Chapter 24 #2
Flashbacks of school taunted me, recalling all the times I got forced into a corner, and had to fight my way out.
The day I’d hit puberty, the first time Vann beat me in arm wrestling, and the way I watched him surpass me without even trying.
My body was stronger than all the boys, my doctor had told me as she walked me through my first period.
Not because I could lift as much weight, and not because I could fight, but because my body was built to bear children.
I was built to endure more pain, to hold it together through dramatic and constant hormone fluctuations, with a mind that could multitask and compartmentalize on a level that could maintain a home, build a career, perform the emotional labor for two adults, and nourish children all at once.
That was what I was supposed to be good at.
Men were built to fight, protect, and provide, while I was built to be a vessel to lift them up and perpetuate their DNA.
How fucking comforting that was.
I wasn’t going to be a secondary character in someone else’s life. I wasn’t a support system who lived only to serve my masters. I wouldn’t let that be me.
Not then, and not now.
He wasn’t better than me. After all, while we were uneven on the most basic foundational level, I had other advantages.
Calling two things equal didn’t mean they were the same.
In this world of power, oppression, and survival, it was all about balance.
Just because I couldn’t hit as hard as he did, that didn’t mean I was pathetic.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t win.
“I’m not done yet,” I said. I lifted my fists, I inhaled slowly, and I focused on my target.
A smile stretched across Elio’s lips, and that was when I went on the offensive.
Elio fell into my step without argument, and we were back to our dance of parry and dodge, swing and miss.
I wanted to say he was an ogre, more strong than nimble, but that wasn’t true.
He moved so damn fast, and his steps were impossibly light.
He was a great fighter, more unpredictable than Sebastian had ever been, and no amount of frustration or personal bias was enough to diminish that.
The only way around this kind of experienced and articulate defense was to do something he would never expect.
He dipped back, down, left, right, dodging every punch I threw.
Nothing connected, and if it did, he’d move in a way that dissipated any bite from my blow.
I could have had the strongest punch here, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
He was reading me more easily than I’d read him, and all of that experience was too pronounced to dismiss.
Elio wasn’t subpar at anything other than his social skills. My loathing didn’t negate that.
There had to be a way to connect.
“Was it even you in that Shinka?” He mocked me as I barely grazed his hair with my fist.
“You know it was me.” I snapped, refusing to let him get under my skin any deeper. “The whole reason we’re here is because you can’t stand the fact that it was me.”
“Is that what you think?” He laughed as he caught my knee before it could get to his groin, then forced my leg back down with a hard shove.
“Why else would you keep targeting me? You’re mad that all this effort you put in, all your training, all your stupid muscles don’t mean shit in a Shinka.
You’re mad that someone like me can completely disable someone like you when push comes to shove, and we’re all standing on a real battlefield with our weapons. ”
His eyes narrowed, but I couldn’t seem to knock that mocking smile off his face. “Maybe I underestimated you after all.”
“Or maybe you overestimated yourself.” I banked on the idea that his ego was his one weakness. It was obvious in how he carried himself and everything he let piss him off. If I could hurt his pride, then I could get through his armor.
“Overestimated myself?” He scoffed, and his expression shifted. A hit of emotion was enough to throw off his rhythm, as he immediately transitioned into the offensive instead of the defensive.
And that was the first sloppy move he’d made all day.
His hook was coming straight for my face, and in that brief moment of clarity, the world moved in slow motion.
I ducked and slammed my crown into his sternum.
He stumbled, and I dropped to the ground and swept his leg with mine before he had a second to catch up.
His back had barely hit the mat by the time I was on top of him, straddling his hips, and dropping a targeted elbow into his chest. The sound of his hard exhale on impact was fucking music, and I wasn’t ready for that melody to end.
I lifted a fist, and put everything I had into one targeted punch between his eyes.
Elio rolled his head to the side, dodging at the last second while making the gesture look completely unbothered. My knuckles slammed into the mat beneath us, brushing against strands of his hair.
