I pick up the staff from where I left it last night and start working through the basic forms. Strike high, recover, strike low, spin. The wood is smooth under my palms from repeated use, familiar and comforting. My hands are still healing from the obstacle course but the pain helps me focus. Gives me something concrete to think about instead of the constant awareness of my own skin, my own heartbeat, my own body that won't stop demanding things I don't know how to give it.
Strike. Recover. Strike. Recover.
The rhythm is soothing. Predictable. I can control this even if I can't control anything else.
I'm halfway through the sequence when the hair on the back of my neck stands up. It's that feeling you get when you're being watched, that primitive awareness that you're not alone anymore. I freeze mid-strike and spin around, staff raised defensively.
Knox is standing in the doorway.
I don't know how long he's been there. Long enough to watch me without me knowing, which means he's better at being quiet than I am at being aware. He's just leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, completely still in that way he has that makes him look more predator than person.
The moonlight catches his face and I can see he's watching me with those pale eyes that never seem to blink enough. There's no expression on his face that I can read. No hint of why he's here or what he wants.
"You're getting better." His voice cuts through the silence between us. They're the first words he's said to me since the tower, since he pulled me back from the edge and told me not to disappoint him.
I lower the staff slightly but don't put it down. "Did you come here to critique my form?"
"No."
He pushes off the doorframe and walks into the room. Not toward me directly but circling, moving around the perimeter like he's assessing the space or maybe assessing me. Every movement is measured and purposeful. There's nothing casual about how Knox Wilson moves through the world.
"Then why are you here?"
He stops circling and turns to face me. We're maybe fifteen feet apart, close enough that I can see the scars on his face more clearly, the one through his eyebrow and the smaller ones along his jaw. "I came to see if you're as dangerous as you smell."
My stomach does something uncomfortable. "What do you mean?"
"Your scent." He tilts his head slightly, still watching me with that unnerving intensity. "It's distracting."
I think about what Caspian said this afternoon. About how every unmated male can smell what's happening to me. About how my body is broadcasting things I didn't consent to broadcasting. The heat makes me want to back away from Knox and move closer to him at the same time, and I hate that I can't control either impulse.
"I can't help that."
"I know." He takes a step closer. "Doesn't make it less distracting."
Another step. He's close enough now that I could hit him with the staff if I wanted to. Close enough that I can smell him, that mix of earth and pine and something underneath that's just him, something wild and barely contained.
"Put down the staff," he says.
I hesitate. The staff is the only thing between us, the only weapon I have if he decides to do whatever it is dangerous people do when they're alone with someone weaker than them.
"Put it down, Nova."
I set it on the floor. Don't know why I'm obeying him except that there's something in his voice that makes it feel less like a command and more like a test I'm choosing to take.
He looks at the staff on the ground, then back at me. "Hit me."
"What?"
"You want to learn to fight?" He spreads his arms slightly, making himself an open target. "Fight me."
"I'm not going to hit you."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll hit me back."
"Maybe." He drops his arms. "Or maybe you'll surprise me. Won't know until you try."
