“Any objections if I spar with her?” Roarke asks, getting to his feet and dusting the moisture and wet grass from his breeches.
Killian rumbles in agreement and hands his sword over to Roarke.
“What if I object?” I ask, because asking me first would have been nice.
Seth offers me a hand up, and I shake my wobbly legs out. This pleasant kind of pain is a weird and wonderful new discovery.
Then Seth offers me his sword. I take a really big step away from it.
Killian shakes his head. “Use your blade.”
I pull it from my pocket, then blanch.
“You want me to fight a sword wielding Elite Saber who has magic with this?”
Killian smiles, that full-mouth, bright and alive smile. He’s enjoying this.
“Is it bad that I like it when you do that?” I ask softly.
“Do what?” he asks.
“Smile, get excited, even when it means I’m going to end up in pain.”
“Why?” he asks, some of his expression smoothing into curiosity.
“Because I can see you like it.”
He just grunts.
She moves in the wrong way. I correct the motion, then three seconds later we repeat the process, all the time trying to explain that the movement is like wielding my power. It’s a dance, not a blacksmith beating steel into shape.
And she is improving. If improving were the slow process of a seedling growing into an oak, and the world wasn’t preparing for war.
In the periphery, Rose returns to the cottage carrying a deer over her shoulders. Her stride is confident, her head held high even under the weight, and the blade at her side is already cleaned.
Powerful – that woman is powerful and deadly.
She deposits the deer by the fire then ambles towards us, blood staining her shoulders.
With one finger she runs a line of the red liquid down her forehead. She enjoys it, like a hungry stomach enjoys food. Killian watches her, and he’s watching Kitten too. For a flicker of a second I smell the desire coming off of him, but I’m not sure which woman it’s for.
Kitten moves to the left, leaving her right unguarded, and I tap her hip with the flat of my blade. Killian’s going to tell me I’m too soft on her – but I don’t want to see her bruised.
The purple marks still on her throat are almost too much to bear.
“Use your shoulders, reach,” Killian calls, growling at her across the distance.
She adjusts. Always listening – always pushing herself. Never achieving.
She would have made a good Saber. With a Seed of her own and time to develop like everyone else who gets the Calling, she could have been strong.
Perhaps if her mother wasn’t mortal. She’s technically still very young, only breathed air for eighteen years. Pax’s skills at eighteen pretty much revolved around ripping things apart in anger. He hadn’t held a sword when I met him. Hadn’t won a fight as a man. Was still struggling to survive.
But he has had the luxury of a few hundred years to grow up.
“You’re training her like she’s male – she’s not. She’s female,” I hear Rose telling Killian.
She tucks her hands under her armpits, which is unusual for the Saber. Perhaps a means to stop herself from pointing in the lass’s direction.
Killian grunts at her. He knows she’s a woman. No man could miss that.
Kitten lunges at me, and I sidestep, tapping her blade out of the way.
“Don’t reach outside your balance. Learn where your center of gravity is,” I tell her.
“Her arms are never going to be as strong as a man’s – but she has an amazing core. Teach her to use that. That’s where her strength is going to be,” Rose says.
Killian makes his agreement audible, and Rose huffs in response, her smile making the air between them heat. I switch my attention back to Kitten, all the while making her dance and duck and weave. One of the gifts of Allure is a slight command over time and space. Being able to do two things at once.
I watch how the girl moves. Trying to understand what Rose is talking about.
Aria ambles over to Killian’s other side. Rose holds her hand out, and Aria leans around Killian to slap Rose’s hand in camaraderie. I skirt to the left, making Kitten move right, and watch her face when she spots Killian bookended by two strong females.
Brow creased, eyes narrowed, and nose scrunching. I hadn’t expected the nose scrunching.
“Lilies and roses,” she pants, her gaze fixing on me. “What does that mean?”
“Lust and desire.”
“Who?”
I lower my sword, turning to look properly at how the women are interacting with Killian.
“Ro –” I begin to say, but a sharp kick to the back of my knee cuts me off.
I stumble forward, twisting to face her.
“Sorry, don’t know what made me do that,” she says, stepping back.
But I’m smiling, and after one look at my expression, she smiles too – through her puffing. She bends over, trying to support herself and balance leaning on her knees. She looks like she might be about to collapse.
She hasn’t asked to stop.
“Do you ever ask for help?” I ask.
She shakes her head just a little, sucks in a breath, and tries to straighten.
Aeons, why hadn’t I clued into that sooner? In the stables when we were at the White Castle, on the road here, when Killian trained with her at the cave, now. She pushes herself no matter what she’s doing – to the point of almost killing herself. Something inside me twists, a need to protect her. To be more careful, more watchful.
She’s a thousand times more Saber-spirited than she realizes.
I nod toward Killian, hesitating until she can breathe again. Until she takes the lead.
We approach the spectators together. Rose and Aria’s seals have already dissolved, so they’re on borrowed time. I listen to their gentle conversation – which is probably out of Kitten’s auditory range. My little Kitten.
“Mortal?” Aria asks, waving in our direction.
Rose gives her a
