“Nothing. Now that I have my power back, I’m just creating a shield so that the Fae Lords don’t find us. We now have four full Greywolves, which is like a beacon to them,” he said.
Oh. Yikes. I never thought of that. “I’ll train all night with Artemis,” I told him.
He nodded. “And we leave in the morning, no matter what.”
It was final. He wouldn’t take any other scenario and I didn’t blame him. We were ready. The four of us together could do anything. I was sure of it.
When we got back to the barn, it was lunch time, but I knew that a full day and night of training with Artemis was on the docket, so I slipped from the car after giving Brayden a kiss and then made my way to the back of the barn.
When I rounded the corner, I stopped dead as I looked at the insane obstacle course before me. Maddy was lifting a heavy sack of potatoes that hung on a pully system with rope, suspended from a wooden beam that connected to a… Ninja Warrior type course.
There was a balance beam, monkey bars, and all kinds of crazy stuff I would have loved to play with when I was twelve.
“Uhh, what’s all this?” I yelled over the sound of Maddy now drilling something.
Artemis was on his back under a wooden bridge type of thing with a wrench in his hand, cranking away. At the sound of my voice, he popped up, looking at me eagerly. “They had all this stuff in the storage sheds. The Amarok said we could use it.” He sounded excited, but it was hard for me to match his tone.
“For what?” I asked lamely.Please don’t say my training. Please don’t say my training.
“Your training,” he deadpanned.
I groaned. “You think I’ll learn to kill Lora by hanging from monkey bars?”
“You’re a horrible student,” he admonished.
That made me chuckle for some reason. I liked the banter we had going back and forth. Were we father and daughter of the year? No. But we’d barely just met and this was our way of communication. It suited us both.
“She’s going down,” Maddy observed. There was some dirt on her pants and blood on her elbow, and I suddenly wondered ifshehad gone on the course.
I bristled at her assessment that I couldn’t do it. “Bring it. We timing me or what?”
There was a mischievous glint in Artemis’ eye that I didn’t like. “Sure, if you want.”
Maddy pulled out her phone with a grin and stepped away from the course to give me room.
“Will this thing hold my weight?” I looked at all of the rudimentary chunks of wood and random hay bales.
“Maddy has tried the course three times. I was just tightening the final bolt on the bridge of death,” he exclaimed.
I snort-laughed, unable to help myself. “Bridge of death. That thing? That’s cute.”
The bridge was twelve inches off the ground. I wasn’t trying to be rude. Clearly, they’d been working all day on it, so I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but this thing was not going to challenge me in any physical way if that was their intention.
“Well, why not get to it?” Artemis waved me up to the first obstacle. Monkey bars.
It was laughable.
“What’s your best time?” I asked Maddy, who held her phone out.
She smiled. “I wasn’t able to complete the course.”
Nervous dread settled in my gut.Oh crap. Was I missing something? Was there some kind of fae magic on this thing that made it look easier than it really w—?
“Go!” Maddy shouted and I took off like my butt was on fire.
Jumping up to the first rung, I grasped it and then swung forward, grabbing the other. With Maddy saying last minute that she didn’t even complete the course, I half expected there to be spikes or something on the top of the bars. I was almost to the final monkey bar when I sensed heat at my back.
Wha—?
