Chapter 45
Practice in the battle yard recommences two days later, when they find another siphon to help suppress people’s powers.
The replacement, Roderick, isn’t anywhere near as strong as Zelle, meaning he can’t just stay in place but must constantly move around the yard, offering the other Rettlings inevitable opportunities to flex their magic whenever he is far enough away.
I make sure to stick close to Llinos and Benny, just in case Zara tries to pull one of her stunts. Jonas is also determined to make sure I’m protected, but his protective presence is stifling. Thankfully, one of the court guards came and called him away, and with reluctance, he went.
I finally feel like I can breathe.
I haven’t met Kyor for morning training since our moment in my room, nor do I know if he’s been there to meet me. Being alone with the prince right now feels like a bad idea. I need to focus on the Retterheld.
The sun beats down on us, just strong enough to ward off the morning chill.
Benny is busy watching Grenda and Oke engage in a fight that has most people’s attention.
Despite all his powers of observation, he’s still not got anything on Grenda.
Whatever her powers are, she doesn’t need to use them.
Either that, or she’s managed to shield them from his sight.
While he’s focused on figuring it out, Llinos and I are practising our sword skills. Or at least, that’s what we’re meant to be doing. She seems far keener on gossiping.
‘He hasn’t taken his eyes off you the entire morning. Are you sure you didn’t do more than stitch him up?’
‘You were out of the room for ten minutes,’ I reply, swinging my sword at her. If she’s not going to pay attention, I’ll at least use it to my advantage. ‘What exactly do you expect us to have done in that time?’
She arches an eyebrow. ‘I can think of a few things.’
‘Well, they didn’t happen.’ I glower. ‘None of them.’ Except in the vivid dreams that came instead of me.
I swing my sword again, trying to push down the memories of the way Kyor pinned me against the wall with his hips. The way he asked if I’d thought about him taking me. The way I can still feel his muscled form pressed against me, like it’s permanently imprinted on my skin.
‘Well, I think he definitely wanted something to happen.’ Llinos refuses to let it be, continuing to press as she sweeps my sword away from her with a gust of wind.
Apparently, Roderick’s far enough away from us that she can use her magic, and she’s definitely using it to her advantage.
‘From the way he’s looking at you now, I’d say he still wants something to happen. ’
‘He always looks at me like that,’ I snap back, refusing to glance in Kyor’s direction. ‘Remember the whole thing about blaming me for his mother’s death? The look you’re talking about is hatred.’
She snorts. ‘Nope, that’s not it. But even if it were, have you never heard of hate sex?’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ I groan. ‘And will you stop looking at him? He’ll notice.’
‘Too late,’ she mutters. ‘He’s walking over.’
Heat rolls into me at the thought, and when I speak, my voice is a little too high. ‘Gods, Llinos. Seriously?’
My back is currently to Kyor, and I try to keep it that way, continuing to strike at Llinos’s sword.
But I don’t need to turn around to know when he’s there.
My body can sense him. It’s a prickle on my skin and the clenching of my pulse.
It’s like the very air wants me aware of his presence. Slowly, I turn around.
‘I’ll take over here,’ he growls at Llin.
‘She’s all yours,’ Llinos says with a smile. Traitor.
‘You want to fight?’ I ask.
‘You didn’t come this morning,’ he says, voice low. ‘Don’t trust yourself to be alone with me, Thorn?’
I swallow and lift my chin. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Good, then I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m not done making a warrior of you yet. Now, let’s make up for your absence this morning. No holds barred,’ he murmurs silkily. ‘Unless you’re going to turn me down. Again.’
From the sudden coughing fit to my left, it’s fair to assume Llinos has heard every word.
‘I knew something happened,’ she mutters, confirming my suspicion, but I don’t even glance in her direction. My gaze is locked on Kyor. On those blue eyes that have filled my thoughts way more than I want to admit.
No holds barred? Though he’s been training me in movements and stamina, in a true fight with him, he’d kick my arse effortlessly. ‘We both know you’re going to have me on my back in seconds,’ I respond, only for his lips to twist into a wicked grin.
‘Wasn’t that easy last time, was it?’ he replies. ‘Maybe this time I’ll get lucky.’
