Chapter Nine
Samara
Raphael tossed me a sheathed steel sword as soon as we entered the training arena. Thea moved to her usual position on the bench, as if this was another of Demos’s lessons. But Raphael was obviously a very different type of teacher.
“Show me what you can do,” he ordered.
I frowned, unsheathing the blade. It weighed as much as the practice swords I’d trained with, but the silver sheen of the metal made it feel heavier somehow. “What about drills?”
He picked up another scabbard and pulled out an identical blade. “That’s more Iademos’s style. This is mine. Take a swing.”
Still, I hesitated. “I could hurt you with this.”
The vampire just smirked. “I’d certainly like you to try.
But that blade is unlikely to cause any real damage, even in the most experienced hands.
It’s steel, not cursed copper or a bronze alloy.
You’re a vampire now. We can’t get infected from a wound.
We’re unlikely to bleed out. Our skin is tougher, bones harder. Immortality isn’t so easily bested.”
We. Our.
“What about decapitation?” A blade was a blade, cursed copper or not.
Raphael smirked with approval. “That would do it. In general, with a vampire, it’s best to go for the head.”
“Then giving me this sword is dangerous,” I pressed.
“All the best things are.” His grin was a little feral, and I wished what it stirred inside me was only fear. “Come on, viper. Show me what you’ve got.”
Fine. His funeral. I tightened my grip and charged.
Steel met steel with a resounding clang.
I was fast now, so much faster. My mind needed to adjust to the speed of battle. I swung again.
Raphael blocked, but he didn’t counter.
Swing.
Block.
Swing.
Block.
We went over and over, a dance of steel. The call of battle came quickly now, spurred on by my anger that had barely stopped simmering. Make him pay. The anger was a vicious flame, fanned by every lazy counter from the vampire.
He didn’t see me as a threat. Didn’t fear me.
He should. They all should.
I moved faster, my strikes coming at all angles. I hit hard. There was no careful calculus, just raw anger. I’d felt it before when I’d seen Demos and Thea sparring. But now it was tenfold, roaring at me to attack, attack, attack.
I want to see him bleed.
I had him. He was retreating. Somehow, I was winning. I didn’t hold back. My strikes were even more vicious, narrowly missing their targets.
Then, a quick blow behind my calves. Not with his blade, but his foot.
Shit. The fight went from far too fast to unfathomably slow as my body fell. I collided with the floor and let out a huff as the fall winded me. I opened and shut my eyes, the haze of battle clearing as I tried to refocus.
Raphael towered above me, feet planted on either side of me.
The righteous anger was gone. Instead, humiliation scalded me.
He’d been toying with me, letting me think I was winning.
Then he’d tripped me. How could I think I could best a several-hundred-year-old vampire who had seen combat who knew how many times?
I’d fallen for such an obvious trap, blinded by the anger, the desire to make him pay, even though this was just a training exercise.
“Sloppy.” He offered me a hand up.
I wanted to take it, but something made me hesitate. I shoved both palms into the packed dirt, feeling every grain against my skin, and pushed myself up. I was being childish, and the eye roll Raphael met my display with said as much.
“You’re not teaching me anything,” I snapped. I’d thought burning off some energy would make me feel better, but instead I felt even worse.
“You’re not willing to learn.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I’d picked up the sword, and I’d fought even though I had no chance. I had let myself be humiliated so he could make his point, and he said I wasn’t willing?
He took a step closer. “No, you’re not. Your anger is here, your ego is here, but you—the woman I know who has an analytical mind, a strategic mind—is completely gone. The woman who is a survivor, who faced down opponents stronger than her and triumphed, that’s the one I can teach.”
That woman died.
The response came quickly in my head. But I forced myself to bite back the words. Strategic, analytic, survivor. I tried to remember what it felt like to inhabit those roles. My white-knuckled grip on the blade eased. My shoulders loosened as I forced them back and down. I lifted my chin.
“There she is,” he murmured.
It was hard to keep my posture loose when he looked at me like that. “Teach me now,” I challenged.
Raphael switched his grip to the other hand, the movement little more than a flick of his wrist. “Look at my arm.” He braced his now empty hand, the sleeve rolled up. The muscles of his forearm were clearly defined, honed from centuries of practice. No, not practice. Of battle itself.
Those same arms had held me, more than once.
“I’m looking,” was all I managed.
He flexed a different way, muscles relaxing slightly while still holding strength.
“This is how you need to hold the blade. It’s not like a dagger you keep close to your body like nails.
It’s an extension of your arm. If you hold it too tightly, you’ll tire your arm out long before the rest of your body.
You won’t even be able to grip it after a few minutes of battle. ”
On reflex, I rolled my arm around. It did ache, though it was already fading.
