26. Swordplay #3
Keeping track of his sword is more challenging than I expect. He’s very distracting. He moves like liquid, his body sinuous as a cat, molten eyes fixed on me, lips pressed in concentration.
He thrusts and I parry—barely.
“Very good,” he praises with a lift of his eyebrow. “But I almost had you.”
That smug tone provokes me. I lunge in an explosive advance.
He spins and swings at me, the flat of his blade smacking me on the ass.
Hot indignation burns through me. “You think this a game?”
He smiles and his entire face transforms like the sun breaking through the clouds. “I’m enjoying myself,” he admits and then pounces.
I whirl away, narrowly missing the blade—again. Following up, I deliver a strike of my own, a wild swipe on course for his torso, which he neatly evades with a light bounce of his feet.
We continue in a barrage of quick moves. Strike. Parry. Strike. Parry.
I step back, panting hard, heat flooding my face as I glare at him. He’s still wearing that infernal smile.
“Ready to forfeit?” he teases—again, reminding me this is just a game to him.
I am nothing more than a plaything.
With a bellow of outrage, I charge.
He meets the charge with his own and suddenly, without quite realizing how, I’m pinned against the wall, the rock rough at my back, our swords locked, trapped between us.
And that’s not the only thing locked in battle. His dark eyes, the pupils shuddering, narrowing, clash with mine.
“Ready to surrender?” he goads, his voice unnaturally thick.
The words slide beneath my skin like a splinter, and words of my own explode from me in a burst of fury. “Get. Off. Me!”
Suddenly . . . he is.
He stands several feet away, blinking rapidly like he isn’t certain how he came to be so far from me.
I chalk it up to the power of anger, granting me the strength to hurl him off me. I come for him again, sword ready.
He quickly recovers, meeting my attack.
I grunt as our swords crash and clang so hard I feel the vibrations in my teeth.
Soon, I’m winded, my arm and hand aching. Where did that surge of strength go? I thought I was better than this . . . even if he’s a dragon. I never expected him to be so good with a sword. He couldn’t have had any formal training up here in the Crags.
Frustration swells and turns to rage when he taps his sword against mine, once, twice, three times. It’s a mockery. An insult. He’s toying with me yet again.
Growling, I come at him in a wild charge. A mistake. He deflects and twists around, catching me in his arms, his breath hot in my ear. “Enough. You’ve made your point. You’re capable with a sword.”
“That wasn’t my point!” Not my only point at least.
“Wasn’t it? You wanted to show me you can handle yourself out in the Crags. Well, no amount of sword skill was ever going to convince me of that. You alone are no match for the ancient magic or fierce beasts or armies of man that populate these mountains.”
I’m wheezing. Saliva floods my mouth, and it has little to do with how exerted I am. It’s rage. My sense of defeat, helplessness. “You didn’t draw first blood. That was the deal.”
“I’m not drawing your blood, you little fool,” he mutters against my ear, his lips the barest brush. “What have I ever done that leads you to believe I would physically hurt you? That I would cut you with a sword?”
I’m panting hard like a caught animal. His arms lock around me, just under my heaving breasts.
I hate that he’s stronger. I hate that he’s right.
I hate that I’m his prisoner, that I’m stuck here, that there is no escaping this night .
. . that now, in this moment, it’s tempting to surrender and just melt into him.
His arms are solid bands of muscle holding me up, his chest at my back a supportive wall. I release a ragged exhale.
His hand against my ribs shifts, the barest stroke, and a new sense of panic swells to life in me.
“It’s late,” I say. “I’m ready to go to bed.
” It is late, but sleeping is the last thing on my mind.
The lie is my attempt to put an end to this, to insert space between us, distance and time, so that his hand on my ribs does not unnerve me, so that the next time we meet we are in our proper roles.
Dragon and human. Captor and captive intent on escape.
His breath continues to fall, steady and deep against my hair, a comforting cadence. His arms relax. He reaches around me and lifts the sword from my hand, tossing it to the side. “Good.” A single clipped word. “I’m sure you’ll feel better after a night’s sleep.”
I don’t know if that’s true. I prod around carefully inside myself, uncovering what’s there. Resignation. Loss. A fiery, charged hum along my skin that feels like the air before a thunderstorm. I can’t imagine all those feelings will be gone by tomorrow morning.
He lowers his arms from me. “Let’s go then.”
“Let’s?”
“You don’t think me so foolish I will let you sleep on your own out here anymore. We tried that once. You lost that privilege.”
I glance to where I usually sleep, the pillow on the bench still bearing the indentation from my head. A queasy sensation starts twisting its way through me. “Where am I sleeping then?”
“In my den.”
In his den. With him.
“You jest.”
“No.” He takes my elbow and starts guiding me toward the tunnel leading to his chamber.
His words sink another layer. “Wait.” I yank my elbow from his grasp. “Did you say anymore?” This isn’t even temporary? I swallow miserably.
He nods and reclaims my elbow, continuing us down the tunnel.
At his nod, panic surges in my throat, bilious, fetid as food gone bad. “You’re going to force me to share your den with you?”
He makes a tsking sound. “That’s an ugly way to phrase it.”
I give him a bristling look.
He looks back coolly. “It’s for your own protection, and I wouldn’t need to do it if I could trust you.”
A tightness squeezes around my chest, aching, hurting, making it difficult to breathe. “There’s that word again. Funny how you think trust can ever exist between us.”
We enter his den, and I’m allowed my first look at his private space . . . the place where he spends his nights.
It’s not a large chamber, but there are several dips and pockets within the stone walls creating natural shelves to hold items. A single flame flickers in a lantern sitting atop a tree stump that has been polished to a high shine and serves as a bedside table.
He possesses few personal belongings: a comb, a mirror, a dozen books.
My eyebrow lifts. Apparently, he reads. And yet it is his collection of gems in all colors and sizes that astonishes me.
They cast almost as much light as the lantern’s glow.
The fortune these jewels could bring would feed countless families in Penterra.
I make a small sound of disgust at the sight of them, here for mere decoration and vanity.
At the sound, he follows my gaze. “What? The gems?”
“Why do you feel the need to hoard such treasure?” Disapproval drips from my voice, thick as syrup.
“What? They offend you?”
I gesture lamely. “They’re valuable. They could feed an entire town for months, years even. To say nothing of the homes you could provide, clothing . . . all the things necessary for—”
“And is that what your kind does? Do humans who are in possession of treasure dispense it to those in need?”
“I—um—”