Thirty-Six
“Again,” Darcke ordered.
After pushing up to sitting, I rubbed my aching shoulder, the part of me that had taken the brunt of it when Kilia slammed me into the ground for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Maybe you can be the one he attacks this time?” I asked as I slapped away Kilia’s hand, jumping onto legs that would be blue and green by the time I wrangled out of my leathers tonight.
We’d been out here for three days practicing fighting, all four of us: mostly me and Darcke against the other two, especially Kilia, but also different constellations, although Darcke put me in each one, refusing me a break.
“So are you giving in?” Darcke came up behind me, hovering as close as possible without touching me.
Not that he needed to do that to turn me on. I’d learned quickly the past days that I couldn’t even look his way if he was in this mood. Heat blasted along the tether between us, as unnerving and intense as the first time he figured out how to do it, and I was pretty damn close to falling back down when he followed it with the feeling of a dark promise—one no one should make but which I’d fall for every time.
“No,” I replied. “But I would like to have some function of my limbs during the next trial.”
His deep laugh made my toes curl in my boots. Ilse threw me a strange look, and I bent over to adjust the leather thongs around my ankles.
When Darcke spoke of “giving in,” he wasn’t referring to the fighting.
I hadn’t believed him that we weren’t affected by the drug. Not until we walked onto his ship and everywhere I looked people were shedding their leathers and fucking out in the open, their eyes glazed, not a single care for anyone seeing them.
I’d sprinted to my ship and gotten out of there before he could call me back. It had taken Envis throwing me off the ship the next morning to be able to face him, but Darcke had acted like nothing happened as he fetched Ilse and Kilia from the longhouse, dragging us all to the clearing where we had practiced after the bonding.
At least until we started fighting. He now teased and tempted me whenever he could, but as soon as we wrapped up for the evening, he disappeared onto his ship.
I still felt him, of course, but it was as if he waited for something.
Or someone.Darcke’s hoarse, foreign voice trickled down my spine. The one I’d started imagining whenever I could read his emotions too clearly, which was far more often than I was comfortable with.
“Are you ever going to take us to those pools you promised on the first day? I’m exhausted and warm and sticky and everything hurts,” Ilse complained.
“When you deserve it,” Darcke responded. “None of you have performed to my expectations today.”
“You need to get yourself a woman,” Kilia said as he wiped sweat from his neck. “Then you won’t be so fucking prickly.”
“As if you should speak about being prickly,” I mumbled, making Ilse giggle.
Kilia kicked some dust up from the ground as he moved closer. “What did you say?”
“That I could use some shade,” I replied, waving along his tall frame. “Thanks so much.”
Ilse’s giggle turned into full-blown laughter, and I hid a smile while lifting my hair and letting some air cool my neck.
“You should watch it.” Kilia moved in closer. “I’ve beaten you every time the past days.”
I lifted my chin to say something back when Kilia’s face was no longer above me. His mouth rounded in surprise as he was lifted into the air, and I winced with him when he hit the ground with a sharp crack that made the trees around us shake.
“You watch your tone,” Darcke snarled.
“I was”—Kilia wheezed before he could continue—“joking.”
Darcke shoved at my third with his boot. “You need to fucking practice because you’re not funny.”
When Ilse’s giggle died in the wind, I shook my head. “It’s fine.”
My fourth jumped to the side when Darcke whirled our way. “You realize the steel trial is happening any moment now? Weallneed to survive it. Weallneed to come out with weapons. We don’t have time for laziness or stupid jokes.”
Gods, hewasprickly today.
