by K. M. Shea
“Since you insist you are only available for training twice weekly, it is important that your sessions count,” Killian said. “Thus, I decided you should learn from the best.”
I squinted up at him. “I don’t believe you. Is this revenge for something?”
Killian raised both of his eyebrows. “I am merely giving you what you asked for in the terms of our contract.”
“Hah! Likely story!” I shook my finger at him. “Come on, what is it really? There’s no way you intend to waste your time like this.”
“Any time spent with you is never a waste.”
I whipped around real quick and put my back to him so he couldn’t see my blush. “I still don’t get it. Celestina and Josh were amazing trainers. They’ve got to have an endless supply of things they could teach me. This seems awfully…lame to make you train me when I’m so bad with martial arts and I’m still a newbie with my sword—not to mention I’ve only covered the bare basics with guns.”
“True,” Killian said. “But since we have limited time, we’re not aiming to make you a martial arts expert or a sword master.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have six months to make you a better fighter,” Killian said. “And while Josh and Celestina are superior to you in many ways, given the additional training you’ve undergone of your own volition these past weeks, you’d be able to take them in a fight if allowed to use your magic.”
“You can’t know that,” I scoffed.
Killian smirked. “You’ve held the majority of your training practices on your front lawn. There is very little I don’t know about your current fighting condition.”
I scrunched my nose at him. “Talk about getting your underlings to do your dirty work.”
“And quite effectively so.” Killian stretched his arms out as he studied the matted area. “I’m thinking a practice match is in order.”
“Practice—are you out of your mind? You’ll squash me like a bug!” I wouldn’t put it past him to start the match without my approval, so I hastily pulled magic through my blood, making heat crawl across my face as my wizard’s mark surfaced.
“I’ll hold back,” he assured me. “But you shouldn’t. Use everything you’ve got—though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t trash the place. The Curia Cloisters is still getting repairs done from that storm you conjured.”
“Momoko and Felix helped—it’s one of our new strategies.” I kept my magic rolling as I copied Killian and started stretching. “You know, when we finally do start having confrontations with the Night Court…I think it might be most effective if we didn’t keep our forces entirely separate, but had them fight together—or at least had some of our best fight together.”
“Why would you say that?”
“When we were attacked at Leila’s it worked really well to have two of us wizards paired off with a vampire. We could protect our vampire, but Celestina and Rupert were able to sense the fae more easily since they didn’t bust out magic right away. And once we wizards flushed them out, it was easy for Celestina and Rupert to subdue them.”
Killian tilted his head in thought. “It’s an idea that has merit. It will be interesting to see what my First Knight reports. Fighting with wizards is perhaps a little more intimidating for vampires than you realize given your friendly familiarity with the Drakes who inherently trust you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a stray lightning bolt could do great damage, particularly if it was cast by a wizard trained by you, which makes them more competent than most.”
I snorted. “Yeah, and you can recover really fast from pretty much any magical attack. But I know what you mean. There are a few members of my House who wouldn’t be thrilled to have a vampire at their back when you guys could snap our necks before we realize what’s going on.”
“And yet, here we are, about to enter a practice match together.” Killian grinned at me.
I shook my head. “My trust in you isn’t the issue, Killian. You’re the one with the trust problem.”
He stared at me for several long moments. An emotion simmered in his black-red eyes, but his eyebrows weren’t at all slanted, so I didn’t know how to read it.
Well, if he wasn’t going to start us off, I’d take the advantage of being prepared. I unsheathed my chisa katana, wrapped it with electricity, and raised my shield. “Ready?”
Killian nodded sharply, and backed up a bit. Then he disappeared.
I shifted my shield to my back and created a ring of fire around me, spanning from my feet to the outer edge of the circle, which I had precisely calculated to be longer than Killian’s arm so he couldn’t yank me right over the top.
Killian darkly chuckled, and I caught sight of him to my left. “Not bad.” He threw something at me.
