Chapter 36
SEAN
The next morning, Sean traded planning sessions with Bowenn for training with Cathaire and Anna. After days and days of strategizing, he’d convinced them to allow him a break.
If only they’d let him send David in his stead, but Bowenn had only just begun to warm to David. In Sean’s absence, he’d probably be turned away.
Sean needed some breathing space, and David likely did, too.
The morning was cold and cloudless. He met Cathaire in their normal clearing, ignoring the crowd of spectators, and bore the pixie’s congratulations over Bel’s miraculous pregnancy with relative grace. Shortly after he’d donned his bracers, Anna arrived.
“Where’s your boy?” Sean asked.
She shot a glance at Cathaire, her cheeks dyeing a pretty shade of pink, before she glared at Sean. “I don’t know. Where’s yours?”
Sean chuckled. He’d forgotten that Anna and David were trying to keep things secret. Not that they weren’t completely obvious with the staring and the general we’re fucking vibes.
Anna lowered her voice. “He was being weird this morning. Said he needed a morning off.”
Sean hummed. He’d sensed a strangeness in the cord in his heart that connected to David, but he thought he’d been imagining it.
“So I guess they finally let you come out to play?” Anna asked as she slid on her gear.
“They politely informed me that my time was better spent elsewhere, to which I respectfully replied that they can go fuck themselves.”
She snorted. “You sound just like David when you say things like that.”
Sean winked at her.
“Are we finished with the chitchat?” Cathaire asked, arms crossed, frown firmly in place.
Sorry, Sean and Anna both Signed to their Blademaster.
Cathaire’s blue eyes took their measure a moment, but then he nodded. “Begin.”
Anna cocked her head, grinning at Sean in challenge as she took her stance. “You ready?”
“Your goal today is to make me forget it all.”
Her smile widened, and she attacked.
Training with Anna had become something of a relaxation technique, despite that she was a vicious little vixen. He wanted to laugh at how reluctant he’d been when he first met her, all scared to hurt her. He’d been an idiot. Probably still was.
They’d invited him to the fighting rings, even to join the Honor Guard years before he should have been inducted, but Sean had refused it all, content to spar with this woman and their skilled Blademaster. He’d battle his way through the fighting rings soon enough.
For now, he just wanted this.
His new family. His people. The ones who mattered.
The sun had crawled high into the azure sky when Sean rubbed his smarting jaw. “Who taught you that right hook?”
Anna grinned. “You.”
“Pain leads to power,” Cathaire said and Signed, Go again.
They did. Over and over again. Anna’s aggression spilled from her, her focus on the task undivided. The nippy air did nothing for his sweaty skin, and he stripped off his leather bracers.
She laughed. “Am I wearing you out?”
“Maybe.” He dodged her fist. “Three weeks poring over documents instead of training will do that.”
She swung and missed again. “Are you planning to go into Viterra soon?”
“In a few days,” Sean said. “First scouting mission.” He side-swiped her legs and watched her fall with a laugh, then Signed, Weak.
She took advantage of his distraction and hooked a foot behind his knee, pulling him to the ground beside her. Cocky.
They reset and went again.
“And how does Isobel feel about that?”
Sean’s jaw clenched at the mention of Bel. “She’d…prefer I not go.”
“But you’re going anyway?”
He nodded. “And she refuses to stay here without me.”
“Stuck between fire and brimstone, huh?”
Sean laughed. “Something like that.”
Her pounce caught him by surprise. Together they fell to the cold ground, and she scrambled to pin him. Her bony knee dug into his thigh. Thin, delicate, strong hands squeezed the linen of his training tunic around his wrists.
He could have pushed her off, but instead, he let her immobilize him as the bluest eyes he’d ever seen blinked at him, wide and proud and…pretty?
Wait. Pretty?
No, not just pretty. Mesmerizing.
Had he ever seen a color so beautiful? How had he never noticed?
Anna’s grip eased, and one finger barely grazed his hand where the leather bracer should have been. Her touch sparked a static shock, a synchronized jolt to his nerves that carried all the zing of electricity without pain.
Her breath caught, and both of them snapped their gazes toward the contact. Pleasure tingles fizzled, like the blood beneath was laced with fireworks.
She jerked away, landing awkwardly beside him. Their eyes met and held, but neither of them spoke. Neither acknowledged it.
“Excellent!” Cathaire said.
