Page 106 of Illusory

Lucky for me, I’d been throwing like a toddler all morning and knew he’d have more than enough ammo to fire me rightup.

“Maybe you’re just a bad teacher,” I offered innocently and swung my left foot out and around, attempting to knock his feet out from under him, but he sidestepped that too.

His expression darkened. “Maybe you need to stop playing house and rememberwhoyou are and what you were born to do.” He blurred around me, stepping up behind me as he coiled his arm around my neck, pressing the inside of his elbow against my windpipe and then squeezing. “Seems you’ve forgotten all about that lately.”

Scowling, I pushed my ass back against him and tried to slide my fingers up to where he was crushing my neck.

From my periphery, I could see Trace moving along the edge of the room, prowling like a wild animal that just spotted its cornered prey. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to jump in to save me or attack me.

Before giving him a chance to decide, I rammed my elbow into Gabriel’s gut and then spun in his hold to face him, taking the pressure off my windpipe. I smiled again and then railed my knee into his balls so forcefully that I was sure I would have ended any chance he had of procreating had he not already lost that option when he Turned.

I could have sworn I saw Trace and Dominic grinning from the corner of my eyes, but I refused to meet their gazes to confirm it.

“Who’s the one that needs to focus now?” I taunted because he should have seen that coming from a mile away.

“Apologies,” he grumbled. “I wasn’t aware we were taking cheap shots today.”

I shrugged. “All is fair in love and war.” Without giving him a second to recover, I lunged forward again with a right hook, but faked him out and spun around him instead, ramming my knee into his kidney.

He stammered back a step but quickly caught himself.

A smug smirk curled my lips. “Was that shot a cheap one too?” I smarted.

His jaw muscle jumped and then he blurred past me, the back of his foot cracking against my spine and folding me forward onto my knees. Somebody made a snarling noise somewhere off to the side, but I wasn’t sure if it was Dominic or Trace.

The momentary distraction of meeting their fiery gazes was enough for Gabriel to finish me off with a hit to the back of my neck that flattened me to the ground like a squashed bug. More guttural growls thundered in the room as the air swooshed out of my body.

Okay, it was definitelybothof them.

“If the two of you are incapable of restraining yourselves, you’re more than welcome to find another room to entertain yourself in,” gritted Gabriel as he held out his hand and helped me back to my feet.

“I, for one, think I am doing a fine job of restraining myself seeing as I haven’t put your head through the wall yet,” answered Dominic in an impossibly calm voice that didn’t remotely match the fury in his eyes.

“Dominic!” I reproached, my eyes wide with alarm.

His dark gaze softened as it slid back to me, an innocent look shifted into place. “Yes, angel?”

Just hearing him call me that made my empty heart pound against my ribcage.

“Is there something you wish to say to me?” he tacked on when I didn’t produce any other words.

There were a million things I wanted to say to him but none that I could utter right then. “You should go. Both of you should go. You…you’re distracting me.”

Trace’s expression fell into a chasm of despair as Gabrielcrossed his arms and glared at his brother.

“Distracting you? How so?” asked Dominic, cocking his head to the side as if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing to me. What he had always done to me.

“You know exactly how,” I answered softly. “This is hard enough without you…”

“Without me what?” He took a step forward, his gaze locked on mine, but Trace quickly grabbed his elbow and pulled him back.

“We’ll leave,” said Trace and then nudged Dominic with his forearm when he continued to just stand there and stare at me with a visceral intensity that made my legs tremble.

Trace shook his head, cursing under his breath and then backed away before leaving the room completely. He wanted no part of this…whatever this standoff was.

“That means you too,” informed Gabriel, still standing shoulder to shoulder with me with his arms folded across his chest.

Dominic blinked a few times, as though snapping out of some kind of trance and then turned to glare at his brother. He looked like he wanted to say something to him but then decided against it. He bounced one more look at me and then turned and left the room as well.

---