“Say that again,” he growled, his breath hot on her face, blades crossed between their bodies.
She pivoted away, then darted behind him and braced her sword in front of her.
He traced a large circle into the dirt with the tip of his weapon. “There’s going to be rules this time. Ifyou can handle that. A fair fight. No wolves. Just you and me and these blades. If you step outside the circle, I earn a point and vice versa. If the sword touches flesh, that also earns a point. First to three points wins.”
No wolves?Her wolf whined.That hardly seems fair. I’ve been waiting to spar with him for centuries.
You’ll get your chance, Mireille soothed.But right now, he’s fuckingmine.
“What are we playing for?” she asked.
His golden-blue eye met hers with what she swore was an audible crack. “Truths.”
Mireille swallowed. Was it worth the risk? She couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of truths he might request, but…
She had plenty she wanted from him.
“Deal,” Mireille said, choking up on the hilt, her muscles tensing as she tracked his every move.
“I’ll even make it easier for you to aim.” He placed his sword in the dirt then grasped the back of his collar. He hauled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.
She’d love to say she’d forgotten the thigh-clenching spectacle of a shirtless Ronin. That the memory had faded after two centuries.
But that would make her a filthy, filthy liar.
And the sight of him, vividly in the flesh, brought to mind a torrent of other memories.
Her body pinned against that spectacular chest. Those shapely fingers digging into her hips as he fucked her. Those intricate ice-blue tattoos pulsing in tandem with his thrusts.
A section of the tattoos had been burned away by his sentencing brand—a travesty.
Still, the faintest hint of a smirk grazed his stupidly tempting mouth.
Fuckthat. Two could play at this game.
She leaned her sword against her thigh, then whipped off her own shirt. Her training pants hung low enough to expose the curve of her hipbones and her breasts were bound with a length of cloth. The only poor excuse for a bra in this time-forgotten city.
A shiver of satisfaction ran down her spine as Ronin’s gaze blazed a trail across her newly exposed skin. Though his smirk melted into a pained grimace when it traced along her own sentencing scar—plus the myriad others she’d earned in here.
Was he upset by the evidence of her incarceration? Or that the sight of her bare flesh still turned him on? Did he hate himself a little for it?
Because she sure as shit did.
She wanted to be done with all thisuselesslonging. For her one-time friend and lover. For her long-time enemy. For the male who had killed her father.
Hate and passion—two sides of the same fiery coin.
Which would it land on?
“Better be careful,Butcher,” she taunted, raising her sword, her heart pounding a mad beat. “I’ve had nothing but time in here to hone my skills. I’ve gotten even better with a sword than I was outside that cabin.”
He grinned, his eye glinting with feral delight. “Then let’s see how you do when you face arealthreat.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond. He rushed forward with an arcing strike that she barely had time to counter, their swords cracking together.
It took all her effort to shove him away. He was bigger and more powerful than any male she’d ever fought. Everknown, really.
They volleyed blows, blades crashing, neither making a hit. He executed a series of swift swipes, an aggressive assault that had her shuffling backwards.
