Chapter Five
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“COME ON ALREADY,” WYNTER said with a scowl and poked her belly. “Aren’t you tired of being trapped inside my womb? Don’t you want to be born?”
Grace snickered beneath her breath when she heard Wyn complaining in the great room. “You still have around a week to go, mama,” she reminded the redhead as she entered the room.
Wynter’s scowl deepened and she let out a dramatic sigh. “I want to get back to training,” she said. They’d finished building the ensuites and every bedroom was now complete. Everyone except the water manipulator had resumed their regular routines. Wyn wasn’t as agile now that she was so huge.
Angel was sleeping on her stomach while she watched TV. Wynter moved slightly and the feline snapped awake. Yowls issued from the growing kitten when she spotted Grace before the teen could dart out of the room.
“Damn it!” Grace muttered. “I shouldn’t have lingered.”
“Did Qi send you to check on me?” Wynter asked.
“Yep,” the tiniest cambion admitted as Angel launched herself off Wynter’s stomach towards her.
“Ouch!” Wyn exclaimed when the cat’s claws sank into her skin through her maternity dress. “You furry little monster!”
Grace deftly caught Sin’s pet and put Angel on her shoulder. “Do you need anything while I’m in the kitchen?” she asked.
“Bring me some candy,” Wynter requested. “And soda,” she added.
Zoe had suffered from excessive heat through most of her pregnancy and Wyn was the same.
Xanthia had set up an air-conditioning unit on wheels that blasted cold air at her.
It ran on magic and she took it everywhere she went.
Zo was annoyed that their resident electronics guru hadn’t thought of setting one up for her when she’d been expecting.
Grace put her hand over the ear Angel was screaming into as she left the room and headed just up the hall to the kitchen.
The kitten leaped to the floor and circled her like a shark sizing up its prey as she took cat food from the fridge.
“How have you not deafened yourself, Angel?” she asked, spooning food into a small dish.
Angel devoured the fish like she hadn’t eaten in twelve hours rather than two.
Grabbing a candy bar and a can of soda, Grace loped back to the great room. Wynter gave her a huge smile when she handed the goods over, then went back to watching her TV series. It was about a couple of hot guys who hunted monsters for a living.
Returning to the females’ training room, Grace watched her sisters in action.
Xanthia’s combat skills hadn’t improved much.
She could throw a punch and defend herself to some extent.
As for shooting and knife throwing, Vic had almost given up on her several times.
The others were far better. Both Reegan and Bria were surprisingly good with crossbows.
The newest arrivals were fitting in well.
Each new pair of knights and cambions added to their overall strength and boosted everyone’s abilities.
“You’re up, short stuff,” Vic said as her session with Oaklie ended.
“Awesome,” the teen said with a huge grin.
Oak climbed out of the boxing ring, wiping sweat off her brow. “I can’t wait to show Ark what Vic taught me today,” the wood manipulator said. The females often practiced with their mates when they had some downtime.
Climbing through the ropes, Grace glanced over at the ring in the opposite corner. Zoe was sparring with Qiana. The doc was a bit taller, but their matriarch had developed some serious fighting skills.
Sensing her trainer rushing towards her, Grace moved with the speed no one else could match.
Suddenly standing behind Vic, she kicked the tall, muscular cambion behind her knee.
Going down, Victoria turned her fall into a graceful roll and leaped to her feet again.
She spun around and her fist shot towards her opponent.
A foot shorter and much faster, Grace easily avoided the blows that came her way.
It was pointless for her to try to hit Vic.
Her teacher’s main talent was anticipating what people were going to do before they did it.
The only way Grace could beat her was to use her speed to get behind her.
Vic couldn’t anticipate what she couldn’t see coming.
The pair fought in a blur, then Grace accidentally stepped straight into a full-force punch. Vic’s fist connected with her cheek and the teen was thrown across the ring. She hit the ropes and fell to the mat, groaning in agony.
“Fudge!” Vic shouted in horror. “Doc! I need you!”
Qi vaulted over the ropes and raced across the room to leap into the other boxing ring.
Vic had fallen to her knees next to the kid and gently rolled her onto her back.
“She’ll be okay,” the doctor said, then put her hand on Grace’s shoulder.
Power flowed into the littlest cambion and her fractured cheek healed.
“That sucked,” Grace muttered as the pain in her face vanished.
“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” Vic said, feeling distraught.
Cam appeared along with the other males as they sensed their mates’ distress. “What happened?” he asked.
“Vic punched me in the face and almost knocked me out,” Grace said as Qiana helped her to her feet. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said when her trainer gave her a stricken look. “I got cocky and walked right into it.”
Cam climbed into the ring and pulled his mate to her feet. He could feel Vic’s guilt. “Our little sister is fine now,” he said in an effort to cheer her up.
