Chapter 17 #2
“It’s as if you enjoy being battered,” Cathaire said while David rubbed his jaw.
“Maybe I’m a masochist,” he replied evenly.
Anna narrowed her focus onto the emotions buried deep beneath his ice. Bare traces of revulsion sparkled within his frozen tundra, brighter than anything else.
He hated this, didn’t he?
She’d been told that sylphs were pacifists, but their reclusive nature, their notable separation from the public eye, kept her from diving too deep into their true feelings on the matter.
She’d never been so close to a sylph, and she could feel it in the barely present exterior of David’s emotional core.
It wasn’t a mere belief that violence was unjustifiable. It was a visceral hate.
And he was forced to suffer through it because of his blood, because of the crimes of his family. He needed to prove himself here, though he’d done nothing wrong.
Nausea rose as she pictured what the rabble would do to her if her secret came out. David had noble blood, and he was still spurned.
They’d probably kill her.
“He acts like he’s never thrown a punch before,” Sean muttered as he slipped on his guards.
“What do you mean?” Anna asked.
He met her eyes. “We grew up in the same place.”
Her brows flew up. “Really?”
“Yeah. My aunt says our mothers did that on purpose, knowing who we’d be to each other. Tried to make us friends.” He laughed bitterly. “We were never friends. He hated me from the very beginning. But while I was isolated, David was—” He shook his head.
“David was what?”
“His father was a criminal. A bad one. And he made David one, too. I don’t really know. He stopped coming to school when we were, like, sixteen, maybe? But I heard stories, you know?” Sean turned to watch David take a brutal blow to the stomach. “He’s hiding how good he is at hurting people.”
Another wave of sick turned Anna’s stomach. So he’d been raised in violence as well?
She sensed no anxiety in Sean’s emotions, none of the guilt that accompanied falsehoods. Anna’s empathy was a built-in lie detector, and Sean truly believed what he said.
A sylph drenched in brutality.
Anna’s overly tender heart pulsed with sympathy strong enough that her teeth ached. She winced, hating when her emotions grew so big that they mutated into physical pain.
A curse drew her attention back to Cathaire and David. The latter was doubled over, hands on his knees. He looked up, his gaze sharp on her, half-accusatory, half-bewildered. “Why do you feel like that?”
Anna could do nothing but blink as anxiety inched cold fingers around her throat. It was only a matter of time before he figured it out.
But if he did, she had so many questions she could ask him…
“Savior!” Cathaire said, tearing the tense moment apart. “Come meet your adversary.”
Sean shot a raised brow at Anna but did as he was told. David took several moments to merely stare at her but eventually pulled his attention away to face Sean, unsmiling.
Onlookers gathered at once.
Cathaire paid the crowd no mind. He put each man in a fighting stance and began his usual lecture on position, all things Anna had heard before.
Be aware of yourself. Keep your hands up, your feet light. Always be prepared to move.
Cathaire used her as an example many times, moving her to and fro to make his point. He made each of them perform a series of strikes, and she showed how she would block.
The monotonous exercises droned on and on, but they grasped it quickly. At some point, both Isobel and Autumn joined the crowds, and Anna made sure to focus only on the drills, on Cathaire’s instructions, on each man’s reaction to her jabs. At no point did she allow her mind to stray to her magic.
They were all sweating when Cathaire let them break for water. The three of them traipsed to the edge of the clearing, where gear and supplies cluttered a small table. Anna poured them each some water from a jug.
After downing his, Sean faced David. “I don’t get you.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” David replied without even looking at Sean.
“Why are you acting like this is all new to you? I know where you come from, David. I’ve heard the stories.”
David’s green eyes cut toward him, full of frost. “Then you probably heard that I rarely needed to use my fists.”
Sean’s jaw clenched as Anna imagined the multitude of ways Morgan’s coercive magic could be used to cause pain.
Sean stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I just don’t understand who you’re pretending for. Is it her?” He pointed at Anna. “Because it sure as hell isn’t for me.”
“Hey,” she said. “Let’s not—”
David walked away before Anna finished. Her shoulders slumped, and she glared at Sean. Despite the fact that she barely knew him, that he was the long lost heir of Lhynion Sidera, uncrowned Sovereign to her people, Anna smacked his arm.
“Ow. What the—”
“Learn to be nice!”
His affront was crystal clear. “I am nice.”
“You purposely prodded at an area you know is sensitive. That’s not nice.”
“I didn’t know that! How would I know what does and doesn’t bother that guy? He’s a sadist with no emotions.”
Oh, he had emotions. He had an entire glacier of them, locked away and hidden because they were likely too painful to experience out in the open.
“You said this morning that you’re not the person people think you are, right?”
He refilled his glass, avoiding eye contact.
“Maybe he’s not the person you think he is, either.”
Deep blue eyes rose to match her stare, and he released a great sigh. “Maybe you’re right.” He cupped her shoulder, squeezing once before he returned to their trainer.