“Your attackers will not give you time to catch your breath,” Garrick said.
I braced my hands on my hips and ignored him. I hunched forward, struggling for every breath. Whatever improvements in endurance he imagined I’d gained, an hour of sparring had eviscerated them. I was sweatier than before, thirstier than before, and angrier than before.
“I am done,” I said between gasps.
“Not yet.”
The arrogance of that tone— “You are not my master.”
“You are determined to get both of us killed.”
I pushed myself up to stand, fueled by righteous rage. “I am doing my best!” I yelled, lifting my hand to throw my dagger at his fucking head. But something flashed behind him. I blinked, trying to see—nothing. There was nothing but a few scant patches of snow that had hidden from the watery sun beneath the evergreens.
“We are not done,” Garrick was saying, though he sheathed his blade. “You need to know more than just how to defend yourself. If you need to incapacitate your attacker long enough to obtain information?—”
“You mean torture.” Ice shot through my veins.
Garrick did not flinch. “Yes.”
“Teach me to defend myself. But keep your lessons in torture to yourself.”I already know how.I did not finish the sentence aloud.
Garrick took several slow, careful steps toward me. I did not protest, but I did not move closer to him, either. I looked over his shoulder, to where I’d seen that strange reflection of light. It was an excuse to avoid his gaze and any questions I might find there.
“If you wish to incapacitate your attacker?—”
My stomach tightened and twisted. “I already said?—”
“Koryn.” Garrick’s hands landed on my shoulders. I expected him to pull me to him. I didn’t know why. Whatever it was that existed between us, it was all tangled up with the Lifebind. His life depended upon mine.
I felt the intensity of his gaze upon me. But I still could not bring myself to meet his eyes. I kept staring over his shoulder, determined to keep my distance emotionally, if not physically. But Garrick was as stubborn as I was. Finally, finally, I turned my eyes up to meet his.
More than a foot separated our faces, the height difference never more pronounced than it should have been in that moment. But the way that Garrick looked at me, the intensity, the way the clover green brightened and melted into the blue… I felt impossibly close to him. Foolishly close.
He spoke softly, without breaking the eye contact that seemed to anchor me to the ground. “I understand your wish to live in a world where such things are not necessary. But this is not that world.”
I swallowed hard, emotions I could not name nor restrain playing across my face for Garrick to see. He watched them all, unflinching, unafraid. He may call me a witch. But he saw what I was beneath that. He saw things that I was not quite sure I wanted to see for myself.
He tilted his head, just the barest fraction of an inch. Almost imperceptible. But I perceived it—an invitation.
I scraped my teeth over my bottom lip, then my tongue over the tingling sensation they left. Garrick made a low sound in his throat. The blood rushed through my veins in silent demand. I lifted myself up onto my toes, leaning into him to steady myself?—
A flash of light flickered over Garrick’s shoulder, moving quickly between the trees. Not light, but a creature with shimmering scales.
I rocked back on my heels. “Is that… is that a dragon?”
CHAPTER 40
BEFORE
I was joltedawake by the sounds of pain.
Not screams, not yet. But whimpers and groans, the sounds of someone who’d been injured badly enough that every movement was agony, but they could still move. They were the least terrifying of the sounds I’d heard in the ancient structure where my coven made their home.
After nearly a century, I ought to have been able to sleep through it. But after a hundred years, I still struggled to parse the never-ending input that my heightened senses delivered in a ceaseless barrage. The warmth from the fire that Maura always kept burning pushed against my power. I could counter it with the ice in my veins, but it required conscious effort. The sounds of my sisters moving about their daily routines echoed off the slanted stone walls, assaulting my ears. Although we could have crafted anything using our combined power, we lived in a communal structure. A constant reminder that the coven was a whole, not a collection of individuals.
I slept lightly, my too-sensitive ears hearing every sound.
The tread of footsteps. The scrape of a body dragged over stone.
