Page 52 of Stormbinder King
“Do you think I’m good enough to do border patrol?” I asked.
Solomon snorted. “I don’t think they’d ever let you go to the border. But this way you’re not such a helpless creature.”
“I’ll take it,” I laughed.
It felt strange to laugh, like my mouth and throat were old and rusty with disuse, but once I did I felt something crack inside me, and I smiled again.
Running hands through my dark thick hair, I shook it out in the thin sunshine and wielded my dagger again.
“Look at you, Andromeda,” I heard a warm, honeyed voice from behind me. “I didn’t know you were getting to be such a little warrior.”
I ignored him, tensing my muscles in the way Solomon had taught me, and thrusting my dagger into the air.
Jack chuckled again, and came up behind me, wrapping hands around my waist and dragging me flush against his body.
I ignored the way his words crawled across my skin, burrowing into my flesh with tiny prickles of lust.
“Don’t be pissed. Spar with me.”
“No,” I said.
He flipped me around and reached down to put a thick protective tip on his dagger.
“Look, I’ll make it fair. I’ll be tipped and you won’t.”
I shook my head again. I couldn’t risk truly angering Jack, but suppressed impotent rage sizzled through my veins.
“Don’t worry about hurting me!” Jack insisted. “Act like this is a real fight.”
“If you do gut him, girl,” said Solomon, twisting the rawhide of the bow with strong, gnarled fingers. “He deserves to die.”
“Go spar with one of the other w-women you fuck,” I said.
Jack grinned at me. His shirt was open at the neck so I could see the long strong lines of his throat and chest.
“That’s a bluff, my darling. I know you can’t get enough of me.”
He gestured at me to attack him.
Cocky motherfucker
When he lowered his tipped dagger, I plunged mine toward his gut.
He blocked me easily, but I tried to move quickly like Solomon had taught me, slashing at Jack’s thighs with a low quick slice.
Jack was caught off guard, but he was an exceptionally good fighter, and with incredible speed he whipped his dagger around to block my attack again.
He grinned at his me, wiggling his tongue so I saw the flick of his piercing.
My stomach churned to feel my body’s response to him, the sick-sweet sensation of my nipples hardening, rosy tips getting diamond-hard at his voice.
I wanted him and I hated it.
How had I ever thought I was in love with him?
“Now you’re getting better!” Jack said approvingly.
“I hate you!” I burst out, my chest heaving with emotion.
