Page 13 of Brutal Birthright

But if there was one thing he could begrudgingly admit was going to come in useful was having an armourer on standby. He might as well assist with the training and weaponry instead of pissing around. The kid seemed enthusiastic, which was mildly irritating but not an entirely intolerable quality to have.

Rowan grunted and crossed his arms. Standing over the fae with his legs spread.

Yeah, he liked that his bulky frame took up plenty of room and gave him the upper hand without saying a word. If that made him a dick, so what? He wasn’t here to make friends. It was the small pleasures in life you had to grab hold of sometimes.

“Not the talkative type, I’m guessing?” Finnic rested his arms over his knees. Still perched on his haunches. “That’s ok. I’m more used to working alone with only the forge and my magic for company. So, we’re a right pair then, aren’t we?”

A pair?

Rowan hadn’t wanted to be anything but left the fuck alone for the past century. Maybe even longer.

But the Goddesses didn’t bloody well quit when it came to their demands for his services. They’d ensured their executioner was always available to get blood on his hands.

What was he supposed to do with this wet-behind-the-ears fool? From the way he was grinning up at him… did he want to hold hands and braid each other’s hair or some shit? This entire situation was a joke.

“Sparring went well. Some of them have definite potential to make it into the elites. Others have got a lot to learn.” He pushed to standing. The fae was about a head shorter than Rowan but broad-shouldered. Looking like his chest was made of solid steel hidden beneath his shirt. Who the fuck wore a white shirt to a training arena?

Finnic bent down to collect a couple of the swords. A neat line stretched between them of all the weapons laid out in rows on the dirt floor. Rowan tensed up, his shoulders squaring and jaw clenched as he tracked the movements of the fae. Why hadn’t the class put them back themselves? Did this idiot think he was their servant or something? Prepared to get on his hands and knees to tidy up after them at the end of training each day. He probably thought hugs were a good idea too… or some kind of sappy shit like that.

Fuck that for a joke.

Rowan’s eyes narrowed as the man methodically put away each of the weapons into their respective wall mounts inside the alcove just off the training arena. All the while, he continued talking non-stop about the students in the class. Who had sparred against whom. The way he thought best to rank them all. Weaknesses and tells he’d observed as they’d run through the practice drills with their partners.

At least Finnic demonstrated an ability to somewhat pay attention to detail. Even if he looked a heck of a lot like his idiot brother, their personalities couldn’t be more different. The thought of having to put up with a smartass like Niall for a whole year, on top of this bullshit teaching situation, made his fingers itch to sink a knife into something. Or someone.

“Why are you doing that?” Rowan dropped a heavy boot onto the blade of the sword Finnic reached for next. Pinning the weapon to the dirt and preventing him from picking it up.

The fae grinned up at him. Maniac.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because those little pricks need to do this themselves. You let them push you around on day one, and they’ll never respect you.” Rowan gritted his teeth. He was about fucking done with today.

“Oh, I get it.” He tapped the toe of his boot and nudged him off. Continuing to collect up the weapons and store them away as he spoke. “You think I let the class run off and left me to tidy up after them?”

Rowan arched an eyebrow. Something that obvious didn’t deserve an answer.

“By the way, you’re going to have to figure out what you want to be addressed as during classes,” Finnic called over his shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong, I can’t see you as the Professor Nocturne type either, but there’s only going to be so many times you can dodge that question before they just start coming up with their own names for you. And trust me, you don’t want that from a bunch of younglings with too much time on their hands.”

Stars, he was so done with all of this. And it was only day fucking one.

“Rowan. They can call me that.” He grunted.

“Great. Now we just have to work on your verbal skills, and then we might be getting somewhere, blade-slinger.”

Oh, fuck no.

“No.” No way were they going to be trading nicknames like buddies.

“No?”

“No nicknames.”

Finnic gave him a wink and another of those big, toothy grins. Did this fucker ever stop smiling?

“Sorry. No can do. We’ve all been calling you blade-slinger ever since you got here.” Clearly, the expression on Rowan’s face was a dead giveaway because Finnic smirked and tried to smother a laugh with a cough into his fist. “You didn’t know that was the name the fae guards gave you when you first arrived at the palace and started training them? What’s that been, like, a year now?”

Rowan stifled a groan and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. This was not happening. Maybe he’d had an aneurysm, and this was his final voyage before reaching the ancestral plane.

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