Page 60 of Validus Vale Academy 1
“Happy Saturday,” I tell the roly-poly as I get dressed. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m kinda looking forward to this morning.” Whatever training Professor Feniks has lined up for me, I’m going to give it my all.
As it’s the weekend, I don’t have to wear a uniform, so I pull on my favorite leggings, which are purple with blue and lavender swirls, and add a cropped sweatshirt that has ‘yay or neigh’ written on it, along with the silhouette of a pony. Nancy had despaired of my fashion taste, but I loved the weird shit you could find in the thrift store bins. Give me a seventies grandma knit over Chinese sweatshop stuff any day.
With my hair in two, slightly uneven, space buns, I call it good.
Professor Feniks told me to meet him at the combat field—it takes twenty minutes to get there from Defectivum. The morning is cool, but dry and crisp, and the air smells of decaying leaves and damp earth. Blue smoke drifts across the grounds from a bonfire somewhere. As I walk along the path, I enjoy the beginning of Autumn and try to ignore the side-eye I’m getting from the other students in their designer sets and fancy labels.
The professor is waiting for me at the entrance to the field. As I reach him, I pull my buns tighter. “Morning, sir.”
“Wilson. Sleep alright?” he asks. The dark circles under his dark eyes indicate that he didn’t.
Even though Professor Feniks looks rough, I don’t even try to deny to myself that he also looks gorgeous. He’s wearing a black tee with the sleeves ripped off, not trying to hide his scars. I take a moment to stare at the tattoo on his right arm; intricate ink scrolls around his bicep, ending in a pair of dark, glowing eyes on the back of his knuckles. “Shall we do this?” he asks, running his gaze over my eccentric workout gear. My cheeks heat under his scrutiny, but I square my shoulders and lift my chin. “Yep, ready when you are.”
As he starts walking, I hurry to keep up with his stride. “What’s the plan today?” Gods, I am beginning to regret my enthusiasm; even fast walking makes me feel out of breath.
The professor stops for a moment, leaning down close to my ear. “Wilson.” I feel his hot breath on my neck. “I’m going to make you sweat.”
An involuntary clench happens in my pussy. At the same time, I get a momentary flash of thought from his brain.—minun—He pulls up his shirt to wipe his mildly sweating brow with the fabric, revealing rippling abs and yet more ink that disappears beneath the low-slung elastic of his sweats.
Good Gods. Since the first day we met, less than a week ago, Professor Feniks and I have been thrown together in some of the most intense situations possible. It’s forging us into allies—and perhaps friends, but a crush cannot happen. Just because I trust him and he makes me feel safe doesn’t mean this attraction is OK. It needs to be squashed asap—right?
Then my brain decides to conjure an utterly ludicrous thought: if I already love two men equally, isn’t it possible I could love a third?
No, no, no. Send that idea out of your mind instantly, Theo. Throw it far, far away. Concentrate on getting fit and strong so you can fight off anyone who stands between you and finding the twins.
“Wilson?”
“Huh?”
“You do that a lot, don’t you?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Disappear inside that head of yours?”
He’s not wrong, but this time I wasn’t trying to avoid other people’s thoughts, no.
This time, it was to avoid thinking about how my fingers itch to trace the hard contours of his abdominal muscles. Ugh. “Won’t happen again,” I tell him, then pull the bottom of my own sweatshirt up to dab at my face. When I glance up, I see his eyes focused on the neon green sports bra I’m completely exposing. Oops. That isn’t going to cool the temperature down any.
He clears his throat. “OK, let’s get down to business,” he says.
“Are you going to make a man out of me?” I ask, but the reference goes over his head.
“As I was saying, at the moment, you have no chance in a fight, but because you’re small, you can be nimble and quick,” he tells me. “So today we’re going to work on your agility.”
“That makes sense. Learn how to dodge a punch and all that?” I ask, squaring my shoulders in anticipation.
“No, Wilson. When you come face-to-face with an attacker, the only thing you need to do is run away.” He snatches my hand and pulls me into a jog. “Talking of which, we’ll do a quickhalf-mile run. Then we’ve got something more fun lined up.” Suddenly, there’s a laugh in his voice.
The professor sets a steady pace, one which I can just about manage, along a track through the woods. Several minutes later, we come to a stop in a small parking lot. It’s surrounded by a metal infrastructure and a bunch of nondescript buildings, like those portable classrooms that just get plopped down in the middle of a school campus. I flop forward, putting my hands on my thighs and panting.
“Lean against the wall, Wilson,” he commands, poking me in between my shoulder blades. “If you’re winded, you don’t want to double overorstand upright. A slight bend, preferably leaning against something, will open your diaphragm, give those little lungs of yours some room.”
“It’s not my fault, I don’t have a Chris Hemsworth-style chest like some people,” I mumble, doing as he says.
“What was that, Wilson?”
I refrain from repeating myself and instead pull myself back to standing, feeling slightly confused. “Where are we?”