“What?” Anna dragged her gaze to their trainer. “Oh. Right. Yes.”
Sean couldn’t look away from her. What the fuck was that?
Cathaire Signed, Go again.
Slowly, Sean rose to standing. Anna mirrored his movements, her expression far more serious than it had been before.
They faced each other, staring, neither of them blinking.
He wasn’t sure what to do. A part of him was scared to touch her again, confused why the pixie spark had transformed into… that.
Another part of him wanted to do it again.
“What are you waiting for?” Cathaire asked. “Begin!”
Obediently, Sean moved, though he tried not to touch any parts of her that weren’t covered by clothes. Luckily the wintry air meant she wore a neck wrap and sleeves to her wrists. The bracers and gloves beneath covered all but her fingertips.
Could he replace his own bracers without seeming suspicious?
Didn’t matter. After a few half-hearted maneuvers, they reverted to their usual ways. Block-jab-kick-block. Their bodies crashed together in a flurry of movement, and then he found her beneath him, his pulse hammering as he hovered above her.
He had her thigh pinned with his knee and one arm restrained by her wrist, but her free hand moved automatically to push him off, the way she would if everything were normal. Bare fingertips grazed the exposed skin of his neck, then the notch between his collarbones.
Stronger than before, the spark burst to life, coasting down a network in the surface of his skin, writing pleasure across it. His body dipped closer to hers, pulled by a magnet he didn’t understand.
Her breathing went ragged, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes. “We’re just sparring,” she whispered, as if she needed to convince herself.
Sean swallowed hard. “Do you want to keep going?” he said, not even sure what he was asking.
Her fingers moved, and the pleasure sensation flared. She gasped.
What was this?
Why was it happening now?
Her leg pushed against his, and he took the hint to roll away from her. The network evaporated with the loss of her touch, but the memory of it stained his entire consciousness with a red haze.
“I think I might be done for the day,” Anna said, avoiding his gaze. “Need a breather.”
Cathaire nodded. “You both did well. Tomorrow, if Bowenn can spare you for a few hours, we will work on directing Luster.” He rose an eyebrow at Sean. “I hear your aim needs improvement.”
Shaking himself of the strangeness with Anna, Sean tried to laugh. “You talked to Kywyn?”
Cathaire clapped him on the shoulder. “Aye. You go to Viterra soon. Either you improve your aim or the Indies will use you for target practice.” He turned to Anna. “And you will rise to Honor Guard in just a few short weeks. You will be in Viterra yourself before you know it.”
A smile grew on her face. “I know. I can’t wait.”
Sean met her eyes and winked again—sheer habit—then watched as a flush crept up her neck. Something twisted in his chest at the inviting color, and an odd heat flooded his body. Not desire, not anger. Something else.
Something possessive.
Words fled, and he tumbled over some sort of ledge.
He was falling. Drowning.
Anna’s lips parted, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
Mine.
The instinct rose from a place that didn’t belong to him, that was wholly David, but as soon as it arrived, it delved deep into Sean, burrowing inside his marrow with thorny vines he’d never be able to rip out.
His heart swelled into his throat as he came to terms with this new emotion, this…adoration. This love.
David’s love.
Debilitating. Hot. Consuming.
This was how Sean had imagined love would feel before he’d met Isobel Faywood and realized how wrong he’d been.
From Bel, he’d learned love was more like a prison than freedom.
It was uncertainty and regret. It was a glass of water that sat just out of reach on a blistering hot day—the perpetual want of something more.
But this…
This was the key to his cage.
And it didn’t even belong to him.
Cathaire was speaking, but Sean had missed it all. Instead, his gaze tracked Anna as she hurried to the supplies table, ripping off her guards in the process. With one last glance in his direction, she disappeared into the milling crowds.
“Ashanta?” a voice floated to him from outside his awareness.
Sean turned to Cathaire, dazed.
“Is something wrong?”
A barricade of ice formed across Sean’s astonishment, and he blanked his expression. “Of course not.”
Cathaire contemplated the place Anna had disappeared, then studied him. “I understand she has found herself a golden keila?”
Sean forced his mouth into a crooked smile. “You figured it out, huh?”
The Blademaster gazed at him for a time, thoughtful. “I discover much by simply watching.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Perhaps it would be wise to consider that I am not the only one watching.”
Sean said nothing, did nothing. He could barely breathe.
“Pixies can always tell,” he said. “Remember that.”