Chapter 24 #2
“Take off your shoes, Nina. You could use a few lessons just in case Damien attempts to kiss you again.” He glanced away. “Or tries something worse.”
“Alright, but just so you know, I can barely open sterile fluid bottles by myself. I don’t think I’m going to be much competition against a Cursed.
” I kicked off the small-heeled boots, and Max lifted me by the waist without warning, helping me over the half wall lining the ring.
My bare feet hit cooled earth, where sawdust and dirt covered a stone fighting floor.
He set me down gently before pulling something from his pocket. “Here. Take it.”
The Vitalis die.
I eyed him warily. “Why are you giving me this now? You need it.”
He grabbed my wrist and forced it into my hand, wrapping it shut around the relic.
“I do, but right now, you need it more with Damien lurking about. I’ll feel better if you have something to defend yourself.
Besides, I apparently need to prove to you I can fight without relics.
” He smirked. “Just give it back tomorrow before the fight, alright?”
I rolled the die over my palm, testing each code until I could connect the power to the symbol my fingers read by touch. “You trust me? After I lost your last two?”
“You didn’t lose them; they were taken.” He ran a hand through his hair, shoving it out of his face. “But yes. I trust you completely.”
I tried not to preen at that, turning my back to him so he couldn’t see the blood rush to my cheeks. “What can you do without the dice?”
He circled me as I tested my Siphon, waking it. “If I took some blood, then all my natural senses would be heightened. Without the dice… I’m a fair adversary for you.”
The Vitalis die overlapped in those areas, I supposed.
The Archetype was focused on life and the body.
Healing, strength, speed, pain, pulse, and senses.
I drew from speed, letting my Siphon test a different kind of magic source.
My veins burned at first, but not unpleasantly, just enough to make me aware of the presence of power.
It was like I’d slowed time. Everything moved differently. I ran the perimeter of the ring around Max before letting go of the dice to return the world to a normal speed. He whirled around, orange eyes wide.
I giggled.
“I’ve made a monster, haven’t I?” His voice was low, laughing at my reaction. “Go through the rest of them and tell me when you’re ready to start.”
It was a challenge, having so many different powers to use at once.
Forge and Glamour had multiple remnants as well, but they were so isolated from each other.
Vitalis was designed to make a perfect healer or soldier, so each power could work to empower the user in a different way.
Multiple advantages utilized at once to increase the power of one’s attacks and break those of the enemy on unbreakable defenses.
But I couldn’t figure out how to use more than one at a time.
“How exactly do you draw power from the dice? I’ve always wondered if it was similar to how I siphon,” I asked him.
“I don’t need to touch them. Just be close enough to feel them. As for how you siphon, I’m not sure it’s quite the same.”
“But you can use more than one bloodline at once?”
He affirmed my suspicions with a nod. “I can, but it’s difficult, and not always necessary.”
I shot him a side-eye as I fumbled through the rest, trying to pull from more than one rune. It was more challenging than expected.
“I give up,” I muttered. “Teach me.”
Max wore a smile. “Let’s just start with the basics—like your fighting stance.”
He came up behind me, hands resting gently on top of my hips. His foot tapped my ankles, spreading my legs a little farther apart, as he twisted my hips to frame my feet. “Keep this tight always.” His palm strayed across my stomach, and I tensed my core.
“Tight enough?” I asked.
A breath hit the back of my neck. “Very tight.”
The praise was starting to get to me. I found myself wanting more, becoming increasingly malleable as he touched every inch of me.
Max bent my body to his will, pinching the areas I needed to tighten, stroking the ones I needed to relax. By the time he’d corrected my position, I couldn’t remember what I was standing there for.
Unfortunately, Max hadn’t forgotten. He snapped his fingers to call my attention, then walked me through several simple maneuvers that would help me should I need to get out of an attacker’s choke hold one day.
We grappled for nearly an hour. When we finished, my shirt clung to my chest from sweat, and the warm sunshine bathed the ring.
“There’s one more thing I want to show you,” he said, shaking off a jab I’d connected with his jaw.
I looked around the arena and found we’d been abandoned. The staff had gone; Elli and Andre were nowhere to be seen or heard. We were alone.
So I took off my shirt.
“Nina…”
“Relax, I have a camisole underneath.”
Cool air embraced my sweaty form, stealing some of the heat my muscles had kindled over the last hour. Max watched from the far side of the ring as I tossed my shirt away and pinned up my curls to keep the hair off my neck.
