Chapter 14 #2
But I’m sick, twisted. Always have been. Like the moment I saw that smushed beetle on the skin of my foot. My body tightens and my mouth goes dry. I can feel my pupils dilate.
I want in, I want in, I want in—
Matt moans into the white stones beneath him. “Asshole.”
“Up,” Reid says, rolling his shoulders, blindfold still on. “Try again.”
“No,” Matt snaps from the floor, ripping his blindfold off. “This is stupid. Allowing a demon to beat the shit out of us? I bet this is like some kind of kink for you.”
My eyes crawl over the blood dripping from Matt’s mouth where he’s bitten through his lip. The sheen of sweat on Reid’s shoulders. My daggers are calling to me from my bag in the stands.
“Well.” Reid crouches down, inches from the kid. He can’t see, and yet he knows exactly where he is. He lowers his voice. “That did feel pretty good.”
Somewhere, I can just hear the heart of the girl who took Matt’s switchblade to the palm absolutely fluttering. My hero, she’s thinking. My demon hero.
Matt growls and moves to punch Reid square in the face.
It’s poor sportsmanship on many levels—he’s no longer blindfolded, but Reid still is.
Plus, the fight’s clearly over. Still, his fist flies out and I suck in a strange inhale.
In the split second before his fist connects, I can’t tell if I want it to land or not.
But it’s not up to me. Reid dodges easily and stands, lifting his blindfold to glare at Matt.
“Anyone else?” Reid asks, arms open to the class. “I don’t bite.”
Was that a joke? Did perpetually broody Reid make a deviant joke?
For a moment, silence sails across the coliseum, the only sound from Matt’s ragged breaths.
My skin is hot. Sweat is gathering behind my knees and under my arms.
“Me,” I say, stepping forward.
Reid looks me over, from my dusty sneakers to my Harker sweatshirt and low bun. I know he’s thinking about that night in the alley. “A rematch already?”
“I probably need my back realigned anyway.” I shrug. “Do your worst.”
Reid gestures for me to join him, and I try not to stare at his hand or his long fingers or the way the blindfold on his head pushes his unruly hair from his face.
I pull my sweatshirt off and toss it to the ground.
I’m only wearing a sports bra underneath, though I don’t think I’m working with enough up top for it to look X-rated.
Still, someone—my money’s on Elliot—hoots when I stretch my arms overhead.
But I can’t take my eyes off Reid. Or perhaps I can’t take my eyes off the way he can’t take his eyes off me.
His gaze simmers—that fire-laced navy blue—as it crawls over my newly exposed skin.
It’s as if he can’t help himself. My senses are so heightened I swear I can hear his breaths coming out tighter.
I want to say something nasty—something that’ll humiliate him in front of all his students—but I’m too caught up in my own shame.
How it feels to be turned on and bloodthirsty at once. How I want to drive my silver daggers into his demon flesh and feel him pump his fingers in and out of me. Maybe at the same time.
Wrong. Sick. So wrong and so sick, and this is why I need to get this fight out of my system. This is why Harker’s rules against hunting were not made for my aeon kind.
I slip my blindfold back over my eyes. I square my feet and—
“Not so fast,” Reid breathes across from me.
I stall any movements when I feel the pebbled ground shift as he walks over.
“There’ll be no more cheating in my class.”
“I’m not—”
But then his smell engulfs me. Lemongrass and male sweat and evergreens.
His hands come around the back of my head, and he unties my blindfold only to tie it tighter.
Every hair on my head that he touches tingles on my scalp.
His body is so warm behind me. My breaths funnel in and out in a rush.
Being this close to a demon and not hacking at him is sending my senses into overdrive.
I wonder if it’s the same for him with me.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he says roughly, rounding in front of me.
I don’t ask if his blindfold is on. I know it is. I take one steadying breath. And then I move.
My fists drive toward that zingy evergreen scent.
Crisp, like a summer wood. Peeling bark and lemon peels and spruce leaves.
But I hear his sidestep, hear his fist snap out in my direction.
I twist to the right just in time to listen as his knuckles connect with the stone column behind me.
A low curse barrels from his mouth. His breath fans over my face.
My next strike is quicker, a jab toward where I think his ribs are, but I’m met only with empty air and then a swift kick from him that takes my legs out from under me.
