to control it and use it. I blew out a breath of resignation and closed my eyes.
Rina? I silently called out, hoping she wasn't asleep yet.
Chapter 4
The next morning, Ophelia served us breakfast again, which included a note from Rina that Tristan and I were to meet Charlotte in the gym and Rina and I would work together afterwards.
'I wonder what we're doing with Char,' I said.
'Who's Char?' Dorian asked.
'Uncle Owen's mom,' I said.
Dorian's mouth dropped open, as if I'd just told him Owen was with a pink elephant in a tutu. 'Uncle Owen has a mom?'
'Of course, silly. Everyone has a mom.'
'She has some skills to teach you, I do believe,' Tristan said.
'Sounds boring.' Dorian crinkled his nose. 'I'm gonna go play games. Uncle Owen said we got a new Harry Potter game.'
He gave Tristan a hug, smacked a wet kiss on my cheek and ran off.
'Games?' Tristan asked.
'If there's a computer anywhere in this mansion, Dorian would find it and all the games on it, too. Kind of like you and your toys,' I said, then something occurred to me. I couldn't believe, being a writer and usually tied to my laptop, I hadn't thought about it before. 'Are there computers here?'
'Of course. In the media room.'
My brows furrowed with another thought. 'How do they run? And how come I just now realized I haven't seen any electricity since we've been here? I'm a disgrace to my generation.'
Tristan chuckled. 'The island does that to you. Especially this mansion. You feel like you've stepped into another world and another time.'
'It feels so … natural, though.' This place–this world–seemed to become stranger every time I turned around, yet it still felt like … home, I supposed. Almost as though I belonged here. Almost, but not quite.
'There's a power plant on the island. Fueled by magic, of course.'
'Of course,' I muttered.
'Rina prefers to keep things old-fashioned.' Tristan rose from the table and held his hand out for mine. 'You ready?'
I placed my hand in his, and he led the way. We left the mansion through the front door and walked along a path lined with sixty-foot-tall cypress trees and a series of ancient stone arches overhead.
'I can't believe this place is so old,' I said, awed by the huge arches. The island and the mansion had been a part of the Amadis since the beginning.
'A couple of millennia,' Tristan said. 'About as old as anything in Greece.'
'It's been well taken care of.' I ran my hand along the smooth marble of one of the arches as we passed through.
'It's protected by the Otherworld. This place–the mansion and the whole island–is practically sacred.'
We turned off the main path and down a narrower one through the trees that led to a short, stout building. The two-story stone structure was a miniature replica of the huge mansion, bigger than Mom's cottage in Cape Heron had been, but smaller than our beach house in the Keys. The wooden door stood ajar.
Tristan led me into a room that took up nearly the whole building. The walls and hardwood floor were bare and a grid of wooden beams stretched overhead where a second floor would have been, with the roof far above the beams. The grid was multi-dimensional–the beams weren't level with each other but set at different heights. Sunrays streamed in through open skylights and created an interesting pattern of shadows on the floor.
'I'm in here,' Charlotte called from our right.
We followed her voice into a small area near the door and my jaw dropped. Weapons of every kind imaginable except firepower lined the walls and floor–short knives, daggers, curved sabers, long swords, stars, chains, axes and other things I had no names for.
'No guns?' I asked, trying to hide my bewilderment.
'Guns are pretty useless in our world,' Charlotte said. Instead of the leather of yesterday, she wore a tight black tank, black spandex pants and black boots, and her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail. And she was still intimidating. 'Unless you're were-hunting, which is outlawed for the Amadis. Remember: our goal is not to kill unless there is no hope or if it's absolutely necessary to protect yourself or someone else.'
Her blue eyes traveled up and down my body as though sizing me up, and then she wrote something on a clipboard.
'These are practice weapons,' she said, casually waving her hand in the air. 'Sophia put me in charge of training you. We'll figure out your strengths before deciding on your weapon of choice.'
Ah. Charlotte wanted to train me. This was one of her rewards for Mom dragging her onto the council.
'But we have powers. Are they not enough?'
'You always want choices,' Charlotte said matter-of-factly.
'Especially with vamps. They're nearly impossible to kill,' Tristan added.
I regarded the weapons, intimidated by the number and variety. The idea of actually using them, practice or not, made my stomach lurch. I hated fighting. I hated watching it and I sure as hell hated doing it. I'd already had enough violence in the last week with Vanessa and Tristan and wished I'd never have to fight again.
But I had to be logical, and I knew those weren't my only battles. Apparently, everyone thought I needed to improve my skills, which I couldn't disagree with, although I could think of other training I'd prefer to be doing. Like with my telepathy. Now that I'd decided I wanted to learn how to use it, I was anxious to begin my lessons with Rina.
'So where do we start?' I asked, wanting to get this over with.
Charlotte eyed me again and wrote something on her pad. 'We start with hand-to-hand combat.'
She flicked her hand and pointed us toward the main space. What had been a bare room only a few minutes ago now held various sized punching bags on stands and hanging from the beams. I glanced down at the sundress and Mom's borrowed cardigan I wore.
'Mom could have warned me,' I muttered. 'I don't have many clothes that fit, but I do have running wear.'
'No worries. You both have training clothes in there.' Charlotte pointed to a doorway next to the weapons area. 'And you should have new clothes in your suite by the end of the day, by the way.'
Tristan and I changed together in the little room that contained only a bench with two piles of clothes on it. I held up a black sports bra and black spandex pants–the only clothes for me–and nearly groaned, until I remembered my new body. Tristan had been given nothing but a pair of loose black pants. With his hair pulled back in a ponytail, he looked as though he belonged in a martial-arts film, ready to fight in a tournament or take on his self-righteous teacher. In other words, he looked delicious.
'I'm supposed to concentrate with you in that?' Tristan asked, his eyes traveling up and down my body. I couldn't help it. I shivered.
'Ditto,' I muttered and forced myself to tear my eyes from his very bare, very lickable chest. I contemplated our feet instead. 'But no shoes or boots?'
'Not necessary yet,' Charlotte answered as we returned to the main room. She stood by a hanging bag. 'So, we start small and we'll get as far as we can, while we can. I could be called to the field again at any time. Tristan can always take over for me, but it's easier to have us both here.'
'Okay, then let's do it.' I had nowhere else to be except with Rina, so the sooner we finished today's training, the sooner I could work with Rina and the sooner I would learn about the mysterious girl.
We started with various punches: jabs, hooks, crosses and uppercuts, as well as martial arts chops and strikes. Tristan demonstrated the moves and Charlotte watched my form.
'Some inaugural meeting for the two of us, huh?' Charlotte asked as I practiced my right hook.
