He twisted with athletic grace and picked up one of several knives hanging in a collection on a nearby wall. I hadn’t noticedthem when I came in—probably because of the gigantic dragon. I wasn’t close enough to feel their vibration, but they all appeared to be made of that self-cleaning forever metal that had been all over the bears' secret kingdom.
My stomach twisted, remembering the sharpness of the blade against my neck.
“I don’t want to fight with weapons,” I told him. “Especially against you.”
“Weapon,” he corrected. He cupped the back of my hand and brought it up.
Another electric shock of warmth zapped through me as he pressed the sleek handle of the faintly vibrating blade into my palm. “You will be the only one wielding a knife.”
I looked down at the weapon. The faint vibration made it feel unnatural in my hand. But a kernel of an idea stirred in the back of my mind. Not quite a plot yet, more like the beginning of one.
I continued to act reluctant. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He leaned down, amusement tilting his lips into another almost-smile. “You need not fear hurting us. We are a drakkon, and you are a mere wolf.”
I didn’t know whether to be reassured or insulted.
“Enough of this vacillation.” Before I could decide, he straightened to his full height and declared, “You will show us what you learned in this single teach?—”
He cut off when I showed him the number one lesson that had kicked off that in-person class.If you can’t run, the element of surprise is one of your best defenses. Make a plan. Then hit them fast, and hit them hard.
I hit him fast, and that turned out to be a big mistake. The hard part was efficiently circumvented when he caught me by the neck. With one hand.
One second I was flying at him with a plan to put a knife to his throat and demand he take me to the door the key in mypocket was looking for. And the next the knife was clattering out of my palm as he pinned me to the closest wall, his much larger body a heavy weight against mine. The stone at my back was ice cold. He was not.
He burned like a furnace, and though he had nothing below the waist, the strange bulge was back, pressing against his stomach and into mine. Tightening the knot in my belly.
“Good job, Dorie.”
Was it a good job? He’d disarmed me within seconds. But I couldn’t seem to drag enough air into my lungs to ask if he was being sarcastic.
A small cloud of steam drifted from his mouth, sweet and woodsy, like a fire burning deep inside of him.
His eyes scanned my face, and his head lowered.
My heart sped up, the knot squeezing tight. Was he going to…?
“We will return to our drakkon form for tomorrow’s sparring session.” His heavy weight abruptly lifted. “Now you will show us your cardio conditioning.”
And that was how it went for the next hour or so.
Drills. So many drills. Luckily, the jumpsuit was activity sensitive. It not only kept me cool, it squeezed across my chest to give me sports-bra-level support.
But I couldn’t form a question, let alone ask him about the key in my pocket.
Something told me it wouldn’t be a good idea anyway. His unsolicited “protection” might include “shielding” me from finding a way out of this mess.
“Okay, okay. I can’t do this anymore,” I panted after the worst drill of all: sit-ups, which I would like the record to show are a form of torture in any millennia. “I’ll go take that bath now.” It felt like callingmercy!after wrestling with Albie.
He once more helped me to my feet. The difference in our states was impossible to ignore, standing across from him.
The cooling system in the jumpsuit could only do so much. I was an overheated mess, but Diarmuid’s shell, as he’d called it, was immaculate and continued to smell like a forest bonfire, as opposed to a puddle of dank sweat.
No doubt about it, I would make for a terrible heroine of a romantasy holo.
Still, he regarded me with that unblinking stare. Unreadable, but intense.
I wasn’t sure what to say, other than, “Thank you… for training me and showing me your true form, even if it was by accident.”
