Chapter Five
Maren
“ C ombat training,” Rob says, “and I’m serious this time. No more fucking around.” It’s the next morning, and even the pale sunlight streaming into the kitchen is too bright for me. I squint and clasp the orange juice Tuck squeezed for me like an elixir of life.
“Do we have to do this now?”
“The training itself? No,” Rob says. “The discussion, yes.”
“Co-signed,” LJ says. He’s hunched over the table, hands on a cup of black coffee that he isn’t drinking. He’s just staring at me with a look of protectiveness slash anger that I know isn’t directed at me, per se, but just generally at the world.
“It wasn’t the best date night I’ve had,” Will says placidly, pouring out three or four liquid Advil capsules into his palm before chucking them back, “but I don’t know about worst.”
“Are you fucking serious?” LJ says. “She almost got—”
“I didn’t almost get anything,” I interrupt. “You guys were there. There was no question I was making it out of that in one piece. I wasn’t scared.”
“It’s okay if you were scared,” Tuck says, sliding a plate onto the table. Breakfast for all of us is dry toast, probably for the best. I pick up a slice but only pinch off the corner crust, not eating.
“I wasn’t ,” I say. “I was...” I pause, thinking, “full of adrenaline, I guess, but...” I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t get scared if you guys are around.”
They all exchange a look.
“Well, regardless,” Rob says, then shakes his head, “no, especially because of that. We might not always be around, and you need to learn to defend yourself.”
I don’t let myself think about a future in which they’re not always around me, not any more than a few rooms away.
“I can,” I say, “or I can heal myself, anyway. That counts for something, right?”
“You can’t heal yourself if you’re dead,” LJ says, “or in a chokehold.”
“And maybe let’s not have it come to that point anyway,” Tuck adds. “I think this is a good idea.”
Inwardly, I have to agree.
“You’re right.” I nod. “Maybe once my electrolytes are rebalanced, or whatever, we can—”
“I’ve got a plan,” LJ says shortly. “Don’t worry.”
“I never worry,” Will answers for me, swigging some of his coffee. Of all of us, he seems the brightest-eyed and bushiest-tailed. “Neither does Robin here. We leave all the angsting to you, the kid, and big guy.”
“Hey,” Tuck protests, “I don’t worry. I just have concerns.”
“Sometimes I am worried,” Rob says flatly. He drums his fingers on the table, staring into the middle distance. “I don’t fucking like this.”
“ This meaning...?” Will asks.
“Meaning all of it,” Rob says. He sighs and flattens a hand on the table with almost enough force to be a slap. “All of the—Jesus, I don’t know. The criminal element.” He winces. “If what LJ’s pal last night said is right, Wheatley and his boys are sitting with their thumbs up their asses, too afraid to say boo. Meanwhile, half the county thinks the golden boy DA was some kind of murderous maniac.”
“Not untrue,” Tuck cuts in.
“—or cult member,” Rob finishes.
“Arguably also true,” Tuck mumbles.
“Guy at the bar asked if I wanted to help him with a hit job,” LJ interjects. “Fucked up.”
Rob flowers. “And bastards like the guys last night think they can just—think they can just...”
“I’ll check on the Jag,” I interrupt, “soon as I’m, you know...” I wave a hand in front of my face, “back together a little.”
“It’s not about the damn car!” Rob roars. His words ring throughout the tiled surfaces of the kitchen, leaving only birdsong in the silence that follows, and the distant spring of the toaster popping up another round.
I don’t say anything.
“It’s about you , Maren,” Rob finishes. “And hell, anyone else—your new girlfriends at the bar, the people down in town.” He shakes his head. “I don’t like this. I don’t want people to see Sherwood as some kind of fucking free-for-all for criminal activity.”
“Well, look who’s discovered a moral code all of a sudden,” Will says, eyeing Rob. “What is this? Crimes for me and not for thee?”
“It’s different,” Rob says shortly. “It’s all different, and you know it is.”
“Is it?” Will says delicately, casting a sideways glance at Rob.
“It is.”
“Oh yeah? Then how?”
“I don’t know yet,” Rob says. “Okay? I. Don’t. Know. I’m trying to—” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m figuring this all out on the fly, okay? Give me a fuckin’ break.” He stands up from the table. “Be in my room. See if I can get some of those old scanners going.”
