Lightning Rider (Lightning Rider Alterations)

by Jen Greyson

  A breeze ruffles my hair. My grip falters on the image. I shake my head, but I get it now.

  He lowers his sword and slowly releases me.

  I spin around. “What was that?” I shove him, and he retreats until we reach the middle of the field.

  “I had to see what you would do. You haven’t tested your lightning as a weapon, and I had to know if you’d cower or scream or run away.”

  “Run screaming? Cower? That’s what you think of me?”

  He shrugs. “Vast space exists between daily life and battle. No one reacts the same under duress.”

  “So you charge me?” I push his chest again, and a map of sparks crisscross his chest. He winces. I don’t care.

  “I’ve never taken a woman into battle.” Less than a foot separates us. He looks through me for a long time while I seethe, then taps the front of my armor, just below my neck. “You have a warrior’s heart. You have no idea how to control your weapon, but you fight like you do, with no hesitation. I can train someone with heart, but I cannot give a man heart, no matter how good his swordsmanship.”

  “I’m not a man.” I wave my hands over my chest then raise my flat palms. “No sword.”

  He grunts and lifts his sword. “Again.”

  I stay put. “I don’t want to learn like this. I know this is how you train your men, but help me learn how to wield this thing before you attack me. Learning under duress isn’t how I work best.”

  “We don’t know that. No one’s seen your weapon before, least of all you. Penya and I think this is the best way to test your limits.”

  I don’t like that they’re deciding things without me. Never mind that Penya’s been around forever and Constantine’s trained his share of deadly warriors . . . they could at least include me.

  “It is the only way. To learn by doing, you learn with your body, and your actions become instinctual. Learning with your head will make you think too much about what you’re doing when the time comes. You will hesitate. You will die.”

  “Maybe that’s true for your men, but women . . .” I examine my hands, then meet his eyes. “Everything I do comes from my emotions—to my detriment sometimes—but I learned to lean into it a long time ago. It’s just what I do. Anytime I override my emotions, I regret it. I need information, then I lead with my heart. Take me or leave me.” I cross my arms. “Teach me the basics first. Then you can test me all you want.”

  “You think to tell me how to train a warrior?”

  “No. But I will tell you how to train me.”

  He circles me, and I let him. When he passes behind me, he flips my skirt with the tip of his sword. My hands drop to my sides, palms open, ready.

  “A warrior must contain his emotions. On the battlefield they are a liability.”

  “Or fuel.”

  A cloud passes over the moon, eclipsing the light. Darkness here is the opaqueness of my in-between when I ride. Shadows rise from the grass, dark pools stretch from the rooted tree trunks as the branches above reach for each other in the darkness, completing a wall of night twenty feet in front of me. Constantine stands behind me, but I can only discern his exact location by the slow hiss of his exhale. He steps to the right, grass crunching beneath his feet. I close my eyes.

  “My men spend hundreds of hours training with their weapon before they ever step foot on a battlefield.” Above his voice, the strike of metal on metal and the slap of skin puncture the pregnant quiet of the night. “Do you know why?”

  I’m pretty sure that’s a rhetorical question and he’s about to show me the answer, so I bend my knees and flex my thighs, intent on listening to his movements, not his distracting words. He’s almost in front of me now and a few feet farther away.

  Behind my closed lids, I project a perfect image of the field and place him on it. Flat, compacted earth stretches in every direction, rimmed by the forest before me, the low buildings behind me, and a shallow hill and path on the sides. To defend myself I have two choices—duck or fight.

  If he honors my request, I won’t need to do either.

  “My warriors’ weapons are extensions of their bodies. They do not tell their arm to extend before doing it, so it is the same with their sword.” His own sword sings as he sheaths it. “So must it be with you.”

  Air rushes across one side and I tense, shifting my body weight to the opposite heel. Tendrils of light ignite my palms in halos of light.

  From behind me, he whispers, “Open your eyes.”

  I do.

  “Pick your target.”

  I zone in on a small tree straight across the clearing.

  “Fire.”