“Try without the blade first,” he instructed.
I swapped hands and held out my arm between us, wrist up. Raphael turned so we were shoulder to shoulder. He ran a finger from my elbow to my wrist and I tensed.
He slid me a glance. “Like that, but not so much.”
I hadn’t meant to tense, but I didn’t say that. Did he feel the bolt of energy that seemed to slam into me every time he touched me? As always, his expression revealed nothing. I tried to mirror it, concentrating on loosening.
“Like this?” I asked.
He shifted his attention to my wrist, fingers easing it back. “Better. Remember how this feels.”
I nodded, trying to commit the sensation—of my muscles, not his touch—to memory.
“Now try with the blade.”
I moved the blade back and drew steadying breaths, the way Demos had shown me over the weeks.
“Good,” he said, looking between the sword tip and me. “Steady the muscles in your abdomen and focus on that line of energy from there to your fingers. Try moving like that.”
It was a thousand times harder going through drills under Raphael’s watchful eye than Demos’s, but I followed his instructions. A jab, a block, and a swipe rolled from my entire body in sequence once, then twice.
Satisfied with whatever he saw, Raphael nodded.
“Let’s spar again. This time, be more careful with aiming.
Your body moves faster, but you still need to target carefully, especially when your opponent can move out of the way as fast as you can move.
Try to disguise your plans and watch how I telegraph my own moves. ”
We began anew. This time, I held the anger back and focused.
Shoving aside all of my thoughts that kept bubbling up, I leveled the sword at shoulder height, keeping my wrist loose and my eyes focused on Raphael’s body.
The feet were one of the best places to look, Demos had explained.
I could hear the slight crunch under the front foot where more of his weight was, the packed dirt shifting ever so slightly.
Before lunging, I imagined my sword hitting square on his shoulder, the one primed to move forward with his own strike.
The blade met steel a scant inch from its target, closer than any before. I’d almost landed a hit.
Then Raphael retaliated, countering my strike. But still—I’d almost succeeded.
The next strikes weren’t so lucky.
I’d thought this kind of training would be easier as a vampire. It wasn’t.
I wound up on my back more than once. But Raphael was an utterly patient teacher, which was even more infuriating than the fact I was failing. I tried to let that fury go. Strategic. Analytical. Back and forth we sparred. Thea left at some point, and it was just the two of us.
“Too sloppy,” he decreed. “Again.”
We’d been at it for hours. I was growing tired, the sword heavier and heavier.
But I wasn’t willing to stop swinging a blade at Raphael either.
“Again.”
Steel clashed. He never aggressed, never pushed me back with more than a counter, but still, there was the stink of losing.
Losing to the one who turned you.
Strategic and analytical disappeared. My swings grew more wild, more frenzied. Demos would have chastised my technique, or lack thereof, but he wasn’t here.
“Focus, viper,” Raphael said, blocking my blow to his side once more. “Your frustration is making you sloppy again.”
I wiped the sweat off my brow and launched another attack, failing immediately. The blade was damned heavy in my hands.
“Aren’t I supposed to be stronger now?” I hissed. “Isn’t that the trade for my humanity?”
Raphael blocked with enough force that I stumbled. “The trade was for your death,” he reminded me. “And you’ll be weak as long as you fight your vampire side.”
Fighting it? I was succumbing to it, hour by hour. Memories of how the grimoire had burned at my touch, rejecting me now that I was one of them, slammed into me. The way I woke with my nails bloody, my throat clawed because I ached to drink.
I slashed at him again, and to more of my shock than anything, the blow landed, grazing Raphael’s bicep. He was normally so much faster than that . . .
But the thoughts ebbed as a delicious scent tinged the air. I dropped my sword, my attention fully taken by this new arrival. Warm, inviting. It was like I’d swallowed sand, the irritation in my throat acute, and suddenly I was near a waterfall.
Blood.
The hunger was painful. I watched his white shirt stain red—my feet rooted, my hands balled into fists at my side. Raphael watched me silently.
I wanted it.
But I didn’t want the vampire side to win.
I don’t want it from him.
Because I could still lie to myself.
“I’m done for today,” I declared through gritted fangs, flinging the practice sword at Raphael, handle first.
He caught it midair, assessing me. Did I fall as short in his measure as I did my own?
Did I care?
“We’ll practice again tomorrow,” was all he said.
I didn’t bother replying as I left the training ring, not caring that the fledgling bond meant I could only go so far. I needed to put some distance between us.
When I made it back to my room, and saw the decanter of blood waiting, I didn’t care whose it was. I drank every drop, chugging the putrid sludge down my throat, fighting to regain my sanity.
The thirst eased, just barely.
But still, I ached.