I ducked, but caught sight of it flying over my head, confirming it was indeed a dagger. (Where had he kept that?!)
Killian effortlessly leaped over me. I crouched even lower, avoiding his hand when he tried to snag my arm, and managed to stab my katana upwards.
It missed him by a mile—of course, he was too fast for that—but he had to take two steps when he landed instead of one to maneuver himself for the blur of his next charge.
I tried to rock out of the awkward crouch I’d been backed into, when I heard my shield crunch behind me, then felt something smack me across the back.
His legs, I thought as I fell into my own flames. I forgot to calculate for kicks with his freakishly long legs.
I scrambled to my feet. My own magic couldn’t hurt me, but since I was knocked out of the center, I was now within distance of—
Killian snagged me by the collar of my shirt and twitched me out of my fire. Flower petals ground in my clothes, but I wasn’t done yet!
I stabbed at him with my katana.
He dodged, but it was a feint and an ill done one as I only used one hand.
I reached behind me with my free hand and grabbed Killian’s wrist, then let the electric buzz of magic flood me. Lightning danced across my skin, crawled up my arm, and lashed out at Killian.
He yanked his arm free, but before I could move he used the toe of his shoe to flip me over and plant a foot over my throat.
I was about to struggle despite the pressure, but I looked up…and my entire body grew paralyzed.
Killian was smiling—not a smirk, or the bright grin he flashed whenever he wanted to irritate me, or even the fond/affectionate smile he occasionally trotted out. This was a slightly unhinged, or maybe battle-crazed smile. His eyes were as red as blood and glowed with excitement, and his lips pulled back in the unsettling grin with both of his fangs bared.
Something deep within me wailed that this was the face of death. Even though I knew Killian wouldn’t physically hurt me, years of conditioning kicked in, and my fight-or-flight response screamed to life. I wanted to run, but he had me pinned down like a bug. My heart pounded louder and louder as I stared at the face of a predator.
Killian’s grin grew and he started to hunker down by me, but I flinched, and he must have seen something in my face. He froze for a second, then backed off so fast there was a breeze with his exit. He retreated to the far side of the mats, giving me plenty of room.
I sat flat on the mats for a few moments, trying to get my heart back to normal. It took a few lungfuls of air, but eventually my shakes subsided and I could peel myself off the ground.
Killian waited until I was sitting up. “You did well. Your speed has increased a lot since you first started your training.”
I shakily stood and bought myself a few moments by brushing mashed petals off my clothes. “I lasted longer than I thought I would. But how on earth did you get through my shield to kick me?” I shook my head, shaking off the last bits of fear stamped in me.
“I went in at an angle at the side.” Killian gave me the side eye, keeping his body pointed away from me, but carefully watching me.
I offered him a smile and rubbed the
back of my neck. “I’ll have to work on curving the shield more to stop that.”
He hesitantly nodded, then straightened his shoulders. “When you dodge you give up too much space. You were half flattened on the ground when I jumped over you—that puts you at a severe disadvantage. Don’t retreat so much—it will give you an advantage so you can attack them easier.”
“Gotcha.”
“Let’s practice a few dodges, and at the end of the session we can give the practice match another try.”
I retrieved my katana and shook out my arms. “Sounds good to me!”
“Very well. Let’s begin.”
Although I was the Adept of House Medeis, and we got along really well—it was a miracle the House happened to agree with all the changes I was making, they’re infamous for hating that sort of thing—it still loved playing tricks on me.
Like now. I tried to pull the chain on a ceiling fan to toggle the fan off, but the House kept lowering the chain and then raising it whenever I made a jump for it.
My fingers just brushed the fancy pendent that ended the switch, and the House yanked it out of my grasp.
I set my hands on my hips. “I will burn scented candles in every room and stink this whole place up if you don’t turn off the ceiling fan.”
The flooring squeaked, and around me the House groaned.