“Let me,” Will says. “I’m the one who—”
“No,” Rob says, and Will sits back down in his seat, chastened. “I’m doing it.”
He strides off.
“Well,” Will says after Rob’s footsteps fade. “How the turn tables.”
“I’ll say.” Tuck glances nervously around the table, then grabs a piece of toast for himself and eats half of it in one bite, chewing rapidly. Inspired by him, I take a bite of my own toast, and for dry toast, it’s pretty damn good. I take another bite.
“I hate to press the issue or...put us in a different direction right now,” Tuck says when he’s done chewing, “but does anyone else feel like we’re only looking at half of the situation here?”
“I think we’re looking at too much of the situation,” LJ says. “I would have left this backwater three weeks ago.”
“Okay, yes,” Tuck says, “but besides that...”
“I think I know what you mean,” I say, polishing off my piece of toast. “All the stuff Guy was talking about, right?”
“Yeah.” Tuck chews his lip. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. If things are getting—I don’t know—violent or something around here, then I don’t think we should just sit idly by just because we don’t know the bigger, um, mystical forces at play. But at the same time...” He grimaces. “I mean, shouldn’t we figure out what the potential of this place is, if there even is any? Although...” He second-guesses himself. “I suppose Guy could have been lying. He certainly lied plenty to Maren, but—”
“No.” I interrupt him before either of the other two can speak. “I think you’re right.”
“I say look if you want to, but don’t expect to find much,” Will puts in. “Humans really aren’t that complicated.” He sticks out his thumb, ticking off options. “Sex. Money. Power. That’s all that matters. Beyond that, very few motivators.”
Tuck slumps a little. “I just think maybe we could find something. If we searched again. Before, I was only looking up, you know, general mythology, theories of shifting and how it works. Nothing to do with this place. I mean, I’m not even from around here.” He glances out the window like there might be an answer written on the leaves of the trees. “I don’t know...what I don’t know,” he finishes.
And you don’t like not knowing stuff , I think.
“It’s a good idea,” I say on a yawn. With one piece of toast down, gravity seems to have been turned up on my body, and I fold my arms on the table to make a pillow for my head.
“Uh oh,” Will says. “Someone’s regretting her late night.”
“I regret nothing,” I mumble from under my hair, “but you’ll regret not letting me nap.”
A deep chuckle that I realize is LJ’s. “Damn right, you need your sleep, princess,” he says, a light tug at the back of my hair lifts me up just enough to see his face. “You’re meeting me for training. At 1 p.m., sharp.”
I MAKE MY WAY TO LJ’S apartment slightly after 1 p.m., with a little more sleep and slightly more food and feeling as close as I can to ready for some combat training. I pulled on some leggings and a sports bra and tied my hair into a ponytail with one of the thousands of hair ties Rob bought me way back when. I guess I look the part, but I’m not exactly feeling it.
I hesitate on the last two steps up to the landing, wondering if I should knock or just barge on in. But LJ, as usual, makes the question redundant by pulling open the door as soon as my footsteps creak on the last step.
“Come in,” he says—more order than invitation.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I say.
I haven’t been in his apartment since we got back, since it kind of operates like vampire rules: you basically have to be invited in. But if anything has changed, I can’t really tell. It was sparse to begin with—more training yard than living space—and I guess he’s had time to rearrange everything the way he likes it.
“They really ransacked you, huh?” I say.
LJ grunts. “Mm.”
“Guess they figured hauling out an entire punching bag was too much effort,” I say, casting a gaze around his various tools of the trade.
“Mm.”
I throw a glance at LJ. “Something up with you? You’re even less talkative than usual.”
“Nothing,” he says, striding over to a corner and starting to wind some tape around his knuckles.
A shiver of awareness passes through me—good or bad, I’m not sure. It’s kind of hard to tell with him, and to be honest, I’m not sure those things are always that distinct.
“Did I do something?” I ask hesitantly. “Besides not know how to fight.”
My joke falls flat. LJ rips the tape and smooths down the last edge.
“You could’ve been hurt the other night,” he says.
“Oh, this again.” I sigh. “Look. I know those guys were bad news, and it was scary, but I had all of you with me.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean.”
I close my mouth. “It’s not?”
He shrugs his shoulders up and down, sighs, rolls his neck, then finally stares at me.
“You don’t remember.”
“Remember what?” I say, thinking back. “I mean, we were in the bar, drinking, dancing, having a good time...”
