“We’re already playing.” Christan’s voice was so remote it stung like ice. “I’m touching you from here and you think it’s real. You’re so ready, I could put you down and spread you wide until you scream. But when your back arches off the floor, that’s all it will be. Not. Real.”
The moment fractured, crystalline shards falling at her feet. For an instant Lexi thought it was all of her and she reached out, trying to pull the pieces of herself back together. But he had broken her, as he had broken her so many times before. Words flowed into her mind. She said them without knowing what they meant in this life.
But she did in another life.
“Ti odio, Christan.”
So bitter, so empty. Lexi saw the shock run through him before he answered.
“E’ cosi facile da fare.”
And he was gone.
CHAPTER 18
“You look like shit.”
Christan ignored Arsen’s comment as he attacked the training bag with one well-placed kick. Two hours of physical exertion and the pressure was still in his spine, splintering in his brain. Christan summoned a burst of power that exploded the canvas bag into a pile of sifted sand and fiber.
“That bag was expensive,” Arsen said.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Rough night?”
Christan reached down, snatched a black shirt from the floor and shrugged it on over loose black pants. “Nothing I haven’t handled before.”
He prowled around the workout area in the basement of the Wallowa compound. Arsen had everything, from machines and free weights, to a rock climbing wall and the padded training square large enough for warriors fighting in their animal forms. Benches lined one wall. It was an improvement over the training facilities of past centuries.
Arsen was still watching, and Christan turned with an aggressive stance. “What—am I taking your spot?”
“Nope. Just wondered if there was something I ought to know.”
Christan looked at him. He wasn’t sure he liked his second’s tone. “You questioning me now?”
“You’ve been away a long time. Things change. Not saying they didn’t change back the moment you returned, but I still feel the obligation.”
“For what?” Christan’s eyes narrowed. Arsen, he noticed, didn’t flinch.
“You know we’re like brothers, right? I’ve got your back.”
“And?”
“I’ve got Lexi’s back, too. So, like I asked earlier, is there something I ought to know?”
“Are you her champion now?” Christan walked away. It wasn’t like Arsen didn’t have enough problems with his own girl, hadn’t made some upside-down decisions throughout the centuries. And it went without saying that Christan didn’t like being questioned. Which Arsen was actually doing. Respectfully, but still questioning an enforcer.
Arsen stood his ground. Braced his feet, just in case. Christan was starting to get a bad feeling about what happened last night and he didn’t like it.
Arsen said, “I talked to Marge this morning. She went by Lexi’s cabin to see why she hadn’t shown up for breakfast.”
Christan braced his hands on his hips. Waited.
“Whatever you did, we don’t do that kind of shit anymore. Not in this century.”
“You forget yourself.”
“No, Enforcer, I don’t, and with all due respect, I’m your second-in-command. I would follow you anywhere. I would fucking die for you if you asked. And I am standing here telling you that you stepped over a line last night and it can’t happen again. She didn’t deserve that.”
A muscle jerked in Christan’s jaw. He shifted his gaze to a point above Arsen’s shoulder where there was a thick gouge in the wall. Like where someone had thrown something very hard. Very recently, as in maybe not more than twenty minutes ago. Christan didn’t need Arsen to tell him he’d stepped over the line. He’d known it the moment he’d done it.
Arsen continued to wait.
Christan blew out a deep breath. He was disgusted by what he did. Yes, he’d wanted her. Was burning. Dying inside, and then everything came back and he could have done so much more. He was out of control and that could not be allowed to happen. “Reprimand noted and accepted. I was an ass.”
“The apology isn’t owed to me. And she’s due here in five minutes for training. Since I have a meeting I can’t avoid, I thought you could take over the lesson. But that was before I talked to Marge. If you don’t want to do it I’ll ask Robbie.”
“Maybe you should ask Robbie,” said a pissed off voice from the doorway. Lexi stood in tight flowered leggings and a blue tank top. Her hair was twisted into a blond knot at the top of her head. Her face was startlingly beautiful, eyes full of defiance. Christan’s gaze narrowed on the defensive set of her shoulders, the slim curve of her hips, and he remembered everything she’d ever done to annoy him. Everything he had ever done to annoy her. Everything they’d ever done together. Hostility vibrated in the air.
Arsen disappeared. Neither of them noticed.
She walked toward him with a slow, feminine roll, sleek and powerful, reminding Christan of a stalking cat. Oh, yeah, she was pissed about last night and so was he. There was too much between them and he couldn’t think straight until he excised it. Demolished it. Obliterated her. From the look in her eyes she wanted the same, needed it more than he did. This would go down as all train wrecks did. He widened his stance, reaching for the coming battle with eager need.
“I think I taught you how to fight… once,” he said, and immediately regretted it when memory flashed in his mind.
“I think I forgot,” she replied, stopping within two feet of him, no fear visible in those amber eyes. “No, wait—I didn’t forget the fighting. We’ve got the whole fighting thing down pat.”
She smelled of sunshine, fresh clover crushed in a field, but she was no innocent. Wicked emotion flared, lacking in all compassion.
Lexi circled with him, each of them tracking the other’s movements. Christan read the expression in her eyes and matched it with his own. She had issues about what he did to her last night—well, so did he, because she’d done a hell of a lot to him, too. He didn’t like the way she slid beneath his skin, the questions she raised and refused to answer. He wanted her back in the box where he’d kept her all those centuries, a neat explanation in his mind.
“You play a risky game,” Christan said, his voice a rough purr.
“I live in a risky world,” she answered just as seductively.
“You don’t have what it takes.”
“Come up with something new.”
Christan paid attention to the way she moved, alert and fluid with a dancer’s stance, balanced on the balls of her feet so she could move in any direction. He remembered Arsen mentioning it, recalled the way he’d watched her walking through the rain and thought the same thing. She’d obviously been paying attention during her training. She kept her eyes on his face, but she was reading his body language, the flex of muscle or shift of balance that would warn of an attack. Trying to identify his tells. He faked an arm movement but she’d been looking at his feet, knew he hadn’t shifted his weight. She was more intuitive than he expected.
“What has Arsen been teaching you?” he demanded, irritated.
“You’d like to know,” she taunted. “I’ve had other training besides what I do with Arsen.”
“Pretend martial arts?”
Her bark of laughter excited him. “Yeah, they have a new kind, a mix of yoga and Brazilian kick boxing, but it hasn’t caught on.”
“I can’t understand why.” Christan faked another attack. She slid easily in the opposite direction, and when he reached for her, she was two feet away.
“Street fighting against a human is one thing,” he challenged, suddenly curious. “In our world, your opponent won’t always be human.”
“Yeah, I got that one too,” she said, staring at him and letting her gaze say what needed to be said about who and what he was. “Anything else?”
“If I’m going to teach you, I need to know what you can do, not what you think you can do.” He hadn’t liked the way she looked at him. “That way you won’t kill yourself.” Or he wouldn’t kill her. Accidentally, of course.