“I don’t care if it’s fun!” I narrowed my eyes and did my best to channel the look my parents used whenever I’d been particularly disobedient. “It’s late fall! There’s frost on the ground, the sun is barely up, the heater just turned on, and I’m freezing! Turn. It. Off!”
Something in the ceiling fan clicked, and the blades of the fan slowed down, cutting back the breeze that whipped the icy cold morning air through my room.
I glanced at the alarm clock by my bed—5:30. I still had a bit of time before I needed to get ready for the morning practice. But after all that jumping around, it’d be useless trying to sleep again.
I stuffed my feet in my slippers and shrugged on a warm sweater. I was about to head to the kitchen for a very early breakfast, when something rang in my room.
It took me several long moments to recognize it was a ringtone, but not of my regular cellphone. It was the one Killian had given me in summer.
Even though I had my regular cellphone back and used it as my primary number, when I’d gone to Drake Hall for the alliance negotiations, Killian had insisted I take the phone with me.
The vampires were the only ones with the number, so I usually left it behind, which is why I had to scramble around my room to search for it, eventually unearthing it from under a pile of workout clothes.
I gaped at the name displayed on the screen, but hurried to answer it. “Killian?” My voice broke, making me sound squeaky.
“Good morning, Hazel.”
I suspiciously peered around the room, feeling weirdly awkward. (I couldn’t tell you why—Killian had barged into my room a number of times when I was in Drake Hall, and when I first swore loyalty to him as a servant I was wearing fleece pajama pants with sheep on them. It doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that.) But I skirted across the wooden floor of my bedroom and hopped on my bed. “You’re up late. Isn’t this when most everyone is usually going to bed at Drake Hall?”
“Except for the vampires on patrol, yes,” Killian said, sounding extra British-y, which meant something was bothering him. “I usually stay up until the sun has risen. No use giving it more allowances than it already takes.”
I leaned against the headboard, kicked my slippers off, and shoved my feet under the covers. “How very like you. Is something up?”
“What do you mean?”
“You called for a reason, right?” I yanked the covers of my bed up higher. “It’s not like we haven’t seen each other in a while. You just beat the snot out of me yesterday in our second training session.”
Killian was silent.
“Is…is everything okay?” I hesitantly asked.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
I wrinkled my forehead as I tried to recall what conversations we’d recently had that might bear a phone call. The most likely culprit was the conversation Celestina and I snickered over in front of Killian while I stuffed my face with cookies right before I left after training.
“You confirmed Josh had a human fling years ago? How’d you pull that off? Was it a Twilight thing and werewolves were involved?”
“I was referring to when you said you needed proof that I trust you,” Killian dryly said.
“Oh. Um, what about it?”
“I believe I have found sufficient proof for you.”
I stared at the framed picture on the wall—the last family photo I’d taken with my parents. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s your proof?”
“Your scent.”
I tried to process his point, but it felt like my brain was filled with syrup. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Surely you know that wizard blood reeks to vampires.”
“Yeah.”
“Unless the vampire trusts the wizard.”
“Double yeah.” I furrowed my eyebrows—was he seriously calling me at 5:30 am to school me on the particulars of my blood?
“To me…you no longer smell.”
I had to replay the sentence three times in my mind. “Like, I don’t have a scent?”
That would be less surprising—Celestina and a number of Drake vampires had already told me I no longer stunk, and I had a neutral scent.
“I never said that, only that you don’t smell.”
A long pause stretched between us, and Killian continued. “You now smell…amazing.”
It was shocking, pleasant, and a little eerie to hear. I was used to reactions like Rupert’s—disgust and gagging. Most of the vampires in Drake Hall had stopped scrunching their noses at me a while ago, and they said I smelled neutral to them—neither good nor bad.
But Killian fully trusted me to the point where I no longer smelled bad, or even just neutral, but “amazing”? I was happy to hear it, but it was so unexpected…
“Really?” I slowly said. “Celestina said I don’t have a scent to her.”