“Well?” I said. “What did you want to show me next?”
He cleared his throat and shifted from his lean against the banister. “Turn around.”
I rolled my eyes, but submitted, solely out of curiosity.
One of his arms snaked around my waist, while the other lifted a hand over exposed skin to find my throat, squeezing it gently as he pulled me hard into his chest. My hands went to the arm around my neck first out of pure instinct, cupping the thick muscles across his forearms. The pulse in his wrist danced beneath my grip.
“How would you get out of this?”
I didn’t want to get out of this at all, but I wasn’t about to admit that. I threw my head back to rest against the curve of his shoulder, opening my airway so I could breathe.
“Very good,” he whispered. A thumb stroked the column of my throat. The tips of his teeth flashed in the corner of my vision. “What now?”
Each technique he had taught me was about using a man’s strength against him, not trying to overpower him with my own.
To get out of this hold, I would have to move my own body, not his arm.
I stepped behind him, throwing off the balance between us while turning toward the side where he didn’t hug my waist, tipping his top-heavy weight to throw him to the ground.
Max landed with a hard grunt, and I grabbed for the dagger that peeked from his waistband, pressing it to his neck. He smiled before knocking my arm away.
“You make a good little Cursed.”
“I’ve been waiting to put you on your back for a while now,” I said with a wink, making it plain that the double meaning was intentional.
“Get a good look while you can,” he murmured. “Because I like to be on top, Nina.”
I gripped the die in my hand, letting my thumb rest against my bloodline of choice. I was burning from the inside out, dying to release some of this fire in my bones. “All talk, no bite. Maybe I’m a better Cursed than you.”
Even without the dice, Max was quicker than an average man. He sprinted the length of the ring in a heartbeat, but I dodged him, sending a foot into his lower back as he passed me. He stumbled a step before catching himself, turning with a smile on his lips.
“Good girl.”
Oh, fuck it.
I ran for him, ready to tackle him to the beaten earth. But Max pivoted, using his arm and my momentum to flip me over so that I landed hard on my back. The wind rushed from my chest, and I struggled to take a full breath.
“Nina! Shit, I didn’t mean to throw you down so hard. I—”
While he was too worried to watch my lower half, I twisted his legs from beneath him, stirring up a cloud of dust as he fell. I crawled on hands and knees to pin him to the ground, all while keeping possession of the artifact that allowed me to overpower him.
“Here we are again.” I sighed. “Maybe you should just get comfortable down there.”
He smiled, and it was the kind I hadn’t seen since the one I’d forced from him on Maurice’s ship. Deliberate. Genuine. Happy. Everything I wanted to see in him when he looked at me. “It’s a good view, I’ll admit. Probably why I keep letting you win.”
I sat up straight. The muscles of his core tightened between my thighs. “You need to show a little more aggression, or I’ll have to bet on someone else tomorrow night.”
In a flashing, simple move, he twisted our positions, pinning me on my back with my hands over my head. “You can bet on me, Nina. I won’t lose again.”
Were we still talking about the fight? I wasn’t entirely sure, but the way his stare climbed my body to find my lips had the confession falling off my tongue. “It should have been you yesterday. In the car.”
His smile faded. “Yes. It should have been me.”
My chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, skimming his sweaty form as he sprawled over me. His head lowered until the locks of his hair tickled my hairline.
I asked, “Then why wasn’t it?”
“Nina.”
I used my Siphon to flip him over once more and held him there with a firmer pressure. Demanding answers. “Can’t you feel it?” I whispered, feeling his breath slow to an easy pace at my words. “Don’t you hear my heart race when you look at me?”
A quick laugh slipped through his teeth. “I thought I frightened you. It’s so difficult to tell the difference. You’re always so nervous. Everyone is.”
My hands left his wrists to smooth down his chest. Max stopped breathing for a moment. “Are you afraid of me, then? Your heart is beating just as quick as mine.”
“You terrify me.”
“Why?”
After a long silence, he finally said, “Use the die and find out.”
I sat up for a moment to flip the artifact still safely between my fingers, unsure of which bloodline specifically he was referring to. There wasn’t much left for me to try besides the code of senses, which I’d always thought seemed uninspiring. Max didn’t offer me any clues.
Curious, I siphoned the power, and was nearly overwhelmed with sensations—most notably the ones coming from the man beneath me.