“You were taking risks,” he says.
“I wasn’t.” I frown, wandering over to him as I think. “I mean, maybe kind of. But you guys were there, and—”
“You talked back,” he says. “You were downright disobedient.”
I’m barely two steps away from him now, and a cold fire burns in his eyes when I tip my chin up to look at him.
“Oh,” I say. I swallow. My throat’s like sandpaper—and not just from the residual hangover. “I guess I was a little bit—”
“Didn’t know you had that in you,” he goes on. “That kind of bratty streak. Caught me off-guard.”
I chew my lip. “I guess I contain multitudes,” I say. “Especially when the tequila is flowing.”
He snorts. “Well, we’re going to work that out today.”
I tip my head just slightly. “Work that out as in...?”
“As in, you’ll see,” he says shortly, nodding to the sparring mat.
“Well. Okay, then,” I say. Adrenaline has my heart fluttering.
“Are you warmed up?” he asks.
Now it’s my turn to snort.
“Of course not,” I reply. “Did you tell me to warm up?”
He blinks, frozen briefly, and I realize the implication in what I’ve just said.
That I do, in fact, need to be told. My ears feel hot.
“I mean...I didn’t think of it,” I conclude. I do a quick jumping jack or two. “There. Plenty warm.”
The barest hint of a smile warps his lips, and then it’s gone. “All right. Face me.” He crouches slightly to demonstrate, then straightens up. “Like this.”
I do another sort of crouch, putting up my dukes as best I can. This already feels ridiculous. The first time he tried training me, I guess I picked up a few things—but mostly more of the life-changing-revelatory-secret variety than the how-to-handle-an-attacker variety.
“Good,” he says. “Now watch as I—”
“Ah!” I cry. With a single sweep of his leg, he’s taken me out at the ankles and sent me flying to the mat—just in time to catch me and brace me before I smack my head.
“See what I mean?” he says, voice rough and dark. “Now imagine trying to defend against that in your little high heels and with three shooters in you.”
“I get the point,” I say, rolling out of his arms and rubbing my elbow. “But maybe not so fast—”
Before I realize what’s happened, he’s sprung forward, grabbed my arms, and pinned me—hands above my head.
“You’re going to get up before I tell you to?” he says.
I pant, inadvertently. My pulse is still skyrocketing. “I...guess not,” I say slowly.
His arm flexes over my head, tensing his grip, and I realize there’s no way I could wrangle my way out of his grasp if he doesn’t want me to. His body is maybe five inches from mine, as hard and strong as mine is soft and trembling.
“I don’t like being tempted like that, Princess,” he grits out.
Without loosening his grip at all, he lowers his head toward me and whispers in my ear.
“Seeing you like that, and not being able to touch you?” His fingers flex, without slackening. “Drives me fucking crazy.”
The low rumble of his voice sends heat flooding into my belly, but no sooner do my eyes flutter shut against the feeling than I feel him let me go. When I look up, he’s gone—standing, arms folded at his back, waiting for me to join him, I guess.
I do, pushing myself up a little bewilderedly.
“Jiu jitsu,” he says.
“Say what?”
“Jiu jitsu,” he says again. “Martial art. Japanese. Designed for when you’re bare-handed on the battlefield and have to take down a guy the size of a Sumo wrestler. It’s about leverage, not strength. It’s how someone smaller can fold someone twice her height in half.”
“Oh,” is all I can say. This has suddenly gotten serious. I feel goosebumps rise up the back of my neck, and I look down at myself—at my skin, my arms, the pearly but distinctive scars from razor wire and dragon fire and, once, a long time ago, a cigar or two.
“You’ll learn how to fall, how to get someone off you, and how to use your legs,” LJ says. That last part has me wanting to make a sassy remark, but I hold back. I want to see how long he keeps it serious and professional. “Okay?”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Good.” He nods back. “Now fall.”
“What?” I look to each side of me, puzzled.
“First thing,” he says, nodding toward the mat, “is learning how to fall.”
I blink. “Pretty sure I’ve got that part down.”
“Not the way you’ve been doing it.” He steps closer, his shadow stretching over me. “Fall. Now.”
Then he rushes me.
I land smack on the mat when he tackles me, so hard I think I’ve bruised my ass—if that’s possible.
“You planning to fall headfirst next time?” LJ says. “Because that’s the only way you could have done that worse.”
