Page 63 of Possessive Vows

“Every situation is different. The same person might have a flight response one day, then a fight response the next even when the same thing happens. It’s a reflex. We have no control over it.”

I peel the logo off the bottle as I mull over her words.

“Then what can we do?” I ask.

“Learn to trust our instincts, train our minds, and work on our muscle memory,” she says.

I sigh, take a sip of my drink, and twist the cap back onto the bottle.

“My body is weak and I don’t have time—”

“You’ll get there, Camilla. Let’s work on technique and save brute strength for later. Do you carry a weapon?”

I nod and lift my suit coat to show her the knife my angel of death gave me.

“Good. Wait right here.” She stands and strides to the metal storage cabinet in the back corner of the room. After opening the door and shuffling a few things around, she hisses and mumbles, “I thought I saw—ah ha! Got it.”

She rushes back to me and offers me a knife, hilt first. I wrap my digits around the handle and quirk a brow as she releases the blade to reveal a dummy knife.

“Try it against your palm,” she instructs.

I press the tip against my hand and grimace as the blade telescopes into itself until it lies within the handle. When I lift my hand away, it springs back into place, but my palm aches from the pressure.

“It may not be an actual knife, but it’s still too hard. The spring is too tight. It’ll leave bruises or cause internal damage. I’m not stabbing you with this,” I say.

“You will stab me instead,” a deep, smooth voice says from the doorway.

I jump and hiss as pain flares through my joints. Fury washes away my fear when I turn and meet Dimitri’s sky-blue eyes.

“No, I won’t. I don’t want to hurt you either,” I say.

“You will not hurt me, but I am not worried. If you do, you will take care of me,” he replies with a ghost of a smile.

My insides melt. I deepen my scowl and shake my head.

“How about starting on the punching bag? Let’s just focus on your form for a few minutes, then we’ll see how you feel and go from there,” Loretta interjects.

I nod and push myself to my feet. When my sneakers sink into the mat and I almost topple, Dimitri catches me just long enough for me to find my balance before dropping to his knee in front of me.

“Use my shoulders for balance,so´lnyshka,” he demands before hooking his hand around my calf and lifting my foot from the floor. He slips my sneaker off before repeating the motion on my other leg and rising.

The broad stretch of his shoulders is intimidating, but hunger pulses through my veins. He cups my face and brushes his thumb over the scars on my cheek, reminding me of why I’m in my brother’s home gym learning how to stab someone.

I take a deep breath, grab his wrist, and kiss the fleshy part of his palm before stepping around him and wobbling across the mat to the punching bag tucked in the corner. Loretta watches my stride with a contemplative expression on her face.

She turns away when I reach her, and for a moment, the pain of rejection spears through me, but she grabs a metal folding chair from behind the door and places it in front of the punching bag.

I quirk a brow.

“Attacks don’t only come when you’re standing. Most lowlifes wait until you’re in a vulnerable position, so today we’ll practice pulling the knife from your belt and the different ways to swing without hurting yourself while getting the job done.Capisci?” she says.

I clear the lump from my throat and nod as I lower myself into the chair.

After moving the knife Dimitri gave me to my other hip, I tuck the dummy in place and try not to feel like a fool as Loretta launches into teacher mode. We practice four different ways to draw the knife from my belt, and once she’s satisfied I’m comfortable with one from each hand, she shifts our focus to the punching bag.

“If you don’t swing hard enough, he’ll block you, and all you’ve done is waste your energy, so imagine stabbing through to someone behind him instead of the target in front of you. Don’t stop when you feel the puncture.”

Even as I feel my face blanch, I nod and follow her instructions. My pathetic attempt ends with the blade barely halfway compressed. The hilt pops out of my grip and the dummy knife flies across the room.

---