Killian’s voice was a little raspy. “I imagine it’s not the same for me, because I trust you more. Your scent is…”
I could sense Killian needed a lighthearted moment since he seemed to be having trouble talking—another thing I hadn’t really experienced before—so I made suspicion line my voice so thickly it was obviously an act. “If you say I smell like dinner I will pull your tie so it’s lopsided the next time I see you.”
I got my desired result, and Killian chuckled. “You don’t smell like food, at all. Your scent is more evocative of feelings. It’s very warm and welcoming and…” There was another long pause. “I think it reminds me how sunlight used to feel before I turned. I didn’t know I even remembered the feeling until the day your scent switched.”
I wriggled in my bed, feeling oddly bashful. “And when was that?”
“After you fought Solene at the Curia Cloisters.”
I stretched my memory to that time. I only dimly remembered the first few days after the fight because I was so hopped up on fae potions, but I did recall that around then Killian suddenly seemed inclined to sniff me occasionally, and continued to do so until he kicked me out.
It supported his claim—he’d take the chance to sniff my wrist or neck whenever possible, which are pretty definitive actions, and certainly not something he’d planned months in advance. (There was no point to it. Even if he did swindle me into believing he trusted me, if he ever tried to take a bite out of me my magic would make him throw up if the trust wasn’t mutual.) I didn’t think he was lying about it, but it was still pretty surprising.
“Can you believe my claim?” Killian asked, his voice cutting through the silence.
“Yeah, it’s so…unexpected. If you were lying to manipulate me you’d come up with something more believable,” I ad
mitted.
“I’m aware that this doesn’t exactly support my case, given that you’ve smelled this way to me for some time,” Killian said. “You want assurance that I will always act on that trust.”
“Killian…” I stretched my toes out under my bed covers until the arches of my feet ached. “I know you’re a vampire, and you’ve had lots of time to solidify your thoughts and actions. I know how you got into the position you currently have. I’m not asking you to change overnight. I just…expected better of you. And I hoped that you trusted me as a person enough to know you didn’t have to screen your actions from me, because I’m not in this for the politics of it.”
He was silent for so long I actually had to pull my phone back and make sure the call hadn’t been disconnected.
“Killian? Are you there?”
“Yes.” He exhaled deeply. “It’s just that I perhaps see a little of what you’ve been complaining about. Your scent is proof, but I don’t think it offers the assurance you want.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that actually, I was pretty convinced, but his next sentence made all activity in my mind halt.
“So instead I will tell you my species’ greatest weakness.”
Weakness? Wasn’t it magic? That was the only real way to take vampires down in battle…it’s why fae stood a better chance of killing them than a werewolf. But that’s common knowledge…
“…What?” I asked, more than a little confused.
Killian must have been in his office—I could hear the unique creak of his chair through the phone line. “Although human blood taken directly from a donor offers greater nutritional value, a boosted amount of energy, and increased powers, feeding is a very dangerous process for a vampire.”
“Huh?” I said in my continued intellectual greatness. “Don’t you just have to…bite them?”
“Actually, drinking fresh blood is quite easy,” Killian assured me. “But after we’ve eaten, we fall into a catatonic state. We’re completely helpless, and at the mercy of whomever we fed off.”
Hold up, hold up, hold up…WHAT?!
“It’s the only time in our lives in which we are truly helpless,” Killian said. “When we sleep it is only fleeting, and it is nearly impossible to get us drunk or addled with drugs because we will naturally wake if we feel or sense something. We cannot do that when we feed off a human—our senses are dulled and our muscle control is shot as our bodies process the rush of nutrients. Because blood pouches and packs don’t give us the same rich nutrients, they don’t produce the…contentment we experience after taking blood from a blood donor. If we are injured and near death of course our reactions are slowed then, but the stretch of time after we’ve fed is the only instance in which we are truly comatose.”