I fall to my hands and knees, pain singing through bones and muscle.
That sense is heightened too—and the pain is nearly as loud in my ears as the gasps of my classmates echoing in the arena.
Anger drives me upward, and my next punch is a literal swing in the dark. He blocks me with his palm, and the sensation of our skin touching ripples up my arm.
Another blow, another block. My next kick slices into thin air.
He’s too agile, too clever. He knows every move before I make it. He knows every move before I even know I’m going to make it.
“You were close, though,” he breathes, as if inside my thoughts. “So close.”
His voice is a little warm. A little playful. As if he’s having fun as he dodges and ducks. Despite my sawing breaths, I’ve not made contact once.
Demon quick and Brood trained, even my hunter senses—my aeon senses—can’t keep up with him.
His next blow sends me down hard onto my shoulder.
I know instantly the pain isn’t something I’m bouncing back from quickly.
It radiates through my entire arm, down my side, and over my back.
I have no shot of dodging his next punch as I roll on the floor in agony, and I flinch behind the blindfold, bracing for the hit, only to hear it land with a crunch in the stone, inches from my head.
Breathless, I yank the blindfold off and find him panting above me. He lifts his blindfold, and those turbulent blue eyes drill into mine so savagely I forget to breathe.
Then he stands and rips his shirt off over his head in that one-handed way that men do. “Class dismissed.”
I ease myself up and grab my sweatshirt, then hobble back over to the stands. My shoulder aches, and I clutch it as I limp to put less pressure on my spasming back muscles.
“You were badass out there,” Sophia tells me, taking my bag so I don’t have to carry it.
Elliot nods his approval. “Like a blind warrior queen.”
Kitty’s jaw is tight with empathetic frustration. “You almost had him.”
The three of them look at Peter as if it’s his turn. He only shrugs, sheepish. “I couldn’t watch.”
We gather our stuff, and I trudge toward the exit, touched to find my friends moving as slowly as I am rather than leaving with the rest of the class.
We’re nearly out in the dew-covered morning, where I can lick my shameful wounds in peace, when we’re stopped by Reid’s booming voice. “Valentine, Briggs, and Thompson.”
Sophia, Kitty, and Elliot turn, tension in all their shoulders as if they’ve been caught with their hands in Reid’s cookie jar. He’s still shirtless and sweating, his face that same mask of cold intensity.
“I’d like you three to join my Field Training class.”
“What?” I balk. I don’t want to spend any more time with Reid than I have to, but I held my own out there with him and I don’t get the invite to do what I’ve been doing since I was seven?
“Of course,” Kitty says, standing an inch taller. “It would be an honor.”
“I’m there.” Elliot grins.
Sophia cuts one look in my direction, brows knitting inward, before she says, “Me too.”
Peter looks down at his shoes.
But my blood is hot in my veins. “What about me?”
Reid’s defined ab muscles contract as his gaze lands on my shoulder. “You’re not ready.”
“Not ready? I’m better than anyone here.”
“Hey, now,” Sophia says at the same time Elliot mutters, “Oookay.” I don’t even dare to look at Kitty.
“You’re thoughtless,” Reid says. “You take too many risks. Fight with your heart. Not your head.”
“What kind of bad action-movie bullshi—”
But Reid’s already grabbing his bag from the stands, uninterested.
“God damn him,” I breathe as we turn to leave. Sophia squeezes my shoulder in support and I wince.
We’re a few feet from the exit when Reid calls out, “Huntress.”
I turn, body rigid in both pain and frustration. I’m about to swing at him all over again.
“Ice bath for the shoulder. Arnica on your back.” And then he stalks out, his lean muscles rippling as he walks.
I’m so surprised, I can’t muster a reply. The bright morning chill seeps into my bones as I stand there, dumbfounded.
“Oh no,” Sophia says under her breath.
“What is it?” Peter asks.
“I’m attracted to him.”
“Soph!” Elliot says with a laugh, shoving her into me. My shoulder sings in pain, and I focus on the tall grass at our feet and all the weeping dewdrops.
“Trust me,” she says, her copper-and-flaxen ponytail swaying in the September morning light. “I’m as disappointed as you are.”