Chapter 28 | Anna
I’d spent days learning not to be a weapon. Now I needed to learn how to be one. On purpose.
He wasn’t going to like it. But I was going to propose it, anyway.
So, I waited until mid-morning, when the sun was breaking through the trees. When he was outside doing his perimeter check, which he did every day.
I was going stir-crazy, which was funny considering where I’d been.
I dressed for combat right down to the boots.
When I knew he was making his last pass around the cabin, I stepped onto the porch. A faint breeze shifted the trees, making the late summer leaves swish. It was peaceful. And if this had been any other place, and I had been any other girl, this might have been something special.
But it wasn’t. I wasn’t. I was dangerous.
He paused at the foot of the porch looking up at me like he was surprised to see me there.
I doubted that. But it was fun to think about.
“I have an idea,” I said.
His mouth flatlined. “Another one?”
I ignored him. “Instead of controlling it… what if I use it?”
His face went utterly blank as he stared at me. “You want to let it take over?”
“No. I want to access it without letting it control me.”
His brows drew together. His gaze shifted over me, as if cataloging that I was dressed for battle.
“I’m tired of it controlling me,” I added. “They gave me the skills. Reflexes I shouldn’t have. I want to use it.”
“To make you lethal to me,” he said.
“But what if it could make me lethal to them?”
He glanced away for a brief moment. But I could see his mind working. “So, what are you proposing?” Wary. Uncertain.
“You train me. Teach me to access it without losing myself to it.”
He was already shaking his head. “If you lose control—”
“Then you stop me. Like you always do.”
“I don’t think so.”
He started up the steps, but when he was even with me, I caught his arm. His head snapped toward me, surprise in his gaze that I’d initiated that small contact. His arm muscles went rigid against my hand. A reflex. One that was so honed, he didn’t even realize he did it.
“You’re the only one who can,” I said. “And I want to start now.”
“Now?” He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
Perhaps I had.
“No time like the present.” I grinned, then stepped down off the porch. “We can do it out here. Fewer things to break.”
I thought of the lamp we’d knocked over that first time I tried to stop myself.
“Just you,” he said.
I turned to face him, but he was still standing on the porch.
I tried to pretend I didn’t notice the way his shirt sleeves were bunched at the elbow showing off muscular forearms dusted with hair.
Or the way the collar laid against his neck.
Or how the morning light reflected in his eyes making them change from green to gold and back again.
That was the first thing I’d noticed about him when we’d met. The way his eyes could change color based on mood. Flat green when he was furious. Smoldering gold when he—
I cut off that thought. No sense going there.
“It’ll be like the old days,” I said trying to entice him. And trying to convince myself I could recapture those days even though they were long gone. “You know, when Edward made you spar with me.”
“Edward never made me do anything.”
He sounded exasperated which delighted me. With a huff, he stepped off the porch, his boots thumping on the wood.
“For the record, I don’t love this idea,” he said.
“You will, though.” I sounded confident.
He frowned.
“How do you want to do this?” The question came out careful. Like he was trying to decide how not to break me.
“Like we used to.” I thought of all those moments in the workout room back home. The times where he’d insisted on making me learn to defend myself. “You come at me. I defend. Except this time, I’m not going to try to stop it. I’m going to make it happen.”
He gave me a blank stare. He was so good at hiding his thoughts and emotions, I couldn’t tell if he was trying to decide how to get out of this or how to keep me from killing him.
Probably both.
I said, “You told me not to let them win. This is me not letting them win.”
Something shifted in his expression. Understanding. Or resignation.
“Fine.”
He stepped back, putting some space between us. Then held his hands up in a loose guard position. Tension lined his shoulders. He was holding back.
“Not like that,” I said.
“What’s wrong with how I’m doing it?”
“You’re not even trying,” I said.
His jaw flexed in that way that told me I was exhausting him.
“If this is going to work, you have to try,” I added.
“And if you can’t stop it?”
“Then you stop me like you always do. But I don’t think you’ll have to.”
I raised my hands, shifted into a fighter stance. I tapped into that cold place in my brain, letting it flare. Reaching for those violent emotions I’d been trying to suppress.
We circled each other. But he wasn’t into it and he was still holding back.
Then he moved first. Not a full attack. A test. He grabbed my wrist.
The response was immediate. My arm twisted out of his grasp before I consciously decided to do it. My body flowed into a countermove that—
No. Stop.
Pain lanced through my skull—sharp, brutal—as I fought the programming. I stopped the movement. Stepped away. Took a deep breath, blinking against the lingering pressure behind my eyes. My heart hammered.
His eyes widened. “You felt it. And you stopped it.”
I nodded, rubbing my temple. “I did. And it hurt. But I did it.”
But I wasn’t ready for a victory lap yet.
“Let’s go again,” I said.
This time he didn’t hesitate. Moving fast. He reached for me, but I grabbed his arm, twisted it, and shoved him down in one fluid motion. Like he weighed nothing. The movements clicked before my mind said go. I landed on top of him, pinning his arms against the ground.
There we were. Me staring down at him. Fire in his eyes. My palms on his wrists. He could get up anytime he wanted, but he didn’t.
His pulse spiked beneath my hand. Heat shot through me.
And then I was kissing him.
His mouth opened under mine, like he’d been waiting for this. Wanting this. He tasted dark and dangerous, wickedly male in a way that hit me hard and fast and begged for more.
His hands came up. Not to push me away, but to cup my face, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones, one of them skimming the edge of the bandage on my cheek. He kissed me back with a controlled intensity that made my head spin.
For a heartbeat, that cold place in my brain flared—bright, hot, trying to make me do something I didn’t want to do. Pain spiked sharp and immediate as I fought it. No. Not this time. Not now.
I shoved it back down. Shoved it away through sheer force of will, even as my head throbbed with the effort.
This was mine. This moment. This man.
The pain faded. Heat replaced the cold. Rushing through me like wildfire, pooling low in my belly.
His hands slid into my hair, and I made a sound I didn’t recognize—half gasp, half moan—and pressed closer.
His heart hammered against my chest. Every hard line of him against me. Solid muscle and unyielding heat and—
Reality crashed back in and I jerked away, sitting up straight. Right on top of—
OH.
I rolled to my feet and quickly turned away to hide the blush burning my face.
Get a grip. This wasn’t our first time.
But it hit me like it was.
I did my best to act casual as I started for the porch.
“That was a good start. We can try again tomorrow. Are you coming?”
“I wish,” he muttered.
And I couldn’t help myself, I laughed. When I glanced back, he was sitting upright, arm on knee, watching me with a wrecked expression.
And his eyes were molten gold.
By the end of the week, I could access the programming like flipping a switch.
Turn it on: Brotherhood warrior, efficient and deadly.
Turn it off: Anna Walker, choosing every move.
The pain was still there when I fought it. Sharp and vicious when my will clashed with their wiring. But I’d learned to push through it. To grit my teeth and shove past the pressure building in my skull until I found the control on the other side.
Each day, it got easier. The pain less. My will stronger.
We sparred every morning. I’d tap into that cold place, let the reflexes take over, then pull myself back before the programming could complete. Attack. Stop. Breathe through the pain. Reset.
He never held back anymore. Couldn’t afford to. I was too fast, too precise when I let it loose. And I needed him to come at me like he meant it.
Because Vormund and Sebastian would.
They’d made me into a weapon.
I’d learned how to aim myself.