Page 83 of Suffer No Fools
"Never be sorry." Hannah grabbed him in another hug, this one tight, fierce, and a little messy as they wiped their tears on his shirt. "I'm so grateful to have met you. You're the brother I chose. Because of you, I have this family." They sniffed. "I wouldn't trade you for the world."
"Thank you, then," he said. "Thank you for being my favorite annoying water sibling."
"Annoying!"
"You have to admit, both you and Efren are a little annoying sometimes."
"Fair," they said, "though I only almost hit you with lightning once."
"Efren threatened to feed me to his shark once, though."
"If you ever need a mercy killing, my way is quicker."
"Thanks, I think." Tovey tucked their head beneath his chin and savored the moment. He was done pushing away the people he loved. It was time to let them in, even if it hurt.
Chapter 13
Hugo
Yet another morning Hugo didn't want to get out of bed. He'd developed a bad habit over the holiday week, and now it was interfering with his duties as emperor.
He had always wanted to do more to fill his station in Hearthstone. He'd been bored and restless, rarely getting more than three hours sleep each night. Now, he couldn't seem to function without at least six hours.
"We're wearing you out,"Stan said through their bond."Too much sex. Too many new activities. Besides, you're learning your elements for the first time, and now ours, too. It's a lot."
It was a lot, but Hugo wasn't a child. He was old enough to experience these changes with effortless grace, the way his tutors had expected him to do everything in his life.
Now, it was well past time to make their way to the sandy pit on the beach and train with swords. Tovey was going to meet them there after he and Hannah sent their storm over the sheet of ice.
"Why aren't you making me get dressed?" Hugo asked Stan when he finally sat up and crab-crawled his way to the bottom of the bed.
Stan stood in the doorway. He'd already been up long enough to take a bath and eat breakfast.
"Why would I make you do anything?" Stan chuckled low and sexy, making Hugo want things he shouldn't at this time of the morning.
"I need to get up, take a bath, get dressed ..."
"Your bath can wait," Stan said. "You'll only get dirty when Tovey shoves you in the sand."
Hugo glared at him. "You have so little faith in my abilities!"
"You have yet to counter his attacks." Stan offered a hand and pulled him off the bed. He led him into his private bedroom, where a set of baggy breeches and a loose white tunic lay on the bedspread. "Once you learn, you can bathe before you spar."
Hugo couldn't argue with his logic. He dressed quickly and grabbed a muffin off the table before following Stan into the cool morning air. While still nothing like the frigid outer passages of the palace on a winter's day, the air was far cooler after the rains than it had been when they'd first arrived. It was refreshing, but also promised rain again later in the afternoon. They had only a few hours to practice.
Stan sat on the sand a few feet beyond the pit, and Tovey hopped into it with Hugo, tossing him a wooden practice sword. It was a little charred from their last practice, when he'd gotten a little too angry at being knocked down countless times and launched a fireball at Tovey with his sword hand.
Tovey kept telling him to feel the sword as an extension of his body, but the grip was so strange, and the movements didn't match how he'd trained with Coryn.
He had trained with Coryn, but he hadn't been using any of her techniques or strategies against Tovey. It had felt too much like cheating, but now, he wondered if hers was just another school of thought. She, too, had said to use his weapon as part of his body, but that weapon had been his power, not a sword.
He dropped the practice sword to the ground, and Tovey frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Trying something new."
Hugo sensed Tovey scrabbling for information from his thoughts, and he blocked him out using the technique Vadim had taught him to counter Coryn or other siphons stealing his power.
Tovey growled and launched himself at Hugo, his practice blade aimed low, toward his ankles. Hugo had taken enough blows there to know it would sting. He dodged and called forth his power, extending a thin column of fire from his loosely gripped fist. It was far easier for him to control the weapon now that he had built it himself, instead of extending power to Coryn that she then siphoned back to him. It had been an act to make him think he was using his own power, creating his own fire, but even that had been an elaborate lie.
