Page 66 of Fate and Flame
He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and for the first time since we’d arrived, I wished I had never come to the Flame Court. Where everyone loved him, and I was just the mate. Just the baggage.
Within minutes I was standing in the training ring with Gaea, armed to the teeth with wooden knives and mad as hell.
“If you kill me, I’m going to fucking haunt you,” she warned. Any other day I would have laughed, appreciated her fire, but not today. Today I just wanted to fuck something up.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Greeve said from the sidelines.
“For the thousandth time, yes,” she snapped.
She wasn’t armed. She wore shallow padding and her job was simple. Dodge the wooden knives before they hit her. I’d tried to be gentle, but I just didn’t have it in me today. I flicked my wrist so fast the first one landed right in her chest before she could spirit away.
“Fuck.” She rubbed her chest, grimacing.
“Say the word and we can stop.” I raised an eyebrow to her.
“Not today, Princess.”
Wrong choice of words. Again, I flicked the knife. This time she spirited but took the knife with her, and it still smacked her in the arm. The banter stopped as she nodded. She was ready again. This time I faked it, waited for her to reappear and nailed her in the thigh.
“Damnit Ara, give her a break,” Greeve seethed.
“If you can’t handle it, go find something else to do, you broody ass male,” she growled at him.
I fucking liked her.
She nodded again, and I flicked the next knife, barely missing her shoulder. She paused to celebrate while I tumbled and cracked her in the back.
Greeve was nearly beside himself. Apparently,he’dsigned up to beherstupid Guardian.
“Go find something else to do, Greeve,” I ordered. Not that I had any right to order him around. I didn’t have a right to order anyone around because I was just the darn mate. Still, he stalked off.
“What’s his deal?” Gaea asked, panting.
“Don’t ask me for advice right now. I’m just as miserable as he is.”
“That bad huh?” she asked, wiping her neck with a cloth.
“It’s just, Fen expects me to be perfect—to do every single thing exactly as he would, even though we are two totally different people, raised in two entirely different ways.”
“So, you don’t just sit around staring at each other? I thought mates were madly in love forever.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love him. That doesn’t mean I agree with him. I have my own mind.”
“Trust me, I don’t think anyone would argue with that,” she said, tossing the towel down and nodding to begin again.
I threw the next knife and it missed, but the next three hit her hard, and she had to break again.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you. Morwena mentioned The Hunt several times, you said.”
I nodded.
“Well your father was part of The Hunt, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It just seems important, that’s all. Like of all the things he could have been doing, he chose to stay a member of the Hunt, even though working under King Coro would have put you at greater risk.”
“I mean, as far as I knew, that was his job before they adopted me.”
