Page 6 of Great Falls Rogue
“Not today, but I do like the notion,” Shade says, clapping Katita on the shoulder. “I will speak with Coal about working it in if there is general interest?” He says the latter part as a question, his voice rising to encompass the ring.
Most everyone nods, the girls all but bouncing on their toes.
I cross my arms. The day has barely started and I already want it to be over—want to go out into the night with my sword and do something I know will make a difference. At least the sclices and Yocklol trees see the true me and find me worthy enough to warrant killing.
“Why are you joining us today, Master Shade?” one of Katita’s friends asks, a delicate olive-skinned beauty who’s somehow even shorter than I am.
“Because you will be rendering each other unconscious this morning.” Coal barely raises his voice, but the entire training pitch falls silent. Feet shift, faces losing color.
Dressed in his usual black pants, today Coal wears a sleeveless leather jerkin over a black shirt that covers his arms to the biceps. Some distant part of my brain registers that this is unusual for him—but stops short when it gets to the ropes of muscle twining around his forearms, shifting beneath his skin as he strides to the center of the ring.
“There are two primary types of chokes,” Coal says, making a motion with his finger that has the class circling around him. “Wind and blood. You all will feel both today. Osprey, come here.”
I jerk. Me? Why? Coal never chooses Lera the cadet. Not for anything. As he brusquely beckons me toward him, eyes still on the class, I feel that same unnerving tingle rush along my spine as I had when our gazes met earlier.
I stop before him, but the male circles behind me, Shade’s sudden alertness making me tense. As he disappears from my sight, I feel dozens of eyes watching my face, waiting for the inevitable—some nervously, other with the eagerness of spectators at an execution. Shifting my weight, I strain to hear the sound of his silent footsteps, to track microshifts in his metallic scent, but catch nothing.
“Wind chokes—” Coal’s gravelly voice is so unexpectedly close to my ear that I jump, and the class chuckles softly. He clears his throat, and silence settles once more. “Wind chokes,” he says again, “compress the throat, cutting off the opponent’s air. Blood chokes compress the vessels on the sides of your opponent’s neck. Right here.” Coal’s calloused finger traces along the vulnerable spot on my neck, finding my rapid pulse with centuries of experience in taking lives. A shiver races through me. For a second, all I want to do is run. Then his hand disappears, his phantom touch still lingering on my skin.
I draw a shaking breath.Coal,I remind myself as I force air again and again into my lungs.You know Coal. You trust Coal.
The words that would have put me at ease a month ago now only dry my mouth. Yes, I know and trust the warrior Coal was in Lunos. Not because Coal didn’t hurt people—he did—but because I was special. Now, I’m no more than a face in the crowd. One whom he cares little for.
I suddenly want to be anywhere but here in the ring.
“This is a wind choke.” He steps behind me again, his body now flush with mine. Hard muscles flex against my back, Coal’s heat soaking through the thin fabric of my gray training uniform to spread along skin. After a month of no contract, the intensity of Coal’s touch is almost too much to bear. My heart quickens, a zing of unwelcome need rushing through my core and sex. A heartbeat later, the blade of Coal’s forearm rests knifelike against my throat, and the sensations change altogether.
Despite the light pressure, I feel each fragile ring of cartilage in my throat, hear their coming crunch beneath a tighter hold. The rush of panic hits me so hard that my ears roar. My hands shoot up to grab his forearm, my body twisting like a fish out of water.
He releases me, his fingertips resting lightly on my shoulder while I rub my throat. My chest heaves with shallow breaths.
“A wind choke is painful from the start,” he tells the class, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. As if he expected my reaction. And demonstrated on me anyway. “Thus—as you just observed—your opponent will struggle long before her air truly runs out. In contrast, the effects of a blood choke will sneak up on the adversary. Additionally, while an opponent might fight without breath for a time, he cannot function with the blood flow halted. This is also why it is vital to know what a blood choke feels like. You must be aware of what you will and will not be capable of if attacked this way. To demonstrate…”
Before I can stop myself, my body takes an involuntary step away from him.
The class laughs, the grating bellows of Katita’s cousins Rik and Puckler rising above the rest. They’d laughed that way in the stable too, as they tried to force a horse’s bit into my mouth.
Shade’s golden eyes flash in warning as Coal’s scent spikes behind me. He grips my shoulders, dragging me back with a primal possessiveness that makes me long to rake my nails down his back in answer.
As if he’d heard my thoughts, Coal lowers his voice so only I can hear his warning tone. “Fight me, Osprey, and I will fight back. I’d stay very still if I were you.”
His words are a buzz in my ear, their sound mixing with…with a copper scent of blood. I swallow. Take another breath. The smell is still there, coming from Coal’s shirt. As if blood from an opened cut is seeping into the fabric. My magic bucks, feeling its hidden mate. Tangling with it despite my protests.
My head swims, desperate darkness and clanking chains closing around me.My shoulders scream, the scent of blood and pain filling my lungs. I yank against my shackles as if they might give, but they don’t. They never do. Behind me, footsteps get closer, metal instruments clanking against a blood-caked tray.
I gasp, blinking away the nightmare—the memory. Coal’s memory.
I’m on the training pitch, the chill air biting my skin. The class watching. Overhead, a drafting falcon lets out a hunting cry. With my back flush against Coal’s hard body, I can feel each of the male’s unyielding muscles, the light rumble of his chest as he explains the move. If he felt our magics tangling as I did, he shows no sign of it. I certainly felt them, though.Stars,the echoes of Coal’s horrors have not been so soul-strikingly raw since they overwhelmed our bond in Lunos, so early on. With flashes like this, I’ve no notion how the male functions.
A heartbeat later, as his thick arm slides around me, I don’t have the time to care either.
My chin drops instinctively, protecting my vulnerable neck. A futile move against Coal, but my mind can’t think over my still-hammering heart. I want out of this restraint. Out of this demonstration.
“Cooperate, Osprey.” He drives a knuckle beneath my chin, the bruising pressure forcing my head up. In the next second, his arm comes around my neck neatly, the bend of his elbow pressing the vessels on both sides.
For an instant, nothing happens and I think the choke failed. Then dizziness hits, panic riding its wings.
“Stop fighting, Lera,” Shade’s voice calls through my haze. “Trust him.”
