He grunted as blood erupted. His hands shot to his nose. The pang of guilt hit, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from scrambling out from beneath him and darting away.
Harthon wasn’t as incapacitated as I’d hoped. He snagged my ankle, sending me sprawling on my stomach. I hadn’t even recovered my breath when I was flippedagain,and a fuming mountain of muscle landed securely on my waist. Two hands plastered mine to the deck. Blood dripped from his nose onto my chest, though it didn’t appear broken.
“I’ll commend your creativity,” he hissed out. “And now I won’t feel even a little bit bad about this.”
He yanked me up and tossed me over his shoulder. Wooden planks blurred with the head rush, and then they moved, becausewewere moving.Toward the water.
I tried to kick, but he’d manacled my legs with his arms. I resorted to punching his rock-hard back, calling on that kernel of heat within me again and again. It didn’t even flare. Didn’t do anything but uselessly tell me to go to First Territory.
I threw my hand up and blindly yanked on his hair. He cursed and jostled me. His shoulder pushed the air from my lungs, and I lost my grip.
Come on.
Give me something.
But I wasn’t on his shoulder anymore. Cool air swallowed my body as I went airborne. There was nothing deceptive about the shriek I let out this time. I caught a glimpse of water before my wrist snagged and I slammed into the wood siding.
My heart in my throat, I glanced up. Harthon held my wrist, eyes blazing. “Make it work, Etarla,” he gritted out.
Two drops of blood fell from his nose, plummeting into the water below me. That was all it took. Three of those deadly predators exploded out of the depths, mouths gaping, rows of jagged teeth searching for their next meal. When they didn’t find it, they kept thrashing, churning the seas. They would swallow me before I even touched the water.
“Harthon!” I screeched.
He muttered a curse. In one hard tug, I was dragged back over the side of the railing. I collapsed in a heap, body shaking, gasping for air.
“Did you try?” he asked, like he hadn’t almost ended my life.
“I fucking tried,” I hissed, panting. “And I was threatened. And like I said, itdidn’t work.”
His lips turned down as he wiped the blood crusting above his lip. There wasn’t any swelling, and I wished I’d hit him harder.
“That was out of line,” I seethed. It’d beenmorethan out of line. It’d been insanity.
“Training isn’t supposed to be easy. It was worth it to determine if that thing inside you can help in more ways than one. Now we know it can’t, so we’ll focus our training on your other strengths.” He lowered a hand to help me up.
As if I wanted his damned help. Ignoring it, I shoved to my feet. My knees were quaking. Did he pull these kinds of stunts with every soldier he trained?
“Grab the sword you dropped, and let’s get started,” he ordered.
He wanted to continue training,after all that?
Grinding my teeth together, I trudged over to the fallen blade. If more training meant I could hit him again, it was worth it.
Chapter 17
Ihardly managed to hit Harthon at all, and any strikes I did land were ones he fully allowed. But after hours of work, our session ended with me feeling like I’d made progress. Building on Callen’s foundation, Harthon had shown me more ways to capitalize on my size and scrappiness. Quick jabs. Dirty maneuvers. More evasions.
At one point, his tunic disappeared again, but there was no opportunity to appreciate that, not when every distraction or mistake ended with me on the deck, or my arm twisted behind my back, or his weight crushing me.
The bruises beginning to color my skin were a testament to how many of those mistakes I’d made. Wringing out the washcloth, I scrubbed my legs, noting the track of yellow splotches along my right thigh. I glanced in the mirror to see those splotches extended up past my hip to my ribs, likely from when he’d swung me into the side of the ship. With the ugly, stitch-marked scars on my abdomen and leg, the light marks looked perfectly at home—which was ironic, given the gaudy captain’s cabin surrounding me.
The room was far more luxurious than I’d expected, in both size and décor. Elaborate moldings were painted gold, a colorful fresco covered the ceiling, and the bed, desk, and shelving showcased elaborate woodwork that belonged in a Citadel. Yetthe ship’s captain, who was apparently sleeping elsewhere, was a salty, crusty man. The space didn’t fit him at all—or me, for that matter. It was likely a relic from the previous Princeps’ time.
Just another example of the wasteful opulence our leaders enjoyed while their people suffered.
After I finished washing, I scrubbed my old tunic in a bucket of sudsy water and searched for a place to hang it. My eyes landed on the chair behind the desk, one that was probably too expensive to be treated like a drying rack. As I draped the fabric over the backrest, I glanced at the shelves lining the wall behind it. They were filled with books.
In any other circumstance, I wouldn’t have cared, but I had nothing to do. Calm seas meant no help was needed on deck. My body was too sore to train more, and appearing on deck might entice Harthon into throwing me to the sharks again, just to confirm my failure this morning wasn’t a fluke. Besides, my reading needed practice. Merelda’s lessons had barely qualified me as literate. As it was, the faded, swirling words carved into each book spine before me were nearly indecipherable.
