But I was already toying with fairness by walking up to them.
Judging by the black, luxurious pelts on his shoulders that made him look unjustly wider, this was Fellcrest’s boy.
Dyron, Dykron–
“Dyrak!” one of his friends bellowed.
The Fellcrest boy flinched. Geryll took advantage of his distraction and used his shield to push him away. As he lowered the metal, his red, angry and embarrassed face appeared.
Being my ward demanded respect everywhere else except on the training grounds. Here, speed and strength ruled.
Dyrak cleared his throat and hid his mace behind him, as if that would erase what we’d all just witnessed. He had the gall to smile innocently at me.
Just like his father, who’d cursed the Blood Brotherhood any chance he got before we’d joined, and now couldn’t stop singing its praises.
“Never allow your back to be unprotected,” I said, voice cutting against the wind.
“Yes, sir.” He puffed up his chest. “I’ll do better next time, sir.”
“Perfect,” Nadya’s voice whipped around us. She stepped forward, Francisca held high, gaze wide and ruthless. I almost felt sorry for Dyrak. “Pick on someone your own size, pretty boy.”
“I wasn’t picking, I was training–” Dyrak drawled in a bored, haughty tone, staring down his nose at her.
Then Nadya struck and that smug look of his turned to shock. Then fear.
“Geryll.” I flexed my fingers at him. “I have a job for you.”
He lowered his shield to the side and walked toward me. He tried to keep the pain hidden, but each step made him grimace–and made me ache.
Aware of the curious looks, I dropped my hands onto his shoulders, guiding him away as if we were discussing some grand secret. Geryll sighed in relief and leaned into me as much as his bruised pride allowed.
Thankfully, Nadya’s yell of triumph tore everyone’s eyes away from us.
“He’s such a bully,” he whispered as we reached the edge of the arena.
“He is. Men like that should never be respected.”
“He sensed I was weak,” Geryll spit out. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, trying to tame the sweaty strands.
I held on tighter to his shoulder. “You can’t train until your leg heals–”
“Not now. Always,” he said with the kind of self-loathing I never wished to pass his lips. “What’s the job?”
“Taking you to the infirmary.”
Geryll shoved himself away from me. “I didn’t need you to save me.”
I stared at him, stunned. Geryll had never even raised his voice in my presence until now.
His anger was a palpable, ugly thing. Worst of all, while he tried to direct it at me I sensed it boiled deep within him.
“You don’t shove me,” I said, calmer than my disbelief wanted. “And you don’t talk like that to me. If you have something to say, we speak like men.”
Geryll’s nostrils flared and he looked anywhere other than my face. “You embarrassed me.”
No, I had saved him from getting his ass kicked by a bully. “Then I apologize.”
“I can defend myself, you know?” he said, some of that frightening anger abating.
