Page 136 of Enchanted Shadows
“Yes, Your Highness.”
She stood up and turned to leave. “Get down to the training ring. Miles is waiting.”
I’d been trying to work through things on my own but had obviously been flailing about and it had shown. In this moment, I was just grateful that someone loved me enough to know I needed someone to reach a hand out and pull me out of it. I didn’t know if it would work, but I was thankful for it all the same.
Sweat randown my bare back in beads. It was cold enough that both of us should have shirts on, but the sting of the cold and the combination of how fast we were moving were making me feel something other than guilt. Other than helplessness.
Next to grief, helplessness had to be the worst human emotion to have to stomach. Knowing that there was nothing you could physically do or say to fix something. It simply was.
I despised it.
I threw my body around and caught an upward attack from Miles as we both tripped one another and went rolling.
“This is the day, old man,” he told me. “This is the day I get you.”
I winked at him. “Maybe tomorrow.”
On we went, swords clashing and clanging, sweat dripping. I took a hit in the gut, only to spin around and angle my sword at Miles’s throat. What would be a kill shot, were we really trying to remove one another’s heads instead of gently injuring one another.
Miles’s eyes went wide as he seemed to see something behind me.
“You really think I’m going to fall for your cheating ways today?” I snapped, chest heaving.
But instead of a smart comment in return like I expected, he shoved me backward just as another weapon came striking for me.
I threw up my sword to block it and came face to face with my wife.
And dammit, with a weapon in her hand? The urge to knock her sword to the ground and kiss her overwhelmed me. I didn’t like the rage I saw all over her face, but I did still find her most attractive.
“Princess,” I greeted.
She shoved downward and freed her sword from mine. “So we are back to that?”
“You are a princess,” I offered. “It would do me well to remember it.”
“Uhh,” Miles interrupted. “Hi, Kessara. I’d like to disappear and let the two of you work out whateverthisis, but I need to make sure you aren’t really going to hurt him first.” He paused as he looked to me. “He’s the big brother I never had.”
She turned to look at him and simply said, “No promises,” before attacking me again.
I deflected all five of her advances, beautifully placed and thrown. Two of which were at my head. Where the hell had all of this been when we’d been forced to fight before?
“Fight me!” she yelled. “Fight. Me.”
“No,” I said softly, even as my sword met hers, ruining her beautiful swing.
She again got her sword free and took a step back, her chest heaving. “Fight me, please? Anything but you avoiding me.”
“Kessara.”
“Why are you doing this to me? To us? Fight me!”
Seeing her clear anguish made me feel about an inch tall. I thought I had been working through things on my own, but apparently, I’d just made everyone around me as miserable as I’d felt. So I blurted out the honest answer. “Because Calix is right.”
That stopped her entirely.“What?”
“We didn’t bond. Because of me. Because we didn’t get marriedtraditionally. And if we had, then you never would’ve had to fight your way out of Agria on your own.”
“I didn’t fight them on my own,” she whispered. “You were there. Every step of the way. You didn’t take your hands off me.”