His every word is deliberate, taunting me, teasing me. I try to act unaffected, but my damn body is betraying the effect he has on me. The hitch in my breath. The tightening around my thighs. I just pray to Etta that his powers don’t allow him to see it.
‘I’ll make it real simple,’ he says. ‘All you have to do is draw blood. And I don’t care what part of your body you use to do it.’
He presses a finger to his bottom lip, instinctively drawing my eyes to it.
Fuck, this is torture. Not just because I’m about to get my arse handed to me, but also because there’s no denying how much part of me wants him to drive into me in a very different manner.
Still, I chuck the sword I was using to the side and unsheathe the daggers in my belt. If he wants to get close to me, then we’ll get close.
‘Your favourites. Good.’ He flashes me that smirk again before taking a few steps back and kicking off his shoes so he’s standing barefoot in the sand.
‘Why do you do that?’ I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. ‘Why fight barefoot? You’re more likely to injure yourself.’
‘No, I’m not.’ He presses his lips together.
‘Conductivity.’ His voice is nearly a whisper.
‘The earth’s charge is much easier to control when I know the terrain.
And having control of static lets me do things like this.
’ A prickle starts at the top of my neck, small at first, but then it grows, heating up as it slides downwards, tracing across my collarbone before splitting.
Dipping. Trailing lines across my breasts before cascading further still.
I can’t help but gasp, though the smugly satisfied smirk it elicits from him makes me wish I could have at least pretended to be unaffected.
He bends closer, his breath a hot whisper on the curve of my neck, making me shudder all over again. ‘Just so you know, Thorn, if you liked that, there’s much more to come.’
I swallow hard. We need to start this fight so that it’s over and done with as quickly as possible.
I step away from him, and the minute I move, the static on my skin stops.
His eyes take on a whole new glimmer. Speed is possibly the only thing I have on him, but only for very short distances as I’m certain his stamina is better than mine.
I wish that thought didn’t evoke an array of distracting dirty images in my mind.
With my dagger in hand, I lunge forward so clumsily he barely has to sidestep.
‘Fuck,’ I mutter. One nick, that’s all I need to make, and his entire bare chest is open to me. But it almost feels sacrilegious to inflict any wound on a body like his, especially when it’s clearly been exposed to enough pain already. No matter how good a shape he’s in, wounds take time to heal.
I keep my distance, sweeping my feet in a constant arc that stops us from getting too close and moving in one direction and then the next.
As he takes a step towards me, I move back by an equal distance.
It’s like there’s an invisible barrier that won’t let him get any closer to me.
Or perhaps that’s just my common sense finally intervening.
‘Are we going to dance like this all day?’ he purrs, his voice sending a quake down into the depths of my bones. ‘You’ll never get rid of me this way.’
‘I’m just biding my time,’ I growl back, my voice almost as low as his in an attempt to disguise the twist in the pit of my stomach.
With a surge of determination, I feint left then pivot, raising my elbow towards his jaw, but he catches me by the shoulder and spins me round, pressing my back against his chest. A gasp rattles from my lungs that’s not entirely due to the impact.
I’m not sure if it’s my pulse or his that I can feel pounding through me.
Either way, I struggle to draw breath. My body is desperate to see what it would find if I pressed myself into his hips, but I swallow back the urge, cursing my own insanity.
‘I think you got it wrong the other night, Thorn,’ he whispers against the shell of my ear, the warmth of his breath spreading like molten metal down my spine. ‘I didn’t want you to be a distraction. You are the distraction.’
Whatever game he’s playing with me, I’m starting to think it’s just as dangerous as the Retterheld itself. But, just like the gifting, I don’t intend to lose.
I tilt my head up towards him and part my lips slightly as if I’m going to speak … only to swing my elbow up, ready to drive it into his jaw. But he sees it coming.
He twists me around so that I’m facing him and pins my arms across my body as he holds me effortlessly in place. My eyes snap to his because I don’t trust myself to look straight ahead. And certainly not to look down.
‘You are the reason I can’t think. Can’t sleep. Can’t stop imagining the way it would feel if it was my fingers and not my power doing this.’
He lets the static run free again, though this time, it’s on the inside of my thigh.
My body melts, craving the sensation, and his hips shift towards me.
The movement is so minuscule that I doubt anyone else would even notice.
But I do. I feel the pressure. He’s hard.