  I jerk, and a ball of lightning erupts from my hand, tumbling and bouncing erratically across the grass. It dies ten feet from the target.

  “Focus. Find your womanly center,” he says with a sneer.

  Jerk. The mockery is barely past his lips before my hands explode in two huge balls of light. I snap my arms forward and throw the balls, incinerating the tiny sapling. I stare open-mouthed at the result and wiggle my hips in an impromptu victory dance.

  “Great. So an attack by an unarmed tree is your secret,” he says, mocking me again.

  I glare and raise my bullwhip over my head, swinging it high and fast. At the apex, I release it and snap a thick branch off the twenty-footer to the right of the smoldering sapling.

  He steps beside me and crosses his arms, facing the forest. We stand in silence while he ponders our results. The cloud moves on across the sky, releasing the moonlight. After a moment, he says, “Again.”

  Another thick branch mirrors the first, fifteen feet off the ground. I narrow my eyes until the texture of the branch comes sharply into focus. At the joint, a clump of sap shines in the moonlight. Inhale. Exhale. Fire.

  Again, the balls lose their momentum halfway and wink out.

  He snorts.

  I don’t admit he was right, and he doesn’t press me.

  My stomach rumbles, and he cuts me a sideways glance, then sighs. “Wait here.”

  He retreats to the low overhang of the building and fusses with a small table. He returns and cups my elbow. “Come.”

  We cross the field into the forest to where a small spring bubbles from the mossy ground. Moonlight filters through the branches, and he directs me to a small oval pool of light. I lower myself to a fallen log and rinse my hands in the chilly water, then splash my face. He straddles the log beside me, rocking it. Unbalanced, I clutch the bark until he settles.

  “Here.” He hands me half a loaf of bread.

  My stomach rumbles again, and I give him a halfhearted smile. His attention drops to my lips, and I swallow. He turns to his own meal, and we eat in companionable silence. I’m not sure if he’s disappointed in our training or just pondering a new way to go about firing my lightning.

  The moon slides behind another cloud, extinguishing our small pool of light and plunging us into darkness. I shift and throw one leg over the log so I’m facing him, mimicking his posture.

  I don’t know why I ask. Maybe it’s the intimacy of the meal or the vulnerability of morals that comes from drawing a weapon against another with intent, but the words tumble from my lips before I know what I’m doing. “Tell me about your family.”

  He jerks like I punched him.

  “Do you have a wife? Children?” I ask.

  He stares from behind his warrior mask, and then his face softens. He breaks off a piece of his bread and rolls it between his fingers. “I did.” He tears the bread into bits. “My wife died when our daughter was born. My daughter was killed . . . recently.”

  I’m sure the shock is plastered across my face. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  When he speaks, the words are quiet. “We were living in Rome. She’d gone to visit friends, to see their new gardens. She’d crossed the bridge when the Tiber rose so fast they had no chance to escape. People downstream were trapped in their dwellings. But her entire traveling group was lost in an instant.”
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  He falls silent, gripping the bread with a fierce intensity. I didn’t expect this. I figured he’d give me a three-word answer and be done with it. I’m afraid to move, to break the spell I’ve cast somehow. These aren’t the secrets I thought he carried.

  He stands. “We must go.”

  “I thought we were training.”

  “Come.” He holds his hand out.

  I search for the guy who just laid himself bare. He’s gone. I put my hand in his, and a sizzle of electricity travels down my arm. If he felt it, his face betrays nothing.

  He tugs me up too fast. Unbalanced, I land against his chest, and he coils his other arm around me to stabilize us. My hands against his chest, our bodies align from heart to toes, and I search his face again. “Is that why you fight?”

  It’s there for a flicker of a moment—the pain, the desolation, the loneliness. A warrior with nothing to lose is reckless. I don’t voice my concern, but I wonder how close I am to the truth.

  He releases me, and I step back to catch my balance—and not just physically.

  “Why do you cast this spell?” he asks.

  “I don’t. I’m no sorceress. You’ve read the scrolls. I don’t have some mystery cauldron where I’m mixing sex spells.”

