Chapter 27
Itry to swallow, but my mouth is as dry as L.A.’s demon-tainted dirt.
Thankfully, desiccated or not, it still functions on auto, and I croak, “The Eternal Battle?”
Both his eyebrows rise. “There’s another one and no one told me?”
I thought his humor deals only in viciousness and violence. But that was an actual—quip? Or is my brain so fried I can no longer understand sarcasm?
Sarcasm? I can’t understand a damn thing anymore!
I raise both hands. “Rewind and replay, please. Assume I know nothing. Yeah, yeah, to go with your lovely name for me. Along with Burden, Abomination, Conundrum, and Misshapen Piece of Clay.” His eyebrows descend, and I rush to my point. “You can’t think I can possibly become a weapon in that battle, let alone the one with the ability to end it!”
For an answer, he only turns and strides away to a sleek assortment of exercise equipment and padded surfaces, each as big as our apartment...
Our apartment!
I rush after him, head feeling waterlogged. “I never got the chance to ask—what will happen to our apartment? Our lease and stuff? And the money we stash there? What about our demons? What if they issue a warrant for our arrest? Can you angelic bigshots deal with that?” My hand shoots to my Mark in belated dread. “Lorcan told Sarah the Marks didn’t activate because of your angelic magic. But he didn’t sound all that reassuring when he said you’ll deal with them. Deal with them how? What if they activate again before you do? Will you let us go back within our allowed range? Or, since I don’t know where this Academy is, are we still in it? Or are we in another realm or…?”
“No. More. Questions.” He tosses me exercise gloves. “Put these on, White—or should I say, Weiss? Any reason you kept that name?”
I catch the gloves before they hit me in the face, and glower at him. So he found out more about me. Probably everything. Now he wants the context of personal explanations so he can—what? Have more insights into my character? So he can better use me for his “purposes”?
Good luck with that. He only gave me incomplete answers that only spawned a hundred more questions. And he already has the upper-hand in every way. I’m not handing him any more advantages.
If he wants more answers, he can investigate his gorgeous butt off for them. And when he only comes up with assumptions, he can live in uncertainty like the rest of us. Like me.
I give him my best taunting smile. “No. More. Questions. Yourself.”
Feeling mighty pleased with the crackle of lightning that escapes his control, I turn my attention to the gloves.
It’s harder than I thought it would be. I keep pushing two fingers in one slot, then the wrong finger in the wrong slot. He watches me struggle with them, and the gym darkens.
“Hey, that doesn’t help!”
“I expected you to be a difficult student, but I thought I had to start training you before you tested my patience.”
“So I never put on gloves—sue me.”
“If I didn’t have use for you, I’d far more than sue you.”
I tsk. “Don’t just stand there imagining all the torture you have in store for me, and writhe in impotence. Do something useful for once in your life, and come help.” I snort a laugh. “Oh, you can’t, can you? By now I know you can’t break your word. Maybe you’d go up in hellfire or something. Too bad you swore never to touch me, huh?”
“I didn’t swear.”
My eyes shoot up, and so does my heart. “What…?” He stares back at me as what he said sinks in. It comes back up in a coughed scoff. “You did, too!”
Eyes filling with malicious enjoyment, like that time he suffocated me, he shakes his head. “I said I’d never touch a human, especially you. That’s a preference, not a pledge.”
“Are you saying you—can touch me if you want?”
The look in his eyes almost gives me a heart attack.
Then he makes it far worse when he murmurs, deep and devastating, “If I want.”
It’s then I make a terrible discovery. That I felt secure, thinking I had his pledge. Not from physical harm, since he doesn’t need to touch me for that. Secure in having that last dignity. Of not being in danger of melting at my enemy’s touch.
Now I know I don’t have his pledge, I can rely on his—what? Will? Whim? Revulsion for humans, especially me? The one who aggravates and stymies him? What if that makes him decide to touch me instead, to tame me, to break me? So I’d be easier to use?
I’m suffocating without the aid of his leash before he adds, “But I won’t.”
I shove my hands into the gloves to hide their tremors. The random move slots them right.
His lips twitch. “I see that incentivized you to finish your task. Now…”
He beckons, once. A tranquil flex of these fingers of power and perfection. I bet it would make any female dash to hurl herself at his feet. It only makes me want to “defy” him. But though he hasn’t leashed me since yesterday in public, he will in private, if I waste more time.
Not wanting to be garroted this early in the morning, I approach him.
He instructs me to sit on some exercise machine that must be made by aliens. Which the Nephilim are to me. It also looks made for Nephilim-level muscles.
I toss him a sullen glance as I sit down. “What do you expect me to do here?”
He goes still, returning my glare. “I’m beginning to suspect you can’t utter anything not in the form of a question.” Before I can retort he holds up a hand. “I’m testing your fitness level.”
“What for?”
Ugh. Seems I can’t say anything not in question form.
Wonder of wonders, he chooses to answer this one. “The extent of powers any being possesses is linked to many factors. Genetics, mental discipline, correct application and consistent practice. But physical resilience and stamina, which depend largely on nutrition and exercise, remain vital to unlocking and sustaining the expression of such powers.”
I look him up and down. “Is that why you’re in such disgusting shape?”
“My body is a weapon.”
Tell me about it. One of mass destruction, especially of ovaries.
His lips quirk, all but gloating at my obvious, and fully expected, appreciation of his assets. “Keeping it locked and loaded, as you American humans say, is a duty, and a privilege.”
I exhale, flapping my lips like a horse in annoyance. “What a good little soldier you are.”
“It’s my birthright, and my destiny.”
That sounded—solemn. Wow. A solemn Godric is yet another level of yum.
But he let the “little” dig go. Of course. A secure male would see such taunts for what they are, standard bitchiness to get a rise from him. And this guy has to be the most secure male to ever exist.
“Now, enough. Pump those bars.”
I try. I really do. And I raise the handles above my head. My arms shake like a tightrope beneath a bouncing acrobat, before they give out, and the bars crash down.
But at least I raised them!
Godric dispels any pride before it fully twinges in my chest. “It’s even worse than I thought. I put no weights, so those bars are not even set on minimum. Your muscular development seems to be in the minus.”
I scowl at him as I point a shaking finger to myself. “Human, Demon-Owned, semi-starved for life. What else did you expect?”
He shrugs one prodigious shoulder, the superhuman image of sleek muscular development himself. “The worst, obviously. But that’s also good news, since I can work with this. I’m stipulating that such a poor physical condition is limiting your access to your power.”
“So we’re calling it a power now?”
He exhales forcibly at yet another question, fluttering his lips like I did a minute ago—and looking fan-nephilim-tastic doing it. When it’s ridiculous on me and anyone else. “Now to test your lower body strength. Set the machine to the first slot and push the footplate.”
It takes me moments to understand his order, then many more trying to figure out how to implement it.
His impatience bombards me until I raise frustrated eyes. “Keep your shirt on, Featherboy…”
The rest vaporizes in a blast of heat.
He’s taking his sweatshirt off!