Page 75 of Shadow

“You have chicken legs,” he told me once. Of course, I had to show him the chicken dance, which led to us covering our mouths to keep someone beside Boot from discovering Che.

I cared about them, I realized. Not as friends, but as family. Boot’s wife made us amazing meals for lunch when she felt good enough. I knew we would have been friends if this was a normal situation.

There was nothing normal about being shot at. If it was the Federation trying to kill me and King, I was in deep water, and it was too overwhelming to think about.

Boot had moved on to weapons training, where I used dull wooden knives and swords. I’d admit to being a touch more graceful now, but I still had my moments. I was supposed to implement kicks to my opponent’s body when I wasn’t within knife range and, most of all, not cut myself with my own knife while doing it.

Today, Boot moved backward when I kicked, and I hit air, losing my balance and falling to my knees. I remembered to keep the knife facing away from me considering it a win.

“Hey, why’d you do that?” I asked before realizing he was staring behind me.

King, in Beast form, stood just outside the doorway, needing to duck through to fit. A soft growl left his throat, and Boot backed another step away. I ignored Boot and all his weirdness for now.

“If he won’t take my hand and help me up, you should, your majesty. Of course, you had to see the one and only time I biffed it on the floor today.” I lifted my hand and waited for King to take it. He was so large in this form, and I secretly liked it. I just wouldn’t tell him so. And yes me, the woman who complained he had too much muscle.

King took two steps in. Boot slowly circled the room and escaped through the door once he was close enough. King grabbed my hand, pulling me up.

“You’re safe,” he said through his massive jaws. It was his human voice, only with a little more grumble.

Whatever that meant. Of course I was safe. After I was upright, I copied Boot’s common pose and placed my hands on my hips. “Did you find the men who shot at us?”

“No. They left the island.”

“That means you have no idea who they are?” I asked.

King didn’t answer. His intense blue eyes darkened, the color shifting as something stirred within him. Bone and muscle slid beneath his skin, a slow, deliberate transformation. I heard the faint crackle of shifting joints, his hand tightening slightly around mine as his body adjusted.

The pain he must have felt was unimaginable, but his face remained impassive, his gaze locked on mine. I couldn’t look away, even as I sensed the effort it took for him to control the change.

Gradually, his height shifted back to his normal form, and I no longer had to crane my neck so much to look up at him. Relieved, I stepped closer, still holding his gaze.

His pupils expanded, slowly overtaking the blue of his irises until they were a deep, endless black. It was mesmerizing. A sexy, hypnotic trick I couldn’t tear my eyes away from.

Then, his head dipped, and our lips met.

I inhaled sharply through my nose, catching the mingled scent of Beast and the man beneath. He was pure sensory overload, and it made my head spin. I stumbled slightly, and King steadied me.

“How’s training going?” he murmured against my lips, his voice low and rich with a teasing edge.

“I fell. I got back up,” I replied breathlessly. “It’s kind of redundant.”

A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Stop falling.”

“Easy for you to say,” I retorted, rolling my eyes. I rarely fall now, but he had walked in just when I did, so I fibbed, trying to make him smile.

He stepped back and picked up the mitts Boot had left behind. Holding them up, he looked at me expectantly. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Suddenly, embarrassment washed over me. Boot had seen me stumble and flail enough times that I’d stopped caring what he thought. But King? He was different. Sexy, self-assured, and utterly gorgeous.

And me? I was ordinary. Scared of my own shadow and ready to fall at the slightest push. Or Ihad been, and I needed to stop thinking that way about myself. It was time to show him what I was made of.

Squaring my shoulders, I lifted the gloves into the first stance Boot had taught me, my arms ready.

“Two jabs with your left, one with your right, and finish with a left hook,” King instructed.

“Remind me what jabs and hooks are,” I replied with an overly sweet smile, clearly yanking his chain.

His eyes, which had been a deep black moments ago, shifted back to their piercing blue. A short laugh escaped him. He knew I was messing with him.

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