  He runs a hand through his hair. “Then why do I feel like a foolish youth around you?”

  I bite my cheek to hide my smile. Somewhere in there he just paid me a compliment. I slide my palms up the sides of my leather bustier and cup my breasts. “Maybe it’s my armor,” I say, teasing in a singsong voice.

  He rolls his eyes and walks away.

  I skip after him, laughing.

  Chapter 14

  Darkness cloaks our approach but not the sound of our horses. Mine stomps and sneezes and shakes his head every few steps, making me wonder at his effectiveness as a warhorse. Leaves rustle above me in the calm night as creatures hop between the branches overhead. Off in the distance, something growls.

  Constantine leads us off the narrow path we’ve been traveling for hours and stops behind a grove of thick trees and shrubs. He slides off his horse and loops the reins over a low branch. His feet make no more noise against the damp leaves than the animals overhead.

  I stare at the ground.

  “Come.” His voice is a harsh whisper tossed hastily over his shoulder as he moves into the darkness.

  I ride bikes—choppers that sit about two feet off the ground. Comparatively, I’m now astride a skyscraper. Hispania’s warhorses aren’t exactly little things. The ground is far away, and I’m not sure how to get off without getting trampled. The horse stomps his foot again, as if making sure I know he could crush me. My fingers clutch the front of the saddle.

  “Evy!”

  I jerk. It’s the first time he’s used my name. He moves through the bushes and returns to my horse, grabs me around the waist, and hauls me down. “Be silent,” he says as he slips his fingers through mine and guides me through the tall grass. I straighten my armor and try to be as quiet as possible in the soft-as-nothing shoes Anna made, but I manage to step on several twigs. They snap like gunfire.

  Back at the house I felt like Wonder Woman in this armor and, really, with the leather bracelets and skirt, all I’m missing is the headband. I even have the small round shield, but Constantine made me leave it, saying I’m too loud as it is. The comment pissed me off at the time, but now I’m glad I relented. The grass is nearly to my thighs, and each time I take a step, the tall stalks bend and slide along each other, tangling into a wild braid as the heads meet, slicing across my leg and scattering grains in every direction. Beneath the grass the ground is uneven, and I’m barely able to move at his pace and stay upright.

  I thought he was intense and sullen before, but it doesn’t compare to his full warrior mode. Watching him move is like accompanying a lion on a kill.

  We trace the path he showed me earlier on the map, and though I can barely remember it, he leads us with precision. I wonder if he really is part predator.

  Moonlight bathes our path, and an occasional rustling flutters the leaves above. Easing over the crest of a hill, he lowers himself to his hands and knees, pointing me to the spot next to him so we can see into the small valley below. The leather skirt is just short enough I don’t trap it beneath my knees, and the damp ground on my bare skin is surprisingly intoxicating. Fortunately, Constantine is too engrossed to notice when I accidentally moon him with my pink lace thong while I get into position.

  Stretched out and braced on his elbows, he pulls me forward until I’m half under his chest. He presses his lips to my ear and nudges my cheek with his to show me where he’s looking. “First set of tents. Our target sleeps. Three men guard him at all times.”

  There are few tents here. Many men are sleeping on the hard, cold ground. A few goats mill in a small enclosure on the fringe. I thought Constantine’s barracks were barren, but these men have less than nothing. Dressed in black, some of the men wear their hair long and wild, others wear a small section at their forehead pulled back. They are not warriors; they are fierce animals, ready for attack. The rest of the camp does not sleep, and dozens of men mill about, most of them fighting or racing each other. I have no idea what I’m looking for, and I turn to ask Constantine.

  He bumps my cheek with his, and I clamp my lips. “We’re looking for a way in,” he says. “This man fights with no consideration of military tactics. He’s like a creature of the night. A man in body, but with the spirit and stealth of a leopard.” He watches the operations, cataloguing every movement, counting every weapon, discerning every skill.