“I could have killed her,” Vic said in a haunted tone. “I could have snapped Grace’s neck.”
“I might be small, but I’m tougher than I look,” Grace said, putting her hands on her slim hips.
“I’m in awe,” Bria said, putting her arm around Urzra’s waist. Their height difference of fourteen inches made her seem even smaller than she really was.
“I don’t think I could have taken a punch to the face like that and remained conscious,” the emotion manipulator said.
The door she’d created in her head kept everyone’s feelings out now, except for her knight’s.
She rarely cracked the door open to spy on her friends’ emotions.
Vic took a deep breath, then patted Camriel’s muscular arm and crossed to the teen. “You get a free shot, shorty,” she said.
“What?” Cam had time to ask in alarm, then he shared his mate’s pain when Grace’s tiny fist shot out and broke his female’s nose.
“Damn it!” Vic exclaimed with a wince. “That hurt!”
“I only did that because I know you’d wallow in guilt if I refused,” the kid said.
Zoe nodded in agreement. “You know she would have, Cam,” she said to the sulking blond warrior. His nose was unblemished, but he shared his mate’s pain.
Qi healed their trainer’s gushing nose and the blood flow stopped.
“Nice jab,” Vic said in approval, feeling a bit better now that they were even. “I thought the cartilage was going to spear right into my brain and kill me for a second there.”
Grace snickered, then the rest of the females burst into laughter, baffling their mates once more.
“Keep it down in there!” Wynter shouted. “I can’t hear my TV show!”
“She’s got the hots for the human hunters on that show,” Tori whispered.
Tolas grinned rather than taking offense. “My female used to be obsessed with them,” he agreed. “But now her heart belongs to me.”
“Aww,” Grace said, putting her fists beneath her chin. “As if any of you girls could possibly be attracted to anyone other than your knights now.”
“It’s true,” Wynter said, pausing the show to defend her male from the great room. “I still think the brothers are cute, but I don’t lust after them now.”
Angel sauntered into the training room, drawn by her natural curiosity.
Spying her favorite human, she crossed to Sinai and prepared to climb her leg.
Dressed in shorts, Sin bent down and scooped her up before the feline could try to scale her bare skin.
“You’ve got to stop clawing us to pieces,” she said in exasperation.
Angel yowled in her ear in response. “Don’t lie to me.
I know Grace just fed you,” the duplicator scolded her.
Zoe checked her watch when her stomach rumbled. It was an hour early, but she decided to halt training for the day. “Let’s break early,” she said. Seeing Grace being wounded and in agony had shaken them all.
“Yes!” Semi crowed, then raced Jac to the great room. They halted when they remembered Wynter was watching her show.
Heaving a sigh, Wyn switched the DVD off. Tol sauntered into the room to help her to her feet. “I need to pee,” she said in a belligerent tone. Her mate teleported them to their bedroom so she could use their ensuite.
Grace sensed the Mad Prophet approaching the back door and went to greet him. He was the only human in the area and he visited them for dinner a few times a week. “Hey, Queeg,” she said after opening the door.
“How are you, kiddo?” Queegly asked as he stepped inside.
“Did you get a vision of Vic almost knocking me out?” she asked at the concern in his tone.
“Yep,” he confirmed, pausing to give her a hug. “I just thought I’d check up on you,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she replied, returning his hug. The Texan always wore his cowboy hat, but took it off when he visited them. He hung it on a hook Cam had installed on the wall near the back door.
Amaros and Zoe were in the kitchen when their neighbor ambled into the room. Grace headed for the great room to play cards with Wynter.
“Queegly,” Amaros said in greeting with a nod.
“Howdy,” Queeg said respectfully to the commander and his female. “I’m glad the doc was on hand to heal Grace so quickly,” he said, taking the mug of coffee Zoe poured for him.
“You saw what was going to happen to her?” Zo asked. She hadn’t even been given a hint about it.
The Mad Prophet nodded and spooned some sugar into his mug. “I don’t think it was an accident,” he said and didn’t realize everyone in the great room froze. “It felt more like a warning to me.”
“A warning of what?” Amaros asked, feeling his mate’s concern.
“That we can’t always control everything,” Queegly said. “Sometimes, things happen and we just have to deal with the aftermath. We won’t always have Dr. Forgan on hand to fix the things that go wrong.”
A creeping chill swept over Grace when everyone turned to look at her. She hunched her shoulders at the compassionate look Wyn gave her. “This doesn’t mean he’s talking about something that will happen to you,” the redhead said.
“Sure,” Grace agreed, but her instincts said otherwise.
The worst part was that she didn’t know what was going to happen, or how long she would have to wait.
She’d rather be punched in the face by Vic a thousand times than live in fear of the unknown.
But at least it wouldn’t be a complete surprise whenever the shiz eventually hit the fan.