Fighting me, holding me, has him hard. And it’s enough to make me slick.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek until I feel the metallic taste of blood on my tongue. It’s the only thing I can do to stop myself from moaning. Shit, from begging.
I need to get a grip. I wrench my arms free and slam my hands against his chest, pushing myself away.
‘See what I mean?’ he groans. ‘You are the distraction.’
‘I’m okay with that,’ I say, sliding my feet across the sand as I move further away from him, keeping my eyes on his.
I go low, aiming for a shot that will really hurt, especially in his current situation, but he anticipates the move and grabs me under the shoulders, flipping me over his back and slamming me into the sand.
Pain sears up through me at the impact. My bones throb from the force, yet a moment later, the pain has gone, swallowed entirely by the fact that Kyor is straddling me, his full weight pushing down into me and those icy eyes locked on mine.
Dryness fills my throat as I struggle to move. To want to move.
I try to push up, but all that does is drive his weight further into me. It’s no accident that he’s pinning me down by my hips.
‘Ready to give in?’ he murmurs, and I know we’re not just talking about the fight.
‘Not going to happen,’ I say through gritted teeth. I need to focus. I need to win the gifting. If I’m his distraction, then he is no less mine, but where he can afford it, I can’t. Not when I’ve made it this far.
‘No? Then how about this?’ he growls. ‘Tell me you wanted me to stay. Tell me it crossed your mind, even if it was just for a split second. Tell me you wanted to lock that door and let me do all those filthy things I’ve imagined doing to you. Say that and I’ll let you go. I think that’s fair.’
Fair? Nothing about this is fair. I’m pinned to the ground by the son of the man who destroyed my family, and all I can think about is not moaning. Not showing him how much my body wants him.
‘The thought didn’t cross my mind,’ I lie boldly.
‘Really? So if I turn up tonight – sober – and pin you to the wall, telling you I want to make your body writhe with pleasure, it won’t cross your mind to let me stay?
If I tell you I want to run my tongue across you until you lose every shred of restraint, you’ll say you don’t want that either?
If I whisper every filthy thought I’ve had of you into your ear until you beg me to make them real, you’ll push me away?
Tell me, Thorn … tell me you don’t want to feel me stretching you from the inside. ’
I’m soaked, dripping in a way I never knew I could. But when that Godsdamn smug smirk rises on his face, reality hits me. This power he’s got over me – not the sparks he cascades over my skin, but his words that send me into a near frenzy? I can play that game too.
He’s not joking when he says I’m the distraction, and I need to use that. Not be afraid of it.
‘That’s what you’re thinking about now, right?
Isn’t it?’ I murmur, deepening my breath so that it’s close to heaving.
‘Right now, you’re imagining what you’d like to do to me.
Or maybe you’re thinking about the way I watched as you pulled your shirt up over your head.
How you pinned me against the wall. Or how you moaned. ’
‘From what I remember, you were the one moaning,’ he says huskily.
‘Really? Maybe I’ll have to rectify that next time.’
‘Next time?’ I hear the hitch in his voice, and I know I’ve got him. Without so much as a pause for breath, I move.
Boom.
I slam my elbow straight into his side, landing the blow an inch above his stitches.
He gasps, shifting away from me, his eyes flashing as I kick him off me and stand to stare down at his now supine body.
‘That was a low blow,’ he growls, though his eyes flash with something close to respect. He sits upright and presses his fingers to the wound, checking to see if he’s bleeding.
‘I trust my stitching,’ I say when his fingers come back clean. ‘Now, I believe we’re done here.’
In one sweeping moment, he’s on his feet. ‘I think you’ll find the condition was to draw blood,’ he growls, his eyes glinting. ‘Like you said, your stitches are good.’
‘And I think you should check your neck.’
He moves his fingers up to the place where the very tip of my knife nicked the thinnest line on his skin at the same moment my elbow struck him. A small droplet colours his fingertips, and when he looks back at me, it’s a genuine smile gracing his lips, not a smirk.
‘Well, then. We’re done for now.’ Still looking absurdly proud, he turns, picks up his shoes, and walks away without another word.
I’m still standing there with my pulse hammering when Llinos races back towards me.
‘Okay, that’s enough training. We’re all trained out.’ She grabs my arm as she hauls me in the direction of the dorms. ‘You and I are going to have a serious conversation. Now.’