Page 29 of Whispers of the Water

“I have,” I finally said.

She turned back around with a long sword now in hand, and my nerves skyrocketed as light caught on the silver blade. “What is your preferred fighting method?”

Fuck. Me.

She was about to challenge me.

I knew she was.

And that definitely wasn’t good news.

I couldn’t fight Myra. She had centuries of battle experience, and that was something I couldn’t fake, even with the little combat training Rune had shown me. I felt sick to my stomach as Myra gave a test swipe of her sword, and the mental image of me being on the other end of that lethal weapon nearly brought me to my knees.

If I were really about to fight Myra, I needed to choose a fighting option that excluded weapons and fire, because I obviously couldn’t conjure that up, either.

Squaring my shoulders to mask my dread, I answered, “Hand to hand combat.”

Myra smirked as she stalked back across the mats until she stood directly in front of me. Rune let out a low growl and stepped in our direction, but before he could close the distance, Myra lifted the sword and pressed the point at Rune’s chest. I inhaled sharply as Rune froze. Myra never looked away from me as she smiled and said, “Let’s see your skillset in action. You’ll battle Rune.”

My panicked eyes locked with Rune.

That had not been what I was expecting. I’d assumed Myra would want the pleasure of attacking me, but instead, she wanted to watch from the sidelines as she pitted lovers against each other.

Just like how she put Greshim and Newt against one another.

Rune bared his teeth at Myra. “Mother, we’re not—”

“Would you rather watch your brothers fight?” Myra asked as she finally slid her gaze to Rune. Her devious smirk made my blood boil. “I’m sure they would love to spar again for their big brother.”

“Rune and I will battle,” I said quickly. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from following that sentence with, “You fucking bitch.”

Myra grinned and lowered her sword. “Excellent. You can change in that room behind you,” Myra nodded toward the room she had appeared from. “I look forward to seeing your abilities firsthand.”

Chapter Ten

I EMERGED FROM the changing room after Myra kindly let me switch out of my dress and into breeches and a tunic.

Kind my ass. That word and Myra don’t belong in the same sentence.

The twins stood at the side of the room with their mother, while Rune waited barefoot in the center of the mats. His face was impressively blank, and I could only hope that I seemed as unbothered as he did as I finished tightening the ponytail in between my fox ears.

I squared off with Rune, and he closed the space between us. He dropped his head until his cheek pressed into mine, and his lips brushed over the shell of my ear as he whispered, “You’re going to have to fight me. She will know we’re faking if you don’t give it your all. You won’t hurt me, so don’t hold back.”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

Rune pulled back to look into my eyes, and for a split second, his mask of ease cracked, showing me the angry, worried mess he really was right now. I knew my own gaze mirrored the emotions swarming his, because I didn’t know how far Myra was prepared to take this. Was she going to threaten Newt to spur us into fighting to the point where one of us was bloody and broken on the floor? I couldn’t be sure, and I choked on the uncertainty.

“Enough stalling,” Myra said from where she watched impassively next to the twins.

Rune and I took measured steps back, and as I watched him get in his defensive pose, my heart clenched painfully. Seeing him like that took me back to a happier, simpler time when Rune and I trained. We’d spent countless hours practicing combat techniques and self-defense skills, as well as how to kill a Fae. That space had been ours, and it was always a safe, warm place.

Now that same experience was being used as a way to hurt and manipulate.

“What are you waiting for?” Myra asked, raising an impatient brow at me.

Taking a deep breath, I moved, lunging at Rune with a quick swipe of my arm. He leaned back, narrowly avoiding being clocked in the cheek. He retaliated with a swing of his own, one that I recognized from our training sessions. I maneuvered around him, avoiding the blow to my abdomen, and with the next string of Rune’s quick jabs and movements, I realized what he was doing. He was using the exact steps and motions that he’d used when we trained so that I knew how to avoid being hit. It was the same movements we’d practiced over and over, so as we continued to punch and kick at the other, we kept meeting each other’s blows with calculated blocks.

My breath came out fast and hard as sweat lined my brow. Rune had thwarted another of my kicks to his side when Myra huffed and said, “You’re holding back. This looks like child’s play. I said fight.”

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