  His body is tense next to mine, and it feels like he might explode forward with a war cry. We watch for what seems like hours, and I shiver. I try to control it, but the night has stripped the ground of warmth. Constantine is of no help—he’s as warm and unyielding as stone.

  The weight of his gaze is heavy and I turn my face away, pretending I’m watching the edge of camp. Some prehistoric place in me wants to make him proud, or at least not disappointed, on this first military outing.

  He crawls backward down the hill and drags me with him. At the bottom, we stand and he pulls me toward the horses before lifting me onto mine and turning to mount his own.

  He stops at his horse’s flank. Great, he’s going to send me home by myself and go back to watching. But instead he digs into one of the pouches and pulls out a roll of fabric.

  He jams his foot in the stirrup, swings his other leg over his horse, and wheels him around. I scan his face, his unreadable warrior mask. My horse turns to follow, but Constantine sidesteps against us, forcing us still. He flicks the roll toward me and it unfurls into a thin, black blanket. His expression softens. I think he just apologized.

  I tuck the blanket around me and jam my fingers into my horse’s thick mane. He follows Constantine without any direction. My teeth chatter in thanks.

  We make it to the top of the next hill before I slip. We startle a massive flock of birds, and though I leap sideways, my horse does not. Trained to ignore everything, conditioned to be calm under pressure, he doesn’t waver.

  My fingers clutch for purchase, but they’re too cold to grip. Afraid my arms will shatter if I throw them out to catch my fall, I point my toes, straighten my legs, and roll at the last second, taking the impact on my back. My foot is still caught in the stirrup, and I lie there dangling, my skirt flipped upside down and my bare ass exposed, my arms tangled in the blanket, my lungs heaving for breath.

  “Why did you get off?” Constantine asks from the other side of my horse.

  I wheeze but don’t have the air for a sarcastic retort. He moves around to my side and half chokes on his swift intake of breath. He stares for a long while—at least I think he does. I can’t really see from this angle. Then he fumbles with my sandal until he frees it from the stirrup. Instead of dropping it, he tucks it against his ribs. If I could stretch just a little farther, I could get my other foot on the ground. I tug, but his hol
d on my stirrup foot is unbreakable. A spasm radiates through my overextended spine, and I struggle against the blanket, but that only presses my shoulder blades further into the dirt.

  He steps closer, and as I curve my stirrup foot around his waist, my right leg scissors up, desperate for an anchor. His hand slides up my leg and grips, tipping me upside down. I lock my ankles and squeeze my thighs around his waist, pulling myself upright in a crunch from hell. He holds me there, his hands cradling my bottom, before I unlock my legs and he lowers me to the ground.

  I avert my eyes, my face a mixture of embarrassment and anger at my own stupidity. That I just pole danced him doesn’t help anything. I turn and begin to unravel the blanket from my upper body.

  Our horses stand together, waiting. He presses behind me, and I wait for him to help me get back on. I know he’s frustrated with me and how shitty I am at this war stuff, but I don’t know how he thinks I’m going to just know it.

  I hear him sigh, and his breath tickles the hairs that have come loose from my braid. He steps away, and I stare up at the saddle, mustering the courage to get back on by myself and ride this stupid horse. As I lift my frozen fingers to the cinch strap, he catches my hand and pulls me away.

  Is he making me walk? Tears of frustration burn the backs of my eyes. Tonight could not have gone any worse. I want to apologize, to tell him I’ll do better next time, but I don’t trust my voice. Dammit! A sob surges up, but I swallow it back down. I will not cry until he’s gone. Rolling my lips between my teeth, I bite down and trudge behind him, waiting for my send-off. We pass in front of the horses, and I glance down the dark road, sniffling.

  In a motion so swift I have no time to prepare, he swings me onto his horse. I clutch its mane and every bit of leather I can grab as the horse pulls against the reins the moment my butt hits the saddle. I’m on a loaded rocket and someone just pushed the countdown button.

  Constantine climbs on behind me and loops my horse’s reins through the back of our saddle. I press forward as far as I can, but he wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me back against him. The heat from his body leeches into me and, though I don’t mean to, I sigh.