Page 54 of The Witch They Crave

"Dellaby." Midus doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't have to. The whole field goes quiet anyway. "Since you've decided the rules are optional, let's see how that works against someone who doesn't need them."

He jerks his chin at Kage.

"Front and center. You're sparring my instructor."

Everything in me drops half an inch.

Kage crosses the field slow, staff loose in one hand. The smirk is up, but his eyes aren't in it. Up close, they're saying one thing, clear as anything: don't.

Don’t what? Do what I’m told?

Sorry Kage, I don’t really have a choice right now…

I grip the staff harder, sweat beading down my spine. I didn’t stand a chance sparring with Beau–against Kage? I’m dead.

"Whenever you're ready," Midus says, and folds his arms.

Kage moves first, because he has to. But he moves at half speed—a lazy overhead swing I actually manage to catch, a follow-up that lands soft, footwork that keeps giving me room. He's carrying the whole thing. Fighting Midus's order and me at the same time and making it look like a fair match.

Midus sees what he’s doing in about four seconds.

"Is this a spar or a dance?" A pause. Then, flat, precise, a leash yanked: "Kage. Disarm her. Now."

Something violent crosses Kage's face.

I get my staff up in time to catch the first strike. Barely. The impact rings down both arms and I give ground, boots skidding in the grass, and swing back on instinct—a wild, graceless shot Kage doesn't even bother to block because it was never going to land.

I try again. He steps it, patient, waiting for the opening he's been ordered to take.

Then he takes it.

He pivots inside my guard, sweeps my staff wide, and drives his shoulder into my chest. It's not his full strength—I'd be a smear in the grass if it were—but his juiced up vamp strength does the trick. The air goes out of me in one punched, airless heave. My feet leave the ground. I land flat on my back hard enough to bounce, staff snapping clean in two under me, both halves spinning out of my hands.

For a second there's nothing. No breath, no sound, a bright white shock spreading through my ribs and skull. My lungs won't fill. My body's forgotten the mechanism entirely, and the panic of it—the specific animal panic of not being able to breathe—whites out everything else.

Then it comes back in a rush that burns, and the field rushes back with it.

Somewhere to my left, Beau laughs. A couple of others join in. The witch on her back in the grass. Great show.

Kage stands over me, hand not offered, jaw tight, the smirk nowhere. Through the bond, under the ringing in my skull, I feel it—that made him sick.

"On your feet," Midus says, already bored. He toes one half of my broken staff. "And since you can't be trusted with a weapon or the rules—the two of you, shed, get her another. Try not to break this one, Dellaby."

He turns back to the class.

Kage's eyes find mine. Two seconds of something real—I'm sorry, I had no choice—and then it's gone, and he's already walking toward the tree line like none of it happened.

I push up off the grass, collect both halves of my staff, and follow.

The shed door swings shut behind us and the field noise cuts to nothing. Dim and close. Two high windows, leather and iron smell, a workbench along the back wall, staves racked upright in the corner.

Kage doesn't go for the rack.

He turns the second the door's shut, hands coming up to my face, my shoulders. He’s shaking, just slightly, and the smirk is nowhere.

"How hard did I hit you?" Not a question. He's already checking my ribs. "Breathe for me. All the way in."

"I'm fine."