But he offers a hand down. I take it.
“You have to fall without knocking yourself out, or knocking the wind out of you. Ideally without breaking anything vital, either.”
He crouches down, then rolls back in one fluid motion, tucking his chin, slapping the mat with both palms, a loud thwap that echoes in the space, then pops right back up.
“That’s called a breakfall. Try it.”
I can barely remember what he just did, it was so smooth and easy, but I do my best.
My best is not good.
LJ helps me up. “Chin to your chest, Princess. Slap the ground to absorb the shock. Again.”
I go again. And again. I land wrong, then wrong-er. My ponytail whips across my face and my hip’s getting as bruised as my pride. The whole time, LJ watches without pity. Not cruel , exactly, just...unmoved. Like he’s seen this a thousand times.
After a while, he doesn’t offer me a hand up anymore.
I wince, but roll to my feet on my own. My tailbone protests. My elbows are already pink with burn.
He nods. “Figure it out, Princess.”
I suck in a breath—and I go. Because for some reason, even bruised and breathless and absolutely ready to strangle him, I want to impress him more than I want to stop hurting.
This time, I don’t land too hard. Don’t hurt too much. LJ’s eyebrows move up. It must have been good enough, because he drops to the mat.
“Hip escape,” he says. “This one gets you out when someone’s on top of you.”
He lies flat, knees bent, then shimmies sideways in this tight, coiled motion. Smooth. Efficient. Undoubtedly much harder than it looks.
“Your turn.”
I try to mimic the movement, but it’s more of a flop than an escape. I have to laugh—my foot’s literally caught underneath me—but LJ doesn’t.
“No.” He drops to his knees beside me and places both hands on my hips—firm, patient pressure, his thumbs grazing bare skin. For a moment, I’m impressed at his restraint, and then I feel him give me a feather-light stroke on the edge of my hip.
My eyes fly to his. They’re flinty with amusement.
But it barely lasts.
“Start with your feet planted. Push off, twist your hips, keep your shoulders light. Like this.” He shifts me through the motion. “Got it?”
“I...” I stammer. The strength of his hands rocking my hips back and forth temporarily cleared any instruction from my mind. “I was—”
“Figure it out,” he repeats. “You’ll need to learn to fight distracted.”
Then he lets go, and I suddenly wish he hadn’t.
He moves—fluid and final. One knee slides to the outside of my hip, then the other. He plants his palms on either side of my shoulders, bracketing me like a cage yet not even touching.
My breath catches. Every instinct I have flares—panic, arousal, defiance—all of it roaring up in the same heartbeat.
“If I wanted to hurt you,” he whispers in my ear, “you’d already be done.”
My pulse kicks. My skin flushes hot, all the way down to my chest. And then—something else.
Energy, and not ordinary energy. I can feel the spark crackle under the surface, the not-quite-right flickering just below my ribs, a hum demanding my attention and release.
But I shove it down.
From there it’s a whirlwind— upa escapes, shrimp to guard, scissor sweeps—and I’m messing up easily half the time, more than that, but gradually the movements start to feel...not natural, exactly, but logical. Like my body starts to know which comes next and doesn’t need to ask my brain permission.
“Better,” LJ says, after a few breathless rounds of sweeps. I crouch, hands on my knees, heaving in breaths as I feel droplets of sweat fall from my forehead to the mat, and stare at him.
“That’s all you can say?” I say. “Better?”
“All the praise you deserve,” he says. He’s barely broken a sweat, if he has at all. “You were terrible. Now you’re less terrible. You’re better.”
I snort, clutching at the bottle of water he throws my way and almost snapping the top off in my desperation to hydrate.
“Maybe,” I say, after chugging half of it, “you’re just scared I’ll beat you.”
LJ says nothing—he lunges, spins his leg to catch mine, and dumps me easily onto the mat.
The water bottle hits the floor a few feet away with a sad chlunk. A knee presses beside my hip, LJ’s broad chest low over mine as his forearm pins me lightly but firmly by the collarbone.
“You’ll never learn, will you?” he murmurs. “Princess always wants to get her way.”
His free hand skates over the crest of my hip, the pressure of his forearm increasing just barely. I shudder as I feel him tease the waistband of my leggings, trace toward the inner curve of my thigh.
But I jut out my chin. “See? I knew it,” I say. “You know I can take you now. And you’re afraid.”