I was about to throw another punch when that smug smirk returned to his face. He grabbed my waist with both hands, then he lifted his hips, me still on top of him, in a perfect glute bridge.
Stunned, wide-eyed, and confused, my knees were off the ground, forcing me to spread my thighs wider to keep the balance on my toes, and my hands shot straight to his chest in a panic reaction, trying not to fall forward after being hoisted into a 45 degree angle.
He lifted me like I was nothing, as relaxed as he’d be with a barbell across his hips in the gym, while I’d lost my ability to breathe.
All my anger, hate, and frustration had retreated to some obscure corner of my mind, banished by pure embarrassment, as I fully absorbed the position we were in. Not the least significant factor being that he was supporting my weight entirely on his…
his… uh…
This is a fight. He hates you. You hate him. Get it together, Fianna.
A glint of mischief flashed in his smoldering fire eyes, and I absolutely did not want to know what he was thinking when, instead of throwing me back on the mat or performing some sudden, violent reversal, he just held me there, perched atop his pelvis with my legs wide, and my hands on his rock hard chest. I shifted my toes slightly to stabilize myself, creating micro-movements I didn’t want to acknowledge.
His hands were entirely too hot on my waist, his muscles were entirely too firm beneath my hands and my hips, and with every little movement, it was more and more apparent that I was absolutely sitting on his…
Fuck, stop noticing it. Stop thinking about it. This is not the fucking time, place, or person.
Jesus fuck, stop.
His grip was hard, not letting me go, and I hoped with everything that I was that he was too pig headed to notice how much more narrow and curved my waist was in comparison to what my A2 displayed.
“I can literally hip thrust you while you’re trying to pound me in the face.
Even when you have me pinned, you’re fucking helpless.
” He chuckled, and I should have been focusing on the harshness of those words instead of acknowledging those little vibrations as his laugh shook through both of us.
“What do you weigh? Eight specks?” Setting aside that ‘specks’ wasn’t a scientific unit of measurement on any planet, something told me that correcting him with ’145 pounds’ or bragging that ‘I’ve gained ten pounds of muscle since I got here’ wasn’t going to help my case, considering he probably had damn near 100 on me.
“You’re so pathetically small. What are you going to do if you ever get ripped from your Shinka and end up a prisoner of war? ”
“I…” I stared at him, still at a loss for words, and still trying to get my brain to stop acknowledging that he was definitely not wearing a cup, and I was feeling too many things I shouldn’t, and this was not an intimate situation at all, considering he’d literally just beat the shit out of me.
I told myself the shortness of breath was from my broken ribs and blooded sinuses, because my whole face wasn’t on fire right now over the noticeable beads of metal that were fully flush with my undercarriage, and I absolutely wasn’t picturing why there would be metal down there.
Fuck, I pictured it.
Fuck, stop.
My hormones may not ever be consistent, but they sure liked to fuck with me at all the worst times.
His hands slid up my waist a little higher, that touch sending unwanted lightning through me, only to sober me right up when I saw something shift in his brow. Pure panic hit me, and I started rambling, trying to stop him from noticing whatever he might start noticing.
“Probably what most prisoners of war do.” I said, demanding my concussed brain get back on topic. “I would endure the torture, try to escape, and hope my government was going to make an effort to get me back alive. You think just because you can bench press a couple hundred pounds—”
“Four hundred pounds.” He corrected me, because that was so important. Nevermind that my bench had just barely broken the double digits.
I rolled my eyes despite myself. “Your strength isn’t going to save you from hand cuffs and jail cells and torture with cutting shears.”
He raised a brow, but still he was holding me there, his fingers still digging in to my sides, his thumbs sliding slowly down the front of my waist with a curiosity that was both extremely volatile and sending unwanted heat through me, while his pierced dick slotted way too perfectly against my cooter.
I really wanted him to put me down, but squirming would only make my differences more obvious in his hands.
He had to get tired of isometrics eventually.
Having seen him work out enough times now, ‘eventually’ could be hours.
Fuck my life.
“Torture with cutting shears? That’s oddly specific.” He was smiling for some reason, and I didn’t want to ask.