“But we aren’t back to the way we were,” Killian persisted.
“I told you just because I forgave you doesn’t mean there aren’t any consequences.”
“Hazel.” Killian moved to stand in front of me, forcing me to look at his well-defined muscles that were visible through his shirt, which made me realize just how much his suits hid. (And how much he had to train. Seriously, did he ever sleep? As long as I had been around I’d only seen him work all night, but he had to do some serious training by himself to have that kind of muscle definition. Also, it made me suspect he was really vain, because wearing a shirt this tight was totally unnecessary and not appreciated given the tiny amount of definition I’d managed to achieve with all of my work. Was it getting hot, or was it just me?)
Killian’s eyes were a little more red than usual. “If you just tell me what I have to do to fix this, it would make things easier.”
“And I told you, I just want you to trust me.”
Killian made a frustrated noise that sounded like a growl. “And you want proof of that trust?”
“Yes.”
Killian narrowed his eyes. By the way he’d fallen silent, I had a feeling he wasn’t happy with my response.
Too bad! I didn’t care, buwahah!
I folded my arms across my chest and looked down at the blood-red flower petals again. “This looks like a murder scene.”
Killian studied the flowers with too much interest. “It does bear a startling resemblance.”
“Should I go find a broom to sweep them up with since whoever is training me hasn’t shown up yet?” I did a few torso twists as I looked around.
Maybe there’s a broom in the locker room…
“I’m training you.”
Chapter Twelve
Hazel
I froze mid-twist. “Say what?”
“I’m going to be your trainer.”
All the muscles in my body went slack. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Since you insist you are only available for training twice weekly, it is important that your sessions count,” Killian said. “Thus, I decided you should learn from the best.”
I squinted up at him. “I don’t believe you. Is this revenge for something?”
Killian raised both of his eyebrows. “I am merely giving you what you asked for in the terms of our contract.”
“Hah! Likely story!” I shook my finger at him. “Come on, what is it really? There’s no way you intend to waste your time like this.”
“Any time spent with you is never a waste.”
I whipped around real quick and put my back to him so he couldn’t see my blush. “I still don’t get it. Celestina and Josh were amazing trainers. They’ve got to have an endless supply of things they could teach me. This seems awfully…lame to make you train me when I’m so bad with martial arts and I’m still a newbie with my sword—not to mention I’ve only covered the bare basics with guns.”
“True,” Killian said. “But since we have limited time, we’re not aiming to make you a martial arts expert or a sword master.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have six months to make you a better fighter,” Killian said. “And while Josh and Celestina are superior to you in many ways, given the additional training you’ve undergone of your own volition these past weeks, you’d be able to take them in a fight if allowed to use your magic.”
“You can’t know that,” I scoffed.
Killian smirked. “You’ve held the majority of your training practices on your front lawn. There is very little I don’t know about your current fighting condition.”
I scrunched my nose at him. “Talk about getting your underlings to do your dirty work.”
“And quite effectively so.” Killian stretched his arms out as he studied the matted area. “I’m thinking a practice match is in order.”
“Practice—are you out of your mind? You’ll squash me like a bug!” I wouldn’t put it past him to start the match without my approval, so I hastily pulled magic through my blood, making heat crawl across my face as my wizard’s mark surfaced.
“I’ll hold back,” he assured me. “But you shouldn’t. Use everything you’ve got—though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t trash the place. The Curia Cloisters is still getting repairs done from that storm you conjured.”
“Momoko and Felix helped—it’s one of our new strategies.” I kept my magic rolling as I copied Killian and started stretching. “You know, when we finally do start having confrontations with the Night Court…I think it might be most effective if we didn’t keep our forces entirely separate, but had them fight together—or at least had some of our best fight together.”
“Why would you say that?”
“When we were attacked at Leila’s it worked really well to have two of us wizards paired off with a vampire. We could protect our vampire, but Celestina and Rupert were able to sense the fae more easily since they didn’t bust out magic right away. And once we wizards flushed them out, it was easy for Celestina and Rupert to subdue them.”
Killian tilted his head in thought. “It’s an idea that has merit. It will be interesting to see what my First Knight reports. Fighting with wizards is perhaps a little more intimidating for vampires than you realize given your friendly familiarity with the Drakes who inherently trust you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a stray lightning bolt could do great damage, particularly if it was cast by a wizard trained by you, which makes them more competent than most.”
I snorted. “Yeah, and you can recover really fast from pretty much any magical attack. But I know what you mean. There are a few members of my House who wouldn’t be thrilled to have a vampire at their back when you guys could snap our necks before we realize what’s going on.”
“And yet, here we are, about to enter a practice match together.” Killian grinned at me.
I shook my head. “My trust in you isn’t the issue, Killian. You’re the one with the trust problem.”
He stared at me for several long moments. An emotion simmered in his black-red eyes, but his eyebrows weren’t at all slanted, so I didn’t know how to read it.
Well, if he wasn’t going to start us off, I’d take the advantage of being prepared. I unsheathed my chisa katana, wrapped it with electricity, and raised my shield. “Ready?”
Killian nodded sharply, and backed up a bit. Then he disappeared.
I shifted my shield to my back and created a ring of fire around me, spanning from my feet to the outer edge of the circle, which I had precisely calculated to be longer than Killian’s arm so he couldn’t yank me right over the top.
Killian darkly chuckled, and I caught sight of him to my left. “Not bad.” He threw something at me.
I ducked, but caught sight of it flying over my head, confirming it was indeed a dagger. (Where had he kept that?!)
Killian effortlessly leaped over me. I crouched even lower, avoiding his hand when he tried to snag my arm, and managed to stab my katana upwards.