Cassandra glanced up, breaths sawing through her open mouth. Her wings drooped on the dusty floor, her back muscles just as spent as the rest of her.
“I can tell you were trained for combat with a dagger and not a broadsword,” Mireille said. “It’s a different fighting style. You’re trying to get too close. And you’re overusing your thrusts. You’re fighting against the sword.”
“It’s fighting against me!” Cassandra rose from her crouch and knocked away Mireille’s hand.
Mireille’s face hardened. “You mustembraceit. So well that it becomes an extension of your arms, your body. We need to work on your muscle tone, too.” She grabbed a bottle from her sack and handed it to Cassandra, who sucked down the entire thing, water streaming down her chin.
“And that’s where I come in,” Ronin chimed in.
Cassandra groaned.
Mireille toweled off, taking a wide path around Ronin as she walked toward the door. “Good luck.”
“Where are you going?” Cassandra asked, panicky. She didn’t want to be left alone with Ronin and his torture exercises.
“I’ve got catching up to do at the shop.” Mireille jutted her chin toward Ronin as she left the training room. “She’s all yours.”
Ronin pushed off the wall, clapping his hands together. He looked exhausted. Like he hadn’t slept at all. And she could guess what he’d been doing all morning. Searching the city for Selene.
She wanted to ask if he’d found any leads. Wanted to ask why he hadn’t solicited Mireille’s help.
But he cut her off before she could.
“Sword down, Cass,” he said, with a hint of a weary smirk.
“Time to power up those new Fae muscles.”
Later that night,Ronin eased into the apothecary shop, reaching up to muffle the bell. Was he doing it out of some generosity of spirit, not wanting to disturb Mireille and Cassandra from their rest? Or was it because he didn’t want them to know he’d returned so late and ask where he’d been?
Or why he looked so disappointed?
He’d spent the entire day—except the hours he’d been training Cass this afternoon—canvassing the city for clues to Selene’s whereabouts. Nobody he’d spoken with recalled seeing a petite white wolf bi-form with Ronin’s coloring.
There’d been a flash of hope when his interrogations had led to a Deathstalker male who’d arrived around the same time as Selene’s arrest. But whatever the male had seen during his journey through the mists had traumatized him. He could barelyremember his own name, let alone the other prisoners he’d been sentenced with.
It was okay, Ronin assured himself. It wasfine. This was a city of thousands. His search would not end today.
He could have asked Mireille, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Some stupid impulse to protect her. Though based on her chilly reception, he didn’t know why he assumed she’d even care.
He tiptoed through the darkened shop and up the stairs, scenting dried mint, rosemary, lavender and other musty, earthy smells he didn’t recognize.
He creaked open the apartment door, then stopped short.
Mireille sat at the kitchen table drinking tea, a chess board mid-game spread before her.
She tensed when he walked in, but kept her gaze glued to the pieces.
This wasfine, too. She’d been absent from his life for far, far longer than she’d been present. Avoiding her, avoidingthoughtsof her, had become second nature.
But catching her now, the long copper waves cascading down her black silk robe, the delicate fingers clutched around her mug, the shrewd eyes studying the board of a gamehe’dtaught her to play…
For a moment, he forgot how to breathe. His control slipped, and the sense memories bombarded him.
Snow falling in giant, fluffy flakes against a cold, black night.
The smoky warmth of a fire.
Throaty laughter and ivory skin and quicksilver smiles.
