“First blood. Cheating. With two blades,” I said. “Like that?”
“First blood to the Enforcer,” Leo said, his voice coming from the side, where the spectators sat, amusement in his voice. “Does our Enforcer’s methodology fit within the parameters of the rules of etiquette?”
Gee pulled the weapon from his flesh and his padded suit. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it back to me. Had Beast not been so close in my mind, I might have gotten stuck. Instead, I batted the flying claw out of the air and down to the ground. With the new blade. Gee chortled, delighted. “Excellent. You will learn quickly, my little goddess. Or not.”
Crap. I was gonna learn how to fight with swords. And I didn’t know whether Gee’s or not meant that I’d learn fast or not, or that I was his goddess or not. Either way, I was so in trouble.
Behind me I heard mocking laughter. Without turning, I said, “I’ll kick your butt for that one, Eli.”
“You can try,” my partner said, still taunting. “I’m just glad I’m not the part-time Enforcer. Somebody’s gonna be sore.”
? ? ?
I was taught the positions for my feet for the Spanish Circle and how to step into a lunge. I was not taught how to parry, which I guessed was a move for wusses. And once I halfway had the basic moves in my mind, if not in my muscle memory, I was slapped half to death with the flat, beat with the dulled edge, and stuck with the point of Gee’s sword. I was disarmed, tripped, elbowed, tapped numerous times—over a kidney from the back or into my gut from the front—light blows and shallow cuts that would have killed me had they been delivered with any intent. Gee made me pay for first blood with a host of bruises and a little blood when I turned wrong and his short sword caught my arm. Skinwalker blood added to the vamp stench of the room. Once upon a time that had bothered me. A lot. Now I had no reaction at all to the smell of my blood in a room full of vamps.
As soon as I was warmed up—his words, warmed up, more like sweating like a horse—we sparred. The next six hours were a blur. Okay, maybe not really six hours, but it felt like it. I was dripping with sweat when the sparring-practice session was over, and yes. I was sore.
Beast was elated. Beast likes long claw, she murmured to me. More.
“No more,” I gasped, wiping the sweat from my eyes. “I’m done.”
“Accepted,” Gee said, dropping his practice blades. “Tomorrow we will practice the same moves, study three more, and then spar for thirty minutes.”
“Yeah?” I brightened. “I can do thirty.”
“Excellent. Today you managed only twelve,” Gee said, swatting me one last time across my butt. Hard.
“Owww. What was that for?” I asked, rubbing my backside.
“For being so very out of shape.”
“Me! Bleeding and bruised all over, but not out of shape.” I pulled on my Beast and skinwalker magics, a small tug of gray energies, to help me get out the door. I am not out of shape.
Eli laughed. Evil man. But he took my weapons, which now weighed about forty pounds each, and carried them, along with my discarded leathers, toward the door. Out of shape? It had been a while since I lifted weights with the Youngers, but out of shape?
Just as we reached the hallway door, a prickle of danger danced along my skin, burning through the drying sweat on the damp, elastic fabric of my clothing. I stepped in front of Eli and grabbed the long sword from his lax grip. “Gun,” I whispered.
He didn’t argue or ask questions. He slapped a nine-mil into my hand and pulled his own weapons as I whipped my eyes across the gym. People were everywhere, three pairs on the sparring mats, Leo and Gee together, Grégoire and Bruiser together, Del and a young vamp named Liam, all with blades, sparring. What I was feeling wasn’t coming from them.
“What?” Eli asked, his voice dropping low, his body tightening all over, the way an animal pulls inward just before the pounce.
Heat and light danced into the room, tingling on my skin. My body flooded with adrenaline, my eyes darting everywhere at once. Something was coming. Coming fast. “Magic!” I shouted. “Leo! Gee! Bruiser! Beware!”
There was a glint across the room, a glistening brilliance, yet no one looked up. At the back door, the light-being flowed through and into the room, snaking along the ceiling, a sparkling hint of rainbows and shadow. I pointed. “Lillilend,” I said.