Page 17 of Killian De Luca

“What is it?”

“Fire.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because it can do a lot of damage while still looking breathtaking.”

“You probably learned how to walk through fire since you got me out of the fire yesterday so easily.” She jokingly says.

If only she knew how hard and damaging it actually was for me.

Once we get to the gym, I walk over to the punching bag. “Show me what your dad taught you.” Reign walks to where I’m standing in front of the bag. She wraps her hands but doesn’t putgloves on. For such a small girl with small hands, she should be wearing gloves when punching a punching bag. I don’t stop her as she walks towards the bag and starts punching hard. Another mistake which I furrow my eyebrows at. My dad always said to control your punches and to not go fast at first because you never know who you’re fighting. You could be wasting all your energy punching hard at first instead of evening every punch out. Is her dad purposely trying to get her killed in the field? “Stop,” I say and walk towards her.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Reign asks, her breathing getting heavy.

“Are you tired?” I cross my arms over my chest which makes Reign’s eyes dart to my arms before meeting my eyes.

“No. Why?” she says, trying to control her breathing.

“‘Cause you breathing like a dog who just ran down the street on a hot day tells me otherwise.” I narrow my eyes on her. “Stand straight, slop slouching first.” Reign straightens up quickly. “I’m pretty sure your dad is setting you up to fail.”

“Why do you say that?” She looks up at me through her eyelashes.

I get closer to her. “Because how you punched the bag was one of the best ways to get you tired and killed when fighting someone. You became sloppy after a minute. You shouldn’t be punching the bag that hard for the first few minutes. Because when you become tired and sloppy like that,” I put two fingers against her temple like I’m aiming a gun “boom, you’re dead.”

“They aren’t that sloppy,” she argues.

“Your breathing shouldn’t be so heavy. You should be able to hear what’s around you. Close your eyes and drop your hands.” Reign gives me a look before closing her eyes and dropping her hands from her waist and letting them hang by her side. I go to stand behind her and place my lips near her ear. “I want you to focus on the things around you. What do you smell? What doyou feel? What do you think about when fighting? What do you hear?” I whisper, my lip grazing her ear as she shivers against me.

“I smell your cologne and sweat. I feel cold air hitting my body and your lips near my ear.”

“What do you think about when fighting?’

“I think about the stuff Papa has taught me and how I want to make him proud.”

Mistake number one.

Her dad has shit lessons.

“And what do you feel? What are you focused on right now to make your breathing controlled?’

“You.”

Stupid girl.

She has no clue I’m going to burn her to the ground.

Nine

Killian

I have been trainingReign for about an hour and a half.

She’s not completely terrible.

If she was my daughter, I would never put her out in the field, but I guess Malcom doesn’t care as much about his daughter as I thought.

She is good at some stuff; I’ll give her that. She is aware of what’s coming at her and quick on her feet.

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