“You’re not using all your weapons. Your two swords aren’t everything. You have feet. You have hands. You have a mouth,” he says. I snort, and he gives me a hard look. “Get me off balance with your blades, then try something unexpected.”
“Like biting?”
His gaze holds mine. “Not unless you want me to bite you back.”
Warmth clenches deep in my belly. “Then why the mouth?”
“Conversation, Sunshine.” His voice a velvet rumble of fire in his throat, he says, “Use it to distract.”
My insides tumble at the nickname he’s used twice now. While I slowly melt, he starts circling. Exhaling tension that has nothing to do with sparring, I try to focus, gripping my weapons and waiting for him to make the first move.
It takes a long time for the nearly six-hundred-year-old Dragon King to grow impatient, but he finally does and strikes out with incredible speed and total silence. I spring into action on pure instinct and counter his attack with crossed blades, tapping into every bit of strength I have to throw him back.
“You weigh a ton.” I shake out my aching arms.
“All muscle.”
His cocky answer draws a reflexive smile from me as I drop, spin, and slice lower.
He jumps over my blade. His eyes glitter on landing, igniting with interest. “Do that ten times faster, and someone might lose a foot.”
“Exactly. You,” I mutter.
He chuckles, and I suddenly get a strong image of me riding Bale, the wind streaming past me, his powerful wings beating the air, and his fire-warm scales between my legs.
Heat roars through me as Bale strikes out, nearly slicing my abdomen. His shocked inhalation hisses loudly in the sudden silence. We both pull up short, staring at each other. I hear my warbirds click their beaks.
“What the fuck, Idallia?” Smoke curls from Bale’s nostrils. His amber eyes thunder with condemnation. Sword lowered, he steps in, looking me over with a fierceness that’s both worried and furious.
I exhale shakily. Bale’s inner fire is volcanic and pounds at my skin. The vision was just a flash, as much sensation as thought, but it’s seared into my mind now. It’s not the past, so does that mean…it’s the future?
My heart hits my ribs like a battering ram. “Sorry.” I swallow hard.
“Don’t be sorry,” he snarls. “Be focused.”
Nodding, I square my shoulders and get ready to start again. Wanting to drive the intense vision away, I go on the offensive first this time, my blades glinting in the morning light filtering through the trees. Bale only uses one sword now—like vampires—but he’s so fast that I still can’t find an opening.
“Are you already bored? Thinking about other things?” He strikes violently, tawny heat boiling in his eyes. “Because this isn’t a real fight? Because your warbirds aren’t in danger? Your team? Your life?” He hammers harder with every word. “Because you’re not scared of me?” The blade he just hit flies from my hand. My fingers howl in shock. “You should be. I could eat you alive. Maybe one day, I will.”
Shaking my numb fingers out, I scramble away from him. What the fuck does that mean? “Who’s the one yapping now?” I snarl back at him. “Trying to distract me? Too bad. I’m on to your tricks.”
“I can hold a conversation and still win.” He lunges for me. I drop, roll, grab the blade I lost, and come up swinging with both swords again.
Bale nearly knocks the same weapon from my hand with his next blow. I double my efforts, but that rush of strength and focus I had earlier doesn’t come back to me now. I hold him off, but don’t advance at all. This is about to go from bad to worse, and I don’t have any hope of lasting in a bang-it-out sword fight with Bale.
Try something unexpected.
Keeping all intention from my expression, I stop alternating with rapid but predictable hits and suddenly strike hard twice in a row with the same blade. While he holds off that assault, I turn the angle of my other hand and ram the hilt of my sword into Bale’s lower ribs with a blow that would snap a human bone in half.
His nostrils flare. I follow up with a kick to the gut. He barely moves. Fucking dragon shifter.
He strikes back, adding a fast, hard twist of his wrist that sends the blade in my dominant hand flying across the clearing. I hold him off with my second sword for mere seconds before he rattles that one from my grip too. I duck his swing and lurch out of his path. He stalks after me.
I back away, weaponless and done. I know it. He knows it. I don’t have a dagger on me to throw at him—a mistake I won’t make again.
Bale surges for me in a hot rush of speed. I leap back, but my heel catches on a root. I tilt over backward with a gasp just as his body slams into mine. He probably expected resistance, and when there is none, we both go down.
Bale’s hand wraps around the back of my head just before we hit the ground. His weight drives the air from my lungs. We stare at each other in shock, then a fiery blush explodes across my skin. I’m completely pinned, unable to move. A root pokes into my lower back. I wince, and he lifts his weight to his elbows, freeing my torso and lungs. I drag in a breath and arch to relieve the pressure of the hard knot under me.
