“You’ve got a lot to learn. I hope you’re ready.”
And with a movement faster than any I’d ever seen, even from Xander, Raif drew his sword and struck.
I spent the better part of five minutes in retreat. Raif pressed forward, and I parried his blows without striking a single offensive maneuver. His relentless pursuit had my back bent more than once as I tried unsuccessfully to throw off the weight of his sword. I fought with two hands wrapped around the hilt of my saber, while Raif needed only one.
He twisted and turned, dissipating into a breath of dark air. “You are a poor excuse for a warrior!” he shouted. “You aren’t worthy of the name Shaede!” I ducked and jumped back as he swung his sword and followed with a fist. “You are slow, clumsy, and untrained! You are weak and pathetic; I wouldn’t honor you with a warrior’s death!”
I stumbled and rolled, coughed and labored, and never once had the presence of mind to make my body insubstantial. He had me against the ropes time and again. My mind raced to stay even a half pace ahead. In midswing, he paused, and lowered his sword.
“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want any chance of success in your mission,” he chided, taking an easy step back. His eyebrow quirked and he said, “I thought you were a fighter.”
“So?” I said, through gasps of air.
“So . . . fight.”
My temper surged and I rushed him. I pushed myself beyond my limits, thrusting the saber at his face and then swiping low at his knees. He deflected my attacks easily, but I wasn’t moving backward any longer. Confident and strong, my second wind came faster than I expected. I mimicked his movements, learning as we went. I shifted from shadow to my solid form with fluidity, seeming to travel through time itself, popping in and out of thin air. I met him blow for blow and once almost knocked him off his feet. Refusing to quit, I pushed myself until I thought I’d break under the pressure.
Only when Raif stopped and lowered his blade did I know we were done for the night. “Not bad,” he said with the barest touch of humor. “But not good either.” He sheathed his weapon and left me standing alone in the dark with orders to return in two nights’ time. There were no heartfelt words of congratulations, no offerings of a job well done. Not a whisper of who—or what—I was intended to kill.
I felt like I’d been run over by a bus, trampled by an elephant, and dragged behind a jet boat going Mach 10 over rocky river rapids. Until this point, I’d been self-trained in the art of assassination. I had no experience in combat. Common sense and my preternatural skills were what made me good at my job. Raif had thrown all of my arrogant misconceptions of myself on the floor and stomped them—hard. He’d worked me up one side and down the other.
Tyler showed up at my apartment just as I was dressing my wounds. I’d have to seriously reconsider my open-door policy with him. Since our impassioned kisses, he’d grown bolder, or at least more confident in his off- work-hours status with me. And Tyler was very stubborn.
I used my dining room table as a makeshift triage station. I’d already disposed of the torn spandex shirt I’d been wearing and tossed the pants as well. Perching on top of the table in a tank top and underwear was not a good way to get Ty to calm his libido.
His eyes looked like they were about to jump out of his head—like a cartoon character’s after he’s seen a pretty girl. But it only lasted a second once he noticed the bowl of bloody water and my sliced skin.
“Hell, Darian! What happened?”
Ass-tired and scored like a marinating steak, I wasn’t sure I wanted to exert the effort to recount the details of my Ultimate Fighter training session. “It’s no big deal. I’m fine; I’ll heal. Our boy from the other night has arranged for me to receive some job training a la a medieval warrior. I guess I’m not up to snuff.”
I grabbed the soaking rag and wrung the pink-tinged water from it. That’s as far as I got. Tyler didn’t waste a second to wrangle it from my grasp. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even look me in the eye. With gentle swipes, he tended each and every wound, rinsing the rag and starting all over. When he was done, he dried the excess moisture from my sliced skin and covered each cut with gauze, taping it in place. It took a half hour at least to dress the deeper cuts, and another fifteen minutes or so for him to check the various scratches that would be gone before I woke in the morning. I didn’t protest or argue; just simply let him do what he had in mind to do.
“Where did you get the gauze?” He laughed gently.
“Drugstore,” I murmured. “You should have seen the guy’s face when I walked up to the counter.”
As he worked, my eyes slipped shut. It had to have been somewhere around five in the morning, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so physically spent. My head dipped forward a couple of times, and I snapped to attention, determined not to fall asleep on top of my dining room table. When Tyler finished, I felt his cool arm wrap around my shoulders. With his free hand, he pushed gently above my sternum. I fell back against him like a feather landing on a puddle, and he scooped me up in his embrace and carried me to my bed.
“This doesn’t change anything, Ty,” I murmured as he set me down. “So don’t get any ideas.”
My eyes didn’t open again, but I felt a depression in the bed as Tyler lay down at my side. He wrapped his arm around my waist, careful not to touch the bandaged areas. For a moment I felt unsure, like I didn’t know Tyler at all. His breath tickled the skin near my ear, and I relaxed against him. Cool and fragrant, his presence lulled me with all the things I liked about him. Taking my hand in his, he caressed the silver ring he’d given me years ago. “Everything’s changed, Darian,” he whispered. “You just don’t realize it yet.”
The next day brought with it a debilitating stiffness. Thank God Raif had granted me two full days of rest. Muscles I didn’t even know I had ached. I could only hope he suffered a little in turn, but that was a pipe dream. I smiled indulgently as I imagined what it would be like to lay him flat out on his back and stomp my boot into his throat.
A seldom-heard buzz startled me. I realized it had come from my doorbell. I sighed, wondering why Tyler would think now, after everything he’d said and done, was the time to show respect for my privacy. I stomped to the intercom and pounded down on the button with a closed fist.
“Hit the bricks, Ty,” I said into the speaker. “I don’t have the patience to deal with the
“Um,” said a tiny voice on the other end. “I have a delivery for Darian . . .” He paused, and I could hear the shuffling of papers. “Sorry, no last name. I have a delivery for someone named Darian.”
I sighed heavily and wondered what it sounded like on the other end. “Come on up,” I grumbled.
After a couple of minutes, the grinding gears of the elevator lifted the delivery boy to my apartment. He didn’t move to open the life gate, so I opened it for him. Taking two timid steps, he positioned himself at the edge of the entrance. The six-foot-by-four-inch case he carried was supported by both hands and held aloft, like he was holding out a steak for a cougar.
“A-are you Darian?” he said.
“That’s me. What have you got there?”
“I don’t know!” he exclaimed, like I’d accused him of something. “I didn’t look.”
I laughed, hoping the sound would put him at ease, but I noticed his shoulders slowly creeping toward his ears. “I’m sure you didn’t peek,” I said, wishing I knew some motherly phrases to calm the poor kid down. “I guess I’ll just go ahead and take it.”
I reached out, making sure to keep my movements as slow and human as possible. The exchange went smoothly. As I reached to shut the lift gate and send him on his way, he remembered I needed to sign for the package. I took the clipboard and scribbled my name. He was pushing buttons on the wall as I slid the clipboard through the wooden slats of the gate. Apparently, he couldn’t leave fast enough. I laughed as he sank below my floor and out of sight. My charms didn’t work on everyone.
I carried the long rectangular box to my table. Three silver latches and a handle adorned the shiny mahogany container. I stood in front of the case, realizing it had been more years than I could count since I’d received a mysterious package of any kind, be it present, payoff, or threat. Could’ve been a bomb, though I doubted anyone would use a box so big. It might’ve contained a dozen long-stemmed roses. It was definitely too big for a necklace or pair of earrings, and certainly not Tyler’s MO. An AK-47, maybe? Only one way to find out. I threw caution aside and flipped the latches in succession before lifting the lid.
Resting inside the black-velvet-lined case was an ancient katana. The preferred weapon of the long-extinct
