Page 46 of Demon of Dreams

And now I had to domagicalcombat? I didn’t know what that involved, but I was sure I was going to suck at it. Which would be bad enough, but I had to suck at it in front of other people, too. Probably in front of Sean. Definitely in front of Ash and Felix.

What if I was so pathetic that they didn’t want to hang out with me anymore? And if that sounded like too whiny a concern, my second, much larger worry was that my complete incompetence would get back to Dean Mansur and make him reconsider whether I belonged here. I could get kicked out before I even learned how to control who—orwhat—I was.

Combat took place outside the mansion, in another building on Vesperwood’s grounds. We took a freshly-shoveled path through the woods to a long, low building with a terracotta roof and broad wooden doors. I could hear waves somewhere in the distance.

“Used to be the stables where the magician housed all the magical creatures he brought in from the far corners of the world,” Ash informed me.

“Or just where he kept his horses,” Felix said. “His regular, everyday horses.”

Ash gave him a disgusted look. “It’s like youwantlife to be boring.”

They kept bickering as we entered the building, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy taking in what the stables had been turned into.

We stood at one end of a massive room. Wrought iron chandeliers hung from the ceiling in between great wooden crossbeams. The wood floor showed signs of recent polish. Any horse stalls that might once have existed were gone. The place looked like a cross between an ancient armory and a YMCA.

One wall was lined with what looked like props from a Renaissance Faire, only real. Halberds, spears, swords, and lances. Even a two-headed battleaxe that looked like it weighed more than I did.

The other wall was lined with mirrors and a ballet barre. I was struck by the deeply incongruous mental image of doing whatever mortal combat we were about to learn while wearing a pink tutu, and had to swallow my laugh when another student gave me a strange look.

There were blue wrestling mats scattered across the floor, a row of weights in one corner, and a climbing rope in another, none of which looked promising. I turned to my friends, wondering if I could feign a stomach ache to get out of this, and caught sight of Sean and his friends entering the gym. Sean raised an eyebrow at me when we made eye contact, and I looked away quickly, only for my eyes to creep back to him once he turned around.

As I watched, he walked over to the wall with the weapons and ran his hand along the edge of a long, straight sword with two very sharp-looking edges. Not only did he look like he knew how to use it, the way his fingertips caressed the metal was vaguely sexual.

So I wasn’t just going to make an ass out of myself in front of him and my friends, I was going to do it while turned on, too. Perfect.

My anxiety was rapidly turning my fake stomach ache into a real one. I looked back at the door we’d come through, wondering if I really should get out of here, when a voice cracked through the air behind me.

“Alright, everyone. Line up.”

Four words. Nothing special about them. But lightning shot through my body at the sound, and I turned in spite of myself, wishing I could hide.

The lumberjack from the Balsam Inn was standing behind me. Glaring.

He looked just as handsome—no,handsomewasn’t enough, he washot—as he had that night, if not more so. Despite it being January and about twenty degrees outside, he wore a pair of black joggers and a tight black T-shirt that showed off the muscles of his arms and the outlines of his abs. He was cleanly shaven today, but that just accentuated the planes and angles of his face, making his chin even granite-ier, if that were possible.

And he wascoveredin knives. He had two strapped to his arms, two more hanging at his waist, and I suspected more I couldn’t see. He’d been wearing long sleeves at the Balsam Inn, but I wondered if he’d had them on then, too. Why did the thought turn me on?

He wasn’t glaring at me directly, at least. I just needed to get out of the room without him noticing. Without him seeing me and remembering how I’d looked in the bathroom, disheveled and desperate. Without him remembering how I’dacted, staring and drooling and coming from a simple question.

No way. I couldn’t handle that. It wasn’t enough to get out of the room, I needed to leave Vesperwood entirely if the lumberjack was a professor here. I couldn’t deal with seeing him regularly, with him knowing my weakness.

I began backing away as the group of students around me formed some semblance of a line. Ash looked over his shoulder questioningly, and Felix motioned with his hand for me to step in between them.

I shook my head and kept backing up, one step after another, willing my legs to work faster. Ash stared at me like I’d lost my mind, and Felix looked worried, his hand working overtime.

“You are aware of what a line is, aren’t you? Or do you all need to go back to kindergarten and work on your shapes?” the lumberjack barked.

As the remaining students straggled into a line, I turned and ran for the door. I only made it three steps before his voice cracked through the room once more.

“Someone’s too good for us, I see. Turn around, everyone. We’ve got a master martial artist here. No need for the basics of hand-to-hand combat, if he’s already leaving class.”

My stomach sank. I knew I should just keep going. Run and run and never look back. But his voice was like a magnet.

Not just his voice. His whole being. I could feel his presence behind me, and I was pretty sure I could tell you the exact distance between our bodies down to the last millimeter.

I turned around.

The entire class was staring at me, but I barely noticed them. My attention was on the lumberjack’s face.

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