Seth makes sweeping movements, fast, precise, and graceful, dodging here and ducking there. He uses his spear until Killian flicks it from his hands, and he has to draw his sword. He’s good, too. For all of Killian’s brute muscle, foresight, and skill, Seth balances the duel with speed, agility, and tricks like rolls and flips.
I think things would be different if they were using their magical abilities, but they’re not. Not that I can see, anyway.
Roarke guides me to the nearest tree, and I watch where I’m going between shooting curious glances back at Pax – he looks like he’s giving the same speech to the new Sabers.
“I don’t suppose Darkness taught you how to warm up first?” Roarke asks.
“I’ve never done anything strenuous enough to require warming-up.” Not before meeting these four.
Rourke chuckles, motioning for me to sit.
“Legs out wide,” he says, sitting opposite me and doing the same.
Damn, the guy is flexible. His legs are almost in a straight line. I try to do the same and only manage to get a wedge shape and a tinge of pain.
“Ninety percent of a battle is about the skill you have over your own body. The other ten percent is your awareness of your opponent.”
“Only ten percent?” I ask, because that sounds awfully low.
Roarke brings his feet in to rest against my ankles.
“Even if you only know one percent, only know exactly what your opponent is doing right now, if you have ninety percent of your body ready to react, you still own ninety percent of the battle. And ninety percent in any equation will win every time. Give me your hands.”
He grips my wrists and begins to pull me slowly forward.
“My math is about as good as my reading,” I admit.
He smiles at me. “We can work on that too, but right now I’m going to make you hurt.”
His words wash over me, settling low in my stomach. Somewhere between ‘please do’ and ‘wait, what? Bralls no.’
Then it hurts. Right up the inside of my legs, all the way into my hips, then shooting up my back.
He leans in, releasing the pressure, and I straighten before anything more than a low hiss has escaped my lips.
Killian and Seth both glance over at me. Killian, however, decides I’m just being a big baby and uses the moment to kick his little brother in the stomach. Seth doubles over, rolling out of the way as he curses.
“I didn’t mean this bit’s going to hurt,” Roarke says, his lips pulled to one side as he thinks. “That was just the beginning.”
He shuffles his feet, pushing my legs a little further apart, then pulls me forwards again. The motion is slow, but the pain is not.
“And what is this going to achieve?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“You’re not going to kick him in the head if you can’t get your leg past your hips.”
“One,” I say relaxing back. “I wasn’t planning on kicking him in the head, and two,” I grit my teeth again as he pulls me forwards, “I could probably already get my foot that high.”
Roarke chuckles, shaking his head, and pulls me forward as far as I can bend.
When I’m about to struggle, he lets me relax back.
Bralls, the pain!
He pulls me forwards again, further than last time, and a little whimper escapes me.
“You know I’d be happy for you to take this pain away, right?” I say.
He shakes his head. “Stretching has to hurt just right. You’re looking for that perfect spot where your muscles are challenged but not broken – that’s something you have to feel for.”
I hiss again.
“Well, you’ve gone too far.”
“Not yet, I haven’t.”
I gasp, hiss, then growl.
Seth sails through the air and lands with a thump on his back, not far from us.
“Will you stop making that noise?” he grumbles. “It’s making me get my ass kicked.”
“Then fight harder,” I snap at him.
He cocks his head to the side, that ‘challenge-accepted’ smile on his face.
“You know you’re supposed to stretch him too?” he asks, popping to his feet. “And every time I take a hit, you both have to go deeper.”
Seth ducks Killian’s swing, his gaze not leaving mine.
I open my mouth to say, ‘no chuckin' way’ when Roarke cuts me off.
“Deal.”
“What? No deal!”
Killian brings his boot in low and sweeps Seth off his feet, but mid-fall Seth kicks out and manages to send Killian staggering before Seth hits the ground.
Roarke adjusts his feet again, making my legs and his wider.
“You can pull me down as low as you want,” he says, motioning that I should lean back and drag him forwards into the same stretch that I’ve been doing.
I start to lean back, but he doesn’t tense, doesn’t wince, doesn’t even resist me. I lie all the way onto my back, almost putting his nose to the ground, and he comes up smiling.
“What’s the point?” I mutter.
He ignores that. “I’m going to pull you towards one leg now.”
He’s already making me move by the time he’s finished his sentence, pulling, and at the same time reaching to guide my body with a firm hand on my side.
“Lower your head towards your knee,” he instructs.
“I’m trying,” I growl.
While my head’s down, I hear a thump on the ground. “Who was that?”
“Killian.”
“Thank chuck,” I groan.
We move across to my other leg, then I repeat the same stretch on Roarke. Then Seth hits the ground again. And again.
And again.
Roarke adjusts our stretch to my very limits.
Tears have started to well in my eyes, and my breathing is nothing more than little gasps when he says, “You know you don’t have to play our games, right? Just call it off.”
I consider that as he pulls me forward.
“I like your games,” I say, then he puts pressure on the back of my neck, and I hiss.
By the time Killian and Seth call it quits,