“Take me?” His voice is dark and rough, his eyes clouded as one thick finger, then two, finds exactly where I’m slick. My eyes float shut instinctively, a moan tight in my throat as he stirs his hand.
“You like that?” he asks.
“Mhm,” I say around the blood ringing in my ears.
“You want more?” His strokes turn firmer, deeper.
I can only nod, catching my lip in my teeth as he teases my clit. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the exhaustion or both, but suddenly my leggings are damp with wet heat and my nipples are achingly taut under the press of my sports bra and the sure, strong touch of LJ’s broad hand is threatening to make me come right here on the sparring mat.
“Fine.”
There’s a rush of cool air as LJ pulls back his hand, and when I look up, dazed, he’s got the barest smirk on his face.
“Then fight me for it.”
It takes a second to register, dim thoughts penetrating the haze of arousal, the swooning edge of release ebbing back within me. But he doesn’t move—to touch me, or to let me go.
He’s serious.
I’d laugh if I weren’t so...
Weren’t so...
“You bastard,” I grit out.
LJ just smiles. “You brat.”
Breathe.
I blow out one sharp, short, exhale, and move without even thinking about my next move. I buck under him, my hips straining to throw him off like he’d shown me—the upa escape.
LJ’s ready. He shifts, rolls his weight, and lands his other leg to straddle me in full mount: thighs bracketing my hips, arms holding my wrists overhead. We’re almost nose to nose, close enough to kiss—and he could, if he wanted to, and obviously I’d let him, but no.
He smirks.
“Better,” he says again. “But still too easy.”
I go still beneath him, breathing hard. My blood is still pounding, everywhere, and every nerve in my body is aware of his weight, the heat of him, the fact that one small tilt of his hips would press us together if he would just let them.
Almost like he wants me to lose.
And...maybe he does.
So I sigh. Long. Soft. Like I’m giving up.
“Okay,” I murmur, letting my head tilt back. “Fine. You win.”
His eyes flicker with suspicion. But I add a little pout to sell it. Shift my hips like I’m uncomfortable and put just an edge of whine to my voice.
“You’re stronger than me, LJ.”
It’s enough—just enough—because something flashes in his gaze, loosens his grip just barely, and—
Boom.
I twist hard, bridge up, and sweep him with all the force I’ve got. His balance gives for half a second, but that’s all I need. Suddenly, I’m on top, knee digging into his ribs, hands braced on his chest.
I blink, stunned.
He doesn’t look pissed.
He looks...impressed.
Maybe.
“Leverage,” I pant. “Not strength. Right?”
LJ smirks. “Cute.”
He moves so fast I don’t see it coming.
One second I’m in control, the next he’s twisting beneath me, fully free. He spins behind me, and then I’m yanked back into him—tight, locked, his arm barring my chest and his breath grazing my neck.
We crash to the mat together, his legs coiled behind mine, his chest flush with my back.
“But you’ll need to be more than cute, Princess.”
I don’t think. I react.
I throw my elbow back toward his ribs, but he catches it mid-air, traps me tighter. I’m tangled in him, breathless and sweat-slick, my body burning with heat, frustration, and something more.
Something else.
Something that snaps loose inside me.
Not fear. Not even anger.
Just raw need. Electric and all-consuming.
And the power responds—surging up from my spine like a spark up a fuse. It crackles through my skin in a sudden, involuntary pulse. LJ jerks against me like he’s been shocked.
That’s all the window I need.
I twist again, legs scissoring his midsection, rolling us, flipping him onto his back. Now I’m straddling him, hair wild, chest heaving, hand pressed to the hollow of his throat.
Not choking. Just there.
His eyes blaze. He looks...stunned. Proud, even.
But not down for long.
His lips curve. Slow. Dangerous.
And then he moves: hooks my legs, rolls, pins. Like he was never really out of control at all.
In a heartbeat, I’m underneath him again—wrists pinned, chest to chest, his hips caging mine, our mouths this close.
Again. Again , this close, and yet—
It’s too much—his voice, his weight, the friction where we’re pressed together—
I gasp, rolling my hips, arching into him without thinking. “ Please , LJ.”
His eyes darken. For a second, I think he might break.
But he leans in, barely brushing his lips against my cheek.
“Not. Until. You win.”
Then he pushes off me. Walks away, silent and hard and smug, while I lie wrecked, wanting, on the mat.