Page 56 of The Cursed Queen

"Fair enough," I said with a sigh. "Well, shall we get this over with?"

Drayce's eyes narrowed at my less-than-enthusiastic statement. "What, do you prefer Andriel or Ryu training you?"

"Huh?" I tilted my head in confusion.

"You don't seem like you want to be here with me."

"I could say the same about you," I fired back. "You're the one who looked at me like I was an inconvenience the second you spotted me."

"It's not that," Drayce muttered, avoiding my eyes.

"Then what is it?" I asked as I moved in closer and lightly shoved his shoulder.

Drayce shot a glare my way and let out a low growl. "Don't push me, little girl."

His threatening look should've scared me. It should've had me backing away and apologizing profusely, but it didn't. Quite the opposite, really. I wasn't sure why, but I felt the overcoming need to fight back. To challenge this resistance he had over me.

I shoved him again, harder this time, and lifted my head up to meet those feral eyes of his. "Or you'll do what,mate?"

I added emphasis on the word mate to see what it would do to him. He moved closer. So close that I could feel his hot breath tickling my skin. His chest pressed against my mine. Desire flooded my senses. The nearness of him. I had to fight against the urge to wrap my arms around his neck and lift myself up to my toes to kiss him. To find out how much he was willing to hold back before whatever wall he built around himself would crumble into a pile of sand.

I could see the interest threatening to breakthrough his facade, but Drayce was doing an excellent job of reining it in. What would've happened if he let himself go?

Our eyes remained locked with each other for what felt like centuries before he finally turned his head. He cleared his throat and took two steps back. And just like that, the spell was over.

"Come on, we have work to do. From what I gathered the other day, you didn't do a great job defending yourself against that knight. If you want to stand a better chance in hand combat, then you'll need proper training."

I was mildly offended. Sure, my technique could've been better, but I didn't think I did such a terrible job. Though if not for dragon scales along my chest, that slash I took from the druid knight's sword would've killed me.

With that in mind, I kept my mouth shut and accepted his words. Drayce worked with me for the next several hours. He assisted me in finding a good stance to match my form, and then revealed the key areas to target when fighting a druid knight. He then had me throw repeated blows at him to see if I could land a hit. None of them did. Drayce blocked all my hits without so much as breaking a sweat.

After unsuccessfully landing one punch or scratch, the roles were reversed, and now it was Drayce who was throwing hits at me. Unlike me, all of them hit, and my face planted on the ground so many times, I was surprised there wasn't an outline of my body cracked into the stone. Thankfully, my heightened healing repaired every injury, but the stiffness and phantom pains remained.

By the time Drayce finally called it a night, the sky had darkened with only a thin trace of gold remaining as the sun went down.

"Well, that could've gotten better," Drayce mused while I struggled to pull myself back up.

I winced as I stood up on wobbly legs and spit out the blood pooling in my mouth. Was that punch to the face necessary?

"Easy for you to say. Did you have to go all out against me?"

"Who says I went all out?" Drayce asked with a smirk.

I froze. "Wait, you were going easy on me?"

He didn't respond in words, but judging from the wicked gleam in his expression, that was precisely what he did. That only soured my mood even further. A part of me wanted to throw a fireball at him, but he'd only dodge it without blinking. Smug bastard.

"Well, rest up. We'll try again next time, and maybe I'll show you some tricks that'll help surprise your enemies and give you the opening you need to go for the kill."

I muttered my thanks and waved him off as I stumbled towards the corridor that would lead me inside the mountain.

"Seraphina," Drayce called out to me.

I stopped and turned to face him.

Drayce seemed hesitant to speak his mind. A part of me wondered if it had anything to do with us being fated mates. We went through the entire day without him bringing it up, but now it seemed as if he wanted to say something. I didn't push him. Instead, I waited patiently for him to see if he would bring up the subject.

"I, uh... thank you," Drayce finally said.

---