“What?” His tone was light. “You’d end up cutting off five fingers and a foot if you started messing with those things right now.”
“Your faith in me is staggering.” I tugged off the hoodie, dropping it on the corner of the mat with my scarf.
He smiled as he stood in the middle of a thick blue mat. “The first thing you have to learn, before we can move onto anything, is how to correctly take a fall when you’re knocked down.”
“There’s a correct way to fall?”
His golden brows rose as his lips twitched. “Yes, there’s a correct way. And that way allows you to absorb the hit with minimal impact and also allows you to get right back on your feet.
And that’s the most important thing, Josie. If your enemy gets you on your back and keeps you down there, it’s over.”
“Okay.” I reached up, tightening my ponytail. “So that’s what I’m going to learn?”
“That’s what you’re going to start with, then we’ll end practice with running.”
My lips curled. Running? Ugh.
“You need to build up your endurance. That’s the easiest way to do it.” Seth stretched his arms above his head, back bowing. Joints cracked. “To take a landing correctly, you roll your hips in and keep your chin tucked down. This will cause you to take the fall on your upper back.”
I ran that through my head. Hips rolled in. Chin tucked. “I got this.”
A dubious look marked his expression. “All right.”
Shaking my arms out, I started to tell him that I was ready, but the next thing I knew I slammed into the mat. Pain exploded along my spine and across the base of my skull, knocking the air right out of my lungs. The overhead lights turned into a hundred dazzling stars before the corners of my vision darkened.
Uh oh.
Holy shit.
The moment Josie went into the air was the exact moment I knew I’d fucked up. So used to training with other halfs and Sentinels, I hadn’t checked myself. Even though she was a demigod and her body had to be resilient, her powers were bound and she obviously had never done any real fighting, so knocking her down like she was any other person I was training with was a fucking huge miscalculation on my part.
Holy shit, I fucked up.
Unease exploded in my gut as I dropped onto my knees beside her. A wave of muggy loathing wrapped itself around me. Thick, dusky brown lashes fanned her pale skin. I reached for her, my fingers hovering above her cheek. “Josie?”
My heart literally skipped a damn beat as those lashes fluttered and then swept up. Clear blue eyes met mine. “Ow.”
A strangled laugh escaped me as I picked up her limp hand, rubbing it between my palms. “Shit, Josie, I’m sorry. I should’ve held back. Are you okay?”
She wet her lips, and that sent a jolt straight to my cock, which officially made me an ass. “Where were you last night?”
The question almost knocked me on my butt. Out of everything I expected her to say, that wasn’t it. I placed her hand on the mat as I rocked back on my heels. “The day got away from me.”
That was absolute bullshit. The day hadn’t really gotten away from me. It had dragged on after I’d met with Marcus. I’d spent a good part of my day trailing Josie and the guys like a grade-A stalker, and then, when I’d headed back to the dorm, I’d run into Thea, and that was about three shit levels of awkward. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she was here, since the Covenant in the Catskills was still out of commission. If Josie and the guys hadn’t shown up, I probably would have chewed my arm off to get away.
I’d thought Josie and I needed space.
Well, I had needed space, because what had almost happened between us yesterday morning was something I didn’t…I hadn’t deserved. It was that simple. Affection wasn’t in my cards. So I spent most of last night unable to sleep, out by the damn cemetery, sitting on the bench, staring at the repaired statues I’d destroyed the last time I’d been here, and wanting nothing more than to somehow forget the last two years of my life.
Josie stared at me a moment, and then swallowed. “Oh. Okay,” she said hoarsely, and I did my best to also forget that. She started to sit up and I got an arm around her shoulders, helping her. “I…I suck.”
Way inappropriate visions danced in my head like a streaming porn flick. Nice. I got her up on her feet. “You don’t suck, Josie. That was my fault. I needed to pull back and—”
“Will Hyperion hold back the next time he finds me?” She stepped away, and I let my arm fall. “No? Will a daimon, if it gets its hands on me? I’m guessing that’s a no, too. So let’s do this again.”
Tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, I was mentally halfway to the door, because I didn’t want to do this. With Alex, I hadn’t thought twice about the possibility of accidentally injuring her, but it was a real concern with Josie, and that sucked ass. My stomach churned as I forced myself to stand behind her.
But it was more than that.
My gaze traveled to the wall, to where all the weapons were displayed. No matter what she’d said, she hadn’t fully accepted the knowledge that she’d have to kill to survive. All of this training was pointless if she couldn’t do that. It was such…such a mortal moral to cling to, one I’d never had any problem tossing aside. For a moment, I thought of all those I’d hunted down in the past year. If Josie couldn’t kill to protect herself, what would she think if she knew how many I’d killed?
“When you fall, cross your arms over your chest.” Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I grabbed hold of her arms from behind her and crossed them over her chest. Then I got a damn good handful of her hips, and I heard her soft inhale. Ignoring that was impossible. “Tilt your hips like this and tuck your chin down. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, her voice thicker, huskier.
My jaw worked overtime. “Let me see you do it a couple of times. The mechanics of it.”
Josie did what I asked. Under my hands, her hips tilted forward as she dipped her chin, getting her arms across her chest. And every time I felt those muscles tense, it took everything in me not to grab those hips and haul them back to mine.
Her hips moved again, and I almost groaned.
I needed to get my head into the game. Refocusing on her for the right reasons, I had her keep doing the motions until they were smooth, but my hands lingered as I stepped back, having a mind of their own as they slid off.
She turned, facing me. Her bottom lip was stuck between her teeth.
“Ready?”
There was a nod.
Cursing this and about a dozen other things, I swung out, catching her on the shoulder. Down she went, smacking into the mat. Not the correct way.
“Dammit,” she moaned, unfolding her arms as she stared up at the ceiling. “That…that stings.”
Walking over to where she lay, her legs at awkward angles, I extended a hand, and hated myself for what I said next. “Get up. Do it again.”
Josie groaned as she folded her hand in mine.
I hauled her up.
We squared off.
I knocked her down again.
And she didn’t land right.
This was going to be a long day.