“Have you ever seen a troll?”
“Well, no,” I respond, shrugging. “Of course, until a few days ago I hadn't seen an elf, or a siren, or a Kobold either.”
“Trolls are grotesque creatures that smell like rotten eggs. Some races, like the ones living in the Urghal mountains, have warts the size of a plum,” she explains, crossing her arms over her chest. “Kobolds, on the other hand, are tremendously attractive, as you can see,” she adds with a wink that I acknowledge leaves me trembling.
“Do you do that thing of crossing your arms to show off your muscles to all the girls?”
Shit. I surprise myself imagining what it would be like to follow that tattoo with my fingers and discover how far it goes under her clothes.
“And are you going to just stand there staring at me all day, or are you going to cross the bridge already?”
“If I die, I won't be much use to you. You know that, right?” I grumble, cautiously advancing toward the metal structure.
The first part seems stable, but when I reach the middle of the bridge, I find a section where there's a gap of at least twenty feet.
“You don't expect me to move forward balancing on the railing, do you?”
“I want you to jump.”
“No way. I'm not doing it,” I refuse angrily, walking in the opposite direction and pushing her when I pass her, though I don't manage to move her even an inch.
“Nell...”
“Leave me alone! At least yesterday's training with the elf was good for something. Yours is all a big pile of crap. We've been running for an hour for nothing, just to show me you have more endurance than I do. And now you want me to jump a distance you know damn well I can't jump.”
“Not with your legs, but yes using your element,” she whispers, approaching me and caressing my left arm with a softness that confuses me.
She smiles and comes closer, until she's only inches away, and I start to feel a tingling in the lower part of my belly similar to what I felt yesterday with Sylara. Without meaning to, I shift my gaze to her abs and, suddenly, I feel an irrepressible need to slide the tips of my fingers over them.
“It's better if we keep going,” she murmurs, taking my hand and pulling it away when she realizes what I'm about to do.
I don't know what's happening to me. It's like my hormones have gone crazy. First, the strange dream where I slept with each of them and then with all three. Yesterday, I would have done anything the elf had asked me... and I wasn't dreaming anymore.
And now... Now, even wrapped in sweat as we are, I'd take Althea's clothes off and kiss every inch of her body.
“This will be our battlefield,” she suddenly announces.
I don't even have time to react. In less than the blink of an eye, she pushes me against a tree trunk and holds my wrists above my head with one hand.
The worst part of it all is that I don't know if I want to break free or not.
“What are you doing?”
“You're supposed to try to escape, not stay still,” she whispers in my ear, making my whole body tremble.
I had a small hope that it wasn't a lesson, but something very different. Althea doesn't know how much dominant women turn me on.
“You'll never be able to defeat a much stronger opponent using only physical strength. Use your magic, Nell,” she murmurs, pressing her body against mine.
I close my eyes, trying to concentrate, even though what I'd really like is for her to take advantage of this position to take off my clothes and make love to me. I remember a protection spell I'd read in the book, something universal that worked regardless of the element. A kind of shield or something like that.
I visualize a barrier between us and, to my surprise, it works. Althea opens her eyes when she sees that an air current has formed between our bodies pushing her a few inches back.
I take advantage of the opportunity to counterattack. This time I visualize a sphere of compressed air, like the ones I'd practiced with Sylara the day before, and launch it at her chest, where a kind of frost forms and the air around her turns to vapor.
“Althea!” I scream, terrified upon seeing her expression of pain. “Fuck, I'm sorry! I don't know how to stop it...”
Luckily, color returns little by little to her skin, and the frost melts into small drops of water that fall to the ground.
