“I have nowhere to go.” I can’t explain it to him. If he knew I was staying so I can be with him, care for him in this death trap, ensure he’s not executed—he would do something explosive.
“Take my hand.” He stands up, holding his hand out to me.
“Where are we going?”
“If you’re going to be stupid, then I want you to be stupid with a good right hook.” I fold my hand over his and rise to my feet.
“A what—”
We stand, facing one another in a secluded part of the garden in the backyard of the asylum. A clump of giant trees surrounds us, making a fluttering symphony as the leaves wave at us from up above our heads.
I try to mimic his stance. His feet apart, knees slightly bent. His warrior’s resting spot. My body tingles with adrenaline like shaking up a bottle of ale.
“Charge me,” he says. I blink, my mind and body remaining in a state of hibernation. “Skylenna, charge me. Try to choke me.”
Sudden uneasiness takes root in my stomach. “Wait, you wantmeto be the attacker?!” I take a step back. “I thought we were trying to avoid poking my eye out?”
He laughs, gazing at me as if he were adoring a child singing a song out of order.“I’m not going to hurt you.” The wind picks up, and my hair is being strewn across my face and neck. “At least not until you get good at this.” He winks.
At that, I charge him, moving at a jogging pace. My hands reach his throat. I manage to push him against a tree, although I know he didn’t resist.
Meanwhile, this entire three seconds, he is holding my gaze, intensely staring down at me with dark lashes and chocolate-brown eyes. Once I fully become aware that it is his turn to defend himself, I tense up. With one swift movement, Dessin’s left arm shoots straight up, then he twists his body and uses that elbow to bend down over my forearms, unlocking my hands from his throat.
He twirls me around him and presses my body into the tree he was once against in the lightest way possible. His forearm locks against my throat with no pressure added to it.
I grunt, not from pain but shock and frustration. He has my hands bound behind my back by only one of his hands, and his body is barricading me against a tree. For a split second, there’s that pull again—the invisible fishing line that reels me into him, tempting me to reach my hand up to his jaw and wait to see how he’ll react.
And for that split second, the same look of temptation sits like honey in his eyes.
“You would have seen that coming if you weren’t undressing me with those pretty green eyes,” he says.
A quick jolt of heat in my belly. Like candle wax. “How could I have missed it? You moved at a glacially slow pace.”
His chest rumbles with a closed-mouth laugh.What would he look like naked?
I wiggle my way out of his grip and turn to face him. “Teach me.”
He demonstrates again. One arm straight in the air. Turn. Use the elbow to break the hold. I practice on him slowly, ensuring my movements are in good form.
After we both feel confident in my ability to replicate the moves faster, he says, “Attack me again. Swing at me.”
I lunge at him, this time with a fist ready to swing, aiming for his jaw. I assume he sees this action coming from a mile away; somehow, I end up on my back with my arms pressed against the dirt on either side of my body.
“You’re crushing my appendix!” I groan, spitting my own hair out of my mouth.
“You don’t even know where your appendix is.”Oh.
I blow a raspberry as I try to suppress an embarrassed laugh. “Interesting.”
He raises himself anyway, lifting his weight from my gut.
I grimace, panting in his face. “How am I supposed to magically learn how to do that?!” I have a strong feeling that I am going to disappoint him repeatedly.
“You’re not. But it was fun.”That wicked, playful smile is like the heat of a fireplace after walking through the snow.
He lifts me back to my feet with one tug.
“Again,” he says.
