That was how far I could go from Raphael’s chambers before the pain started. Another half dozen steps and the pain went from uncomfortable to unbearable.
Each gloaming, when I woke, I tested the distance and then made myself wait an entire two minutes before retreating. Night after night I paced, waited, and returned, with no increase in the perimeter I could tolerate. It didn’t bode well for me escaping Damerel with the grimoire anytime soon.
And that was only the beginning of my troubles. Raphael wasn’t satisfied with knocking me to the ground a hundred times the first day. Apparently, this was to be a daily occurrence. There had to be breaks at some point since despite his talk about how important it was that I train—after all, he still had to oversee a kingdom. It’s not like he could devote every waking hour to dealing with me.
For the sixth day in a row, however, he’d once again put my training at the top of the list.
“Again,” he ordered, when my steel sword was once again knocked from my hands. “Think before you lunge. Be strategic about your moves.”
“I’mtrying,” I growled. I was in a foul mood, between the leash this bond put on us, and the fact that while my body could move faster, my mind wasn’t used to moving that fast. He led me through drills to start, and I’d managed to avoid jumping out of my skin when he grazed my arm to adjust my form. But now that we’d moved to sparring, it was utterly frustrating. It felt like I was fighting against myself half the time instead of Raphael.
“This isn’t about defense, but discipline. Control.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I turned back to Raphael, stepping into the fighting stance that had been drilled in me.
I felt like crap. The thirst was still present—and might be there forever, according to Raphael. I hadn’t felt so much of a twitch of magic, unless I counted the grimoire, my magical birthright, burning my fingers when I touched it. And I was damned tired, perspiration dripping down my neck.
Meanwhile Raphael hadn’t so much as broken a sweat. His white shirt was loose-fitted, buttoned only halfway up. The sword was a casual extension of his arm, his forearm bulging as he moved into position.
“If you’re done looking, you can attack me again.”
“I thought I’m supposed to keep my eyes on the enemy,” I growled.
“Opponent,” he corrected.
Same thing. I lunged, fueled by all the anger I felt.Strategicandanalyticalhad disappeared again.
Once more, I landed squarely on my back. I crawled up from my knees, out of what was becoming muscle memory, despite the fact the wind was still knocked out of me.
“We don’t have all day,” Thea called from over by the bench. She was sorting through some of Raphael’s correspondence rather than training.
“We have as long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?” I snapped. “You to stop winning? I appreciate the vote of confidence, but considering the skill difference, that’s not going to ever happen.”
“Stop underestimating yourself,” he chided. “And stop fighting two opponents, so you stand half a chance.”
“Two?”
“Me, and yourself. Once you’re only fighting one battle, you may be surprised at how well you can do.”
I had a lot I wanted to say to that—starting with a string of expletives—but Thea called over again.
“You can keep trouncing Sam—sorry,trainingher—tomorrow. We need to go dress shopping before daylight.”
Another dress meant one thing. “Another ball?” Suddenly spending the next few days sparring and losing against Raphael didn’t sound so bad.
Raphael frowned at the wary note in my voice. Could he blame me? The last one hadn’t exactly gone well for either of us. “She doesn’t have to attend.”
Thea rolled her eye at both of us. “It’s in her honor! You turned someone for the first time in the kingdom’s memory. Not to mention she’s your Chosen. In the eyes of the kingdom, that’s as big an event as the eclipse. No doubt they’re already wondering why there’s been such a delay.”
“Let them wonder. She doesn’t have to go if she doesn’t want to.”
Something stirred in me at Raphael’s assertion, a mix of contradictory feelings that didn’t feel like entirely my own—a desire to attend, which made no sense, for one. And a strange sense of comfort that he understood how little I wanted to go toanother ball, to be gawked at. The logical part of me realized the ball was an opportunity to be around more vampires and see if that roused my necromancer abilities. There would be hundreds in attendance, compared to the few dozen in the club before.
But mostly there was anger at being seen as just an extension of him.
His fledgling. His Chosen.
