Chapter 8 #2
I shot a punch straight to his inner thigh, dropping him to his knees and from there…well from there things just went sideways. Literally, figuratively.
No weapons, no magic, just a fucking brawl.
I got an elbow into his solar plexus.
He drove a fist into my left side.
The blows rained down, over and over.
Maybe we both knew that if weapons and magic were involved, we’d have killed each other.
And yet even this fight…once we were back on our feet, it turned into more of a dance.
I knew each step he was going to take before he took it, and he moved as if he could read me as easily.
Blows were traded, less landed as we settled into a rhythm that felt almost like training with a partner I’d known for years.
But that wasn’t possible unless he knew me.
There was one moment, one move that stopped us both.
Our arms were tangled as we each fought to put an arm lock on the other.
Our faces so close together I could see the shifting silver in the blue of his eyes.
His breath hit my cheek, hot, ragged. For half a heartbeat I wanted to close the inch between us more than I wanted to break his arm.
After nearly ten minutes of trading blows, my lungs and muscles were burning, and the sweat stung my eyes.
Veyyr wasn’t in much better shape, but neither of us was going to give in. I knew him, and I knew me.
A long slow clapping of several sets of hands erupted behind us.
“Veyyr, I haven’t seen you have to work that hard in a fight for…I don’t know how long?” Lucky laughed. “Good job, Mal. You’re in…as it were. You passed the test. You gotta be willing to kick anyone’s ass—even his.”
Sweat rolled down my face and my body hurt…Veyyr hadn’t held back, not one bit. He’d treated me as an equal in this fight. I blew a slow breath out, testing my body, feeling things out as it were. “This was a test?”
In. That was the word Lucky used. As if this was a family, a crew. I’d been on the outside at some point before, and I knew enough to know ‘in’ never came without a price.
Lucky, Dave, and Egan nodded. Dave and Egan didn’t seem as sure, but Harrison was grinning on the far left of Lucky. “Shit, Mal, can you…show me some of those moves? You were amazing!”
“Listen she won’t do it for free, I had to give her popcorn.” Lucky grunted. “Steep price if you ask me.”
I refused to show them how much I hurt. My face felt raw. A glance at Veyyr showed his left eye blooming with color, and his bottom lip swollen. At least I’d given as much as I’d received. Though we’d both heal fast, that wasn’t the point.
“Isla is going to be pissed.” Dave danced a small knife over his knuckles. “Like, really, really pissed. She hates her.”
Veyyr shrugged. “I think that Mallory has unique skill sets that we can use for the journey ahead. If I’d realized it sooner…Isla would not have been so difficult.”
I frowned because how would he know what unique skill sets I had if he didn’t know me? I didn’t even know what unique skill sets I had.
Harrison’s mouth dropped open. “You’re really going to let her come? And Isla, what about her because…?”
Speak of the devil and watch her show up in a dress that needed more material and a hell of a seamstress.
“What about me?” She pushed past Dave and Egan, her eyes sweeping over me first with a smug look then landing on Veyyr who was equally beat up though we were both healing rapidly, bruises fading, swelling disappearing even as we stood there.
“You cannot be serious. You are letting her join us? Why?” Her question came with a whole lot of chest heaving, and even a hand to her bosom. If she’d had pearls to clutch, she’d have been grabbing fistfuls.
He glanced at me; his eyes glittered, then tightened. “Keep your friends close, Isla, and your enemies under your thumb. Especially those who think highly of themselves.”
Wrong saying. Right meaning. He didn’t do niceties — only knives. The line should have bounced off, I knew in my gut I’d had worse thrown at me. But this one, from him…it lodged under my ribs. I didn’t value myself like that—survivor, yes, but full of myself?
The stab of it was embarrassingly loud inside my own head. Not that it kept me from responding.
Because fuck him and his games.
On reflex I put two fingers to my brow and I flicked them at him — a short, sharp tick I’d used when faces needed sizing up.
It was the kind of gesture you made when you wanted someone to know you’d clocked them: I see you.
I see your danger. Try anything and I’ll end you.
The motion tasted like a memory and a threat tangling up somewhere in my head.
Veyyr met my gesture with the same two fingers to his own brow, mirrored slow and sure. Not mockery. Recognition. The air between us thinned so fast I could feel it in my back teeth, like a drop in air pressure that thrummed in your skull.
I turned my back on him and Isla. Disdain for what they could do to me. Let him and his witch try. I’d end them both if need be.
But not until I got my answers. I’d stay for those and not take one footstep, not one heartbeat, more in their company.
No matter where it left this group hanging.