Page 12 of Cursed Wolfsbane

She jerks her gaze up to mine and gives me a shrug. “I don’t know. Self-defense would be nice to know.”

“We can teach you that, no problem. Setting up a training schedule would work best. We can figure that out over winter break in a few weeks. That work for you?” I’m probably grinning like a lunatic, but I’m excited to share something I enjoy with her.

While fighting’s almost gotten me killed more times than I’d like to admit, it’s also what saved me. Without an outlet for all my pain and rage, well, I don’t really want to think about what would’ve happened. One thing I know, though, is that I probably wouldn’t be here.

“Yep, that works.” Briar’s voice snaps me out of my dark thoughts.

I give her a slightly dimmer smile in response. Briar’s brows scrunch as she notices the change in me, but she doesn’t ask about it. While she’s staring at me with worry tightening the corners of her ethereal eyes, Kai finishes wrapping his hands. “You wanna come with us, baby girl?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay with you, Bastian?” Briar peers up at me through her thick, dark lashes. Her eyes shine with vulnerability, like she’s not used to people wanting her around. I want to both wrap her up in the biggest hug ever and kill everyone who’s made her feel like that.

Since I don’t know who to kill, other than Patrick who’s a dead man already, I settle for giving her a huge hug. I open myarms in invitation and wait for her to step into me. Briar eyes my arms for a moment before walking into my hug. I squeeze her tightly and murmur into her hair, “Of course, sweet girl. I always want you around.”

I think I hear a sniffle, but I don’t comment on it. If she wants to talk about her emotions, she will. After a moment, she steps back, and I reluctantly let her go, immediately missing the feel of her against me.

Shaking my head at how sappy I am over my mate, I sling my arm around her shoulders and start walking down the stairs. Kai’s footsteps thud softly behind us. We walk to the gym in silence, all of us lost in our thoughts.

When we reach our gym in the basement, I steer Briar over to a bench against a wall. It faces the sparring ring we have set up down here. Once she’s settled on the bench, I pad over the squishy black mats to our makeshift sparring ring. It’s not a traditional MMA octagon. Instead, it’s just a boxing ring with ropes on all four sides.

Before hopping into the ring, I snag a pair of boxing gloves. I don’t want to hurt Kai when we spar. In the heat of the moment, I sometimes forget to pull my punches. The padded gloves are extra insurance.

I also put on my workout playlist, and “Bleed” by Connor Kauffman starts blasting through the speakers, the pounding beat thumping through my chest.

Kai is already in the center of the ropes. Once I climb in, Kai holds out his wrapped fists. I tap them with my gloved ones. We back up and start circling each other. Making the first move, I dart in and jab his side lightly. I intentionally don’t move back fast enough and get a jab to the ribs. His fist lands with a loud smack that echoes in the quiet gym.

Pain blooms across my side from the hit. I suck in my first full breath since Xander got shot as the pain zings through me. Idon’t know what Father Simon twisted inside me, but ever since him, I need pain to deal with difficult emotions.

After I almost died in the ring one time too many, my parents forced me to talk to someone. It helped, and I need pain less often than I used to. But nothing has really made it go away completely, especially not after something like my twin almost dying in his attempt to save me.

I hear a quiet gasp, but I’m too focused on dancing back out of range to check behind me. Kai and I keep trading punches and kicks until Kai lands a hard roundhouse to my left shoulder. The blow knocks me off my feet, and I land on the mat with a thud. My breath wooshes out of me as I stare up at the ceiling in a daze.

Kai’s face appears above me, his brows furrowed and his mouth set in a harsh line. “You good or you need more?”

“I’m good. You can go,” I croak without getting up. Everything hurts a little too much to move right now. He gives me a sharp nod and strides out of view. I hear him jump over the ropes and storm across the gym. A minute later, Eric Church’s “Record Year” starts blasting through the gym, and I hear Kai start pounding on one of the punching bags.

I throw my arm across my eyes and let out a harsh exhale. This is Kai’s angsty playlist he only puts on when he’s really struggling. I hate that I do this to him. He doesn’t enjoy beating up his little brother, but he does it because it’s safer for me, regardless of how much it eats him up to hurt me.

“Are you okay?” Briar asks softly from my left.

I lower my arm and turn my head to look at her kneeling on the mat next to me. Briar’s raven hair is falling in gentle waves over her shoulders and around her heart-shaped face. Her glacial blue eyes peer down at me, worry swimming in them. I’m sure I look like a mess with newly forming bruises all over mytorso. “Yeah, I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me, pretty girl.”

Her lips briefly inch up on one side at the nickname. Briar’s eyes dart to something behind me and back to my face. She pulls her lips between her teeth as she repeatedly looks back and forth between me and who I assume is Kai. “Is Malachi okay?”

It’s cute how she still calls him Malachi. At least she’s stopped calling me “professor” outside of class. When I process her question, I sigh. “He will be. Sparring with me is hard on him.” Briar nods at me but doesn’t tear her gaze away from Kai. “You can go to him if you want, you know.”

“But you’re hurt.”

“I’m not. I’m fine. Kai said you need pain, too, sometimes. While I hurt physically, I’m doing much better emotionally than I was before,” I try to explain.

She nods in understanding. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Helping him helps me anyway. So go, sweet girl.”

Briar stares at me for a moment longer before bending down to plant a sweet kiss on my cheek. She nimbly gets to her feet and hops over the ropes. As I listen to her hesitantly pad toward Kai, I can’t help but think how much the three of us need her. And the crazy thing is that she has no idea.

We’ll need to fix that—right after we get the memories her mom erased before she died for a still unknown reason and figure out why the Knights of Aeneas want her.

CHAPTER 6

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