Page 61 of In Her Own Rite

Seb is climbing into the ring.

“Em,” he says. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t need to do this.”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” I snap.

I hear him pause, deliberate. For a second I think he’s going to get mad, but his voice is practiced and calm.

“I didn’t say youcan’tdo this. Just that you don’tneedto.”

“Yes, I do,” I snap, and I put the glove on again.

“We should take a break.”

“I don’twanta break.” I square my shoulders. I will not let them be right about me. “Come on, Quinn. Hands up. Let’s go.”

We spendthree hours at the gym today, and I’m completely exhausted. When we get back to the house, Seb is supposed to help me with some of the mental coaching, but I need a break, so I go upstairs to take a shower and let myself cry. The warm water flows over me—over my sore muscles, over the spot on my arm where I can already feel a welt forming from a blow I couldn’t block. Mare promised it would take about 24 hours for the soreness to set in, but I feel it already. Everything burns.

I think back on the morning. Every move I couldn’t do, every time Maren had to swap my weights, every time Quinn’s glove hit and the tears sprung to my eyes when I knew she could see. Seb had me wear clothes for shifting today, and we didn’t even touch on that. There must be more we didn’t get to.

After about twenty minutes, I get out and dry myself off, then pull on some comfortable clothing. I know Gabe and Kieran were planning on making lunch, so I go downstairs. I can see Seb walking into the kitchen, fresh from his own shower, and after a second I hear voices. I stop outside, listening.

“How’d she do?” Kieran asks.

“It wasn’t great.”

I feel the sting of Seb’s words like a slap, even if I know he’s right.

“I told you, man. She’s too new at this,” Kieran says. I hear the clamor of something—plates, I think. “Six weeks was never gonna be enough time.”

“Yeah,” comes Seb’s voice with a sigh. “I’ve never trained someone completely from scratch before. Even Maren had never shifted, but she’s—”

“Maren,” Kieran says, as though that’s enough of an explanation. As though it’s obvious a girl like Maren could do things I never could. His words burn.

“Em has grit, I’ll give her that,” Seb says. “I gave her a few chances to stop or take a break, but she didn’t budge. She just kept going.”

“Do you think it’ll be enough?”

“I don’t know,” I hear Seb say. “I’ll give it three weeks. If she’s not improving, we’ll have to have a hard conversation.”

Three weeks, I think, sucking my teeth. Not three weeks to get good at it. Just three weeks to get goodenough. To show them I can do it.

I can do three weeks.

23

KIERAN

Em comes into the den at five p.m., reeking of sweat and exhaustion and failure. It’s her sixth day of training, and I know from Seb they were going to start shifting practice today. From the scent of her shame and the expression on her face, it didn’t go well.

She looks like shit as she collapses next to me. Her ponytail is loose and lopsided, her long blonde hair tangled as it falls down to her waist. There’s huge bags under her eyes, and with a growl of anger, my inner wolf takes note of the bruises forming on her skin: one on her right arm, and another on her left thigh, peeking out from under her gym shorts.

I stand up and walk to the kitchen to fill a bottle of water, then grab a bowl and fill it with some almonds from the pantry. I walk back into the den and set them on the coffee table before her.

“I’m not thirsty,” she mutters.

“The hell you’re not.”

She holds out for a few seconds, but by the time I’m back on the couch, she reaches for the bottle and starts gulping down the water. She finishes most of the bottle in one go, then sets it back down.

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