Page 58 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

Chapter 25

Weyland. His name rang in my head, announcing his presence.

The dark drawl of a voice had my head jerking sideways. My eyes slid up the big man’s form, sizing him up, cataloguing all of those muscles that lurked underneath his armour. He seemed to do the same to me. I didn’t have his bulky musculature to carry me through this, but that didn’t seem to matter. There was something else inside me that burned: for this fight, for another sword in my free hand - so I grabbed a second training sword from the rack - and more than that.

Because training like this was like taking the first full breath after I’d had one of my attacks.

“My blood still burns inside you,” Weyland said, looking me over, then, as I backed away, he chose his own training sword. “That’s what’s got your back up right now. That’s what had you commanding that fighter and all the soldiers in the barracks.”

I grinned then, something light and free, because he didn’t understand.

“That’s what got you out from under your father’s wrath,” he continued, “It protected you when I couldn’t.” Then a small frown formed. “But it’ll burn out of you soon. Leave you broken and aching. Everything you’ve been putting aside—”

“By the gods,” I swore, “all you do is talk.” I raised my swords, crossing the blades in front of my face. “Are we going to fight or chat like old women?”

“I don’t want to hurt you, lass,” he said, the men around us starting to move again. More comments, more bets being laid.

“How about you try first?” I snapped back.

That seemed to do the trick. I didn’t get a salute or anything because Weyland had a lesson in mind, one he was desperate to teach me. But I had one of my own to deliver. I caught his blade between my two, twisted it before he could blink and then sliced the curved blade of my short sword across his arm before dancing away.

My father had tried to beat me to death. That should’ve required a period of mourning or something, because from that moment our relationship wasn’t just in tatters, it was completely obliterated. He was nothing to me, no more than a noxious little bug that I would have no problems stamping on if it came near me again. A girl, she’s supposed to take some time to process that sort of loss. Except, I wouldn’t. Because after each of the other hurts I’d borne from my father, I’d come downstairs and done exactly this, practised fighting, practised with my bow until I didn’t feel the pain anymore. Weyland thought he had given this to me, but it was something I’d claimed many years before I even knew he existed.

“Well done, lass,” the warg said, a slow smile forming. One I hadn’t seen on him for quite some time. He twisted his wrist, spinning his sword before facing me again. I didn’t let him get a chance to attack, darting in with a flurry of slashes of my own, designed to distract him before cutting down with my non dominant hand, the one he wouldn’t expect.

Because it hadn’t been Weyland’s orders that had Nordred refusing to allow me to train with only my dominant hand. When I’d kept on relying on it, it hadn’t been Weyland who tied my right hand behind my back while the knights laughed, then commanded me to continue. That had been Nordred responding to what he saw within me. And the fire that burned inside me, that had me skipping over the sands, circling the bigger man, forcing him to throw his bulk around after me because I was so much faster. That wasn’t him either.

That was entirely me.

“You said if I ran, you’d hunt me down,” I said in a sharp voice, pausing for a second, cataloguing the way Weyland’s chest heaved, the active stance of his body, ready to attack. I cocked my head to one side and smiled. “So hunt me.”

Roars of amusement came from the crowd. They almost drowned out Nordred’s words of encouragement, but not entirely.

“You’ve got the right of it, lass,” he hissed at me. “Wear him down until all that muscle is a liability, not a blessing. Make him hunt until he drops.”

I turned back to the fight then and when Weyland grinned, so did I, but it felt like mine had a sharper edge.

“That what you’ve been waiting for, Darcy? Need me to prove the ardour that beats inside me?” I jumped when his hand thumped against his chest. “Well, never fear, lass, I will provide.”

He slashed out, once, twice, but I dodged out of the way easily, forcing him to reach further and further with his need to get to me. It threw off his centre of balance because he wasn’t thinking, he was feeling. I watched him cautiously as I parried his blade over and over, then when he totally overreached, I ducked in, sweeping his legs out from under him to send him face first into the dirt to the sound of the men’s howls of laughter.

But he was a prince, and a well-trained one at that. He rolled before he hit the sands, landing on his back, his eyes glittering as I scaled the fence, jumping up beside Pep, grabbing her water skin and taking a long mouthful from it.

“You’re that girl that had the men kneeling!”

I turned to see a cluster of women had approached the fence. Some watched Weyland roll over in the sand, getting to his feet, but still others stared at me. I was about to reply when they started to shriek, pointing to Weyland coming lumbering towards us like a maddened bull. I turned my back to him, grinning at Pep and the other women as I climbed up onto the top rung and threw myself off, flicking my body over his head. My wooden swords did little against his leather armour, but as soon as I landed, I got as many hits in as I could before he spun around to face me.

“Who the hell taught you that?” he snapped. My eyes flicked to the side, then Weyland’s eyes shifted sideways to where Nordred stood at the fence line, a small smile on his face.

“Not going to assume that it’s all you?” I replied. “Not going to think it’s your blood that allows me to move like this?” I spun my blades then in a way I had practised for years. It was a flashy thing that served no purpose in a battle except to make an opponent question the wisdom of attacking you.

“If this is all you…?”

When I heard Weyland’s voice, something hardened inside me, because he wanted to vocalise thoughts I’d been plagued by for years.

“Why did I let my father beat me?” I asked, biting off every word. My hands tightened so hard around the wooden hilts I heard small creaks of protest. “Why did I let him stripe my back from neck to arse, leaving me bleeding from it so many times?” Perfect silence reigned now, the whole training yard witness to this personal conversation. “Why didn’t I break his bloody crop or that birch branch across my knee and then throw it in his face?”

I sighed, but it came out a sob, the fire inside me suddenly sputtering out, leaving just me there instead.

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