16. D（anger） #3
I tried desperately to shove him away. His leather boots slid back an inch as I pushed off the glass with everything I had. He smirked and flexed, pressing me back. I whimpered as our clashed swords pressed against my jugular.
Abruptly the pressure disappeared. He stepped away, putting space between us.
I sighed with relief and lowered my sword.
He lunged and drove his shoulder into my stomach. Twisting, he threw me to the floor, knocking the air from my lungs. Cheating bastard.
Arms splayed, I stared at the ceiling, struggling to breathe.
“I dare thee to touch another man—” he lay atop me, his weight crushing “—and see what happens. I was merciful today, but I shan’t be in the future.”
I brought my sword up to the back of his neck. “You’re dead.”
“Am I really?” he asked cryptically.
Ella whooped and clapped. Axel whistled mockingly.
Tarantula rolled off me, and we both got to our feet.
Outside the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, and long shadows stretched across the hollow planes of his angular features.
He cracked his sword down over his thigh, and it snapped in two.
He threw the pieces away and stepped into my personal space, using his size to try to intimidate me. “Thou art dead.” He glanced down.
The twins’ cheering died off with confusion.
“Stop looking at my legs,” I ordered.
“Then cover your distracting knees.”
I sputtered. “It’s just knees.”
“No.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “It’s your knees.”
“Then do not look in my vicinity.” I stumbled toward the twins, the fight draining out of me in the face of his prudish perversion.
“Then do not look at me with that tantalizing light in your eyes when in my vicinity,” Tarantula called back over his shoulder.
“I can’t hear you!”
Axel threw a towel at me. “Zora, try not to get us all murdered.” Ella hid her smile behind her hand.
“I know thou can hear me!” Tarantula bellowed.
“Oh, look, you angered him, again.” Axel slapped my shoulder. “Nice work.”
Tarantula stood across the room by the exit door with a hostile expression on his face as he glared at me.
“Leave,” I ordered.
He dragged his hand roughly through his hair, chain clattering. “Thou art so . . . bossy.”
I clapped mockingly. “Took you long enough to notice.”
Shaking his head, he turned and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Ha.” I turned to the twins. “Isn’t he ridiculous.”
Axel pursed his lips.
Squire squawked as he landed atop my head, seeds falling out of his mouth and bouncing off my forehead. Who keeps taking them from the mailroom and giving them to him? Ella led us out of the training room with a tired sigh.
That night, I just couldn’t sit comfortably in bed, period cramps destroying my innards as I tried to focus on my favorite medieval book on war strategy. Squire chirped softly in his sleep, his tiny head resting on my pillow, the sheets tucked around his neck.
“Here,” Tarantula said quietly, breaking what had been hours of silence between us.
I flipped over. He stood beside my bed, holding out a glass jar of a thick yellow substance.
“ ’Tis paste for your menstruation cramps.” His ears turned pink. “For the pain. I got it from Ella—”
I snatched it from his hand, sniffing it suspiciously. The minty scent made my eyes water, and I had half a mind to throw it back at him just to be spiteful, but another cramp seized my organs. Grunting through the pain, I quickly rubbed the paste over my abdomen.
Tarantula made a dark sound, and I looked up.
He stared wide-eyed at the strip of exposed skin where I’d pulled down my pajama bottoms. It shone with the paste. His hands fisted, chest rising and falling, inhaling harder than when he sprinted.
His gaze shot to my face, and he backed away.
“What art thou reading?” Tarantula asked breathlessly, clearly trying to change the subject. “Instead of playing me,” he finished with annoyance under his breath as he gestured to the chessboard frozen mid-match.
Huffing, repositioning his blanket over me for maximum comfort, which I refused to give back because it was cozy, I held up the book title so he could read it. The paste tingled coolly on my stomach, and for the first time in hours, I could think through the pain.
Tarantula read aloud, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Slaughtering.” He froze. “Why the damned . . . art thou reading that?”
I shrugged. “If I’m going to defeat the Emperor, I need to beat him at his own game.”
Tarantula sat down on his bed like his knees were weak.
I flipped the page and read the passage on deception closely, even though I could have recited its contents with my eyes closed. The author wrote at length about the importance of having multiple aliases.
“How do thou know?” he asked with a deadly tenor. “Who told thee that he reads that book?”
I peeked over the top.
He sat rigidly on his bed, his posture hostile. The acrid scent of his malefic intentions filled the room, and Squire coughed in his sleep.
“What are you talking about?” I asked slowly.
He didn’t answer.
Focusing on the page, I resumed reading about deception. How intriguing.