash, muscles flexing, the force behind their sparring nothing like the training I’ve just had with Jarek. They’re not practicing. They’re testing each other.
They don’t speak. Their blades do that for them—the way only years of fighting side by side could allow.
Thane’s forearms flex as he absorbs the impact, veins subtly rising beneath his skin. His torso twists, shifting the hard planes of his body as he evades Garrick’s next strike, the movement so smooth, so effortlessly controlled, it makes something tighten low in my stomach.
Garrick isn’t any less impressive—broad, sculpted. His chest is a solid expanse of muscle, his arms flexing with power as he fights to match Thane’s speed. All strength and confidence, a completely different kind of dangerous.
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone. The thought creeps in unbidden, startling me for a moment.
Not since the village when life was simpler—before my world became something else entirely.
A memory stirs—warm hands, rough with field work but gentle against my skin, a whispered laugh in the dark, the press of a body over mine in the cool grass outside the village, hidden away from prying eyes. A bed, strewn blankets, grabbing clothes and jumping out of my window—a flash of auburn hair as his head disappears.
Ronan.
We cared for one another, but he wasn’t the one I would marry. I knew this even then.
We spent many months together; stole moments we could—tangled under the stars, flushed and breathless in the golden light of early mornings. He made me laugh. Made me feel wanted. And for a while, that had been enough.
But that was over a year ago now. Feels like a lifetime. It didn’t end with a fight or some grand unraveling. Just . . . faded, the way some things quietly do. I hope he is alive and well, rebuilding, after the attack at the village.
I’d had a couple of lovers before Ronan—my first at seventeen. Those were more about curiosity and learning. Ronan, a couple of years older than me, was the one who taught me what pleasure could be.
Now, standing here, watching Thane’s body shift and flex with lethal precision, the sharp edges of him stark in the firelight, my blood hums with something long-buried. And that . . . is dangerous.
Thane is beautiful. Half naked, his sweat-slicked skin glowing, the deep lines of him moving with such lethal grace.
Gods! I should not be watching him like this.
Thane’s body shifts and flexes with lethal precision, the sharp edges of him stark in the beams of sunlight streaming through the windows, my blood hums with something long-buried, something I haven’t thought about in far too long.
And I realize, it’s not just today.
I have been noticing him more than I want to admit.
At first, it was small things.
