Page 29 of Supernova

“No. Just greatest. Period.”

I was unable to prevent my brow from rising.

“Consider this our oath. The signing of a metaphorical contract,” he continued. I held my unkind stare. “Play nice, Rocket.”

I rolled my eyes. He cocked his head, waiting with no intention of moving until I said the stupid words.

Fine.

“Aye aye, Captain.” I saluted at him mockingly and then put my palm to my chest. “Griffin Gray … you are the greatest of all time.”

“Why thank you, Supernova. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

I huffed at him as I pushed past. It was way too early for this.

“What should we start with?” I asked as he followed me into the gym.

“Weapons,” he responded.

I made my way towards the mats in that section. “I feel like the sword or daggers are almost right, but not quite.” I breathed out as I stretched my upper body.

“You’d look fucken sexy with the sai.” He strolled over to the end of the shelves to a black felt box. Opening it, he picked up a pair of sleek, smaller versions of the sword, with two side prongs on the handle that curved up and outwards. Like Griffin’s sword, they were both polished to perfection, made fully from silver with detailed grooves engraved in the handles for extra grip. They looked ancient and fierce, and I already loved them.

“They haven’t called to anyone else. Maybe they were waiting for you.” Well, if that didn’t make a girl feel special.

He handed them to me, his fingers touching my skin for longer than they needed to. When he finally pulled away from me, I gripped the two sai and began spinning. And just like that, I knew what to do with them. I’m sure my training and knowledge of the other weapons I’d tried so far had helped in terms of basic technique. But these felt right.

“Atta girl.” His words—that husky voice—caused my body to quiver. He was going to be the death of me.

And then we battled. The clang of silver against silver echoed as we lunged at each other, blocking and spinning our weapons in a twirl of movements. A beautiful dance of stabbing and striking. I felt like the two beautiful warriors I saw on my first day—ignoring the fact that one of them was Sienna.

I felt like a Knight.

Occasionally he broke down a few moves for me. Showing me how to block correctly or running his hands down my body to correct my stance. But mostly, I knew what to do.

Looks like weapon training wouldn’t be my biggest weakness anymore. But I would still use all the help I could get from him.

Plus, I wasn’t mad at the one-on-one time.

We went on like that for what seemed like forever in a state of blissful flow. Of pure concentration. I was lost to it, and so was he as the rest of the world seemingly paused. He deftly swung his sword around and by some miracle I kept up. I couldn’t recall what I was thinking about for once in my life. It’s like my brain—my thoughts—were quieted. But I had a sense of purpose in my strikes.

Unfortunately, the serenity couldn’t last forever and before we knew it, the officers and commanders started to slowly drift in, getting things ready for training. I didn’t understand how so much time had passed.

Griffin’s movements slowed until I came back down to earth. Once I regained consciousness, he stopped. As I returned from that out of body experience, I was hit with the low that naturally followed a high. I felt immensely sad. And angry. And lost. All the emotions felt vehement as they coursed through me. I saw it all again: the bloody couch, the matted hair, the glazed eyes, the look on his face. Then his words rang through my head, over and over again. ‘I did this’. My body began to tremble.

I sensed a presence come closer to me as Griffin slowly reached a hand out to my shoulder. When he touched me, I flinched but the horrifying image receded. I blinked a few times, clearing my mind as he gave me a gentle, placating smile.

“Where did you go?” His strong voice was calm but concerned.

“I … uh …” I didn’t know how to tell him. What to even say. All I knew was that I didn’t want to feel like that anymore—the helplessness I felt in that moment at the pack house. And the fighting—the training—it helped.

“He hurt you badly, didn’t he?”

I considered an appropriate response.

It wasn’t me he hurt. At least not physically.

Yes. He was a cold-hearted killer.

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