I fidgeted, bouncing excitedly on the balls of my feet. "I can’t wait to see what you think of the music from my world."
He frowned a little, and Sam laughed. "Oh, that should be fun to watch."
I turned and cocked an eyebrow at him. "I don’t remember saying you could stick around to watch me make a fool of myself in this training session."
Sam locked eyes with me and gave a suggestive smirk. "What you were doing when I showed up didn’t look much like training."
I scowled at him and pointed a stiff arm back at the fortress. "That didn’t help your case. Now you don’t get to stay. Finish up with the amplification and then get going."
Sam pouted for a moment, and I snorted at how ridiculous it was. "Pouting doesn’t work on me anymore. Have you even seen Gabriel? You have nothing on those eyes."
Sam sighed and shook his head. "Never thought I’d see the day when a dog outclassed me."
"I’ve always found dogs quite superior to you," Kieran quipped, a goading grin tugging at his lips.
Sam gave a haughty sniff and walked away, leaving us to get back to the training session. I took the iPhone over to the bench and set it down, scrolling through my playlists until I found the one I’d entitled "workout music." I grinned and set it to shuffle, thoroughly enjoying the way Kieran jumped and his brown-gold eyes went wide when "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath filled the training area.
He recovered after a moment, though, and laughed. "I was skeptical about your plan to use music to frighten Sigrid’s forces, but now I’m beginning to see its merits."
"Just wait," I grinned, "It gets better."
After about 10 minutes of training me with the dirk, Kieran took it and laid it down on the bench. "I think you’ve got a pretty good grasp of that." I felt a glow of pleasure at his praise, but it was short-lived. "Let’s move on to the rapier, shall we?"
I groaned with dread, and he gave me a stern look. "You’re going to have to learn it sooner or later." When he saw me examining the rapier, it must have struck him that dealing with such a novice might be more dangerous than he’d anticipated. "Hold on a minute."
I watched him disappear into the armory, and he returned shortly after in a full breastplate. I studied him with a frown for a moment. "I thought they only had women’s armor in there."
"I had this specially made before I came here. I keep my armor hidden away, just in case."
I felt my forehead wrinkle with confusion. "Hidden away? Why?"
He gave me a grim smile and tapped the crest stamped into the breastplate. "Daraglathian royal crest. Most people here don’t realize that I’m Sigrid’s son, and they’d probably flay me alive if they did know."
"Wait...what?" I stared at him, entirely incredulous.
"Ah," he sighed. "I assumed Sam had told you."
I crossed my arms and stared at him. "No, Sam did not tell me, but what I want to know is why you didn’t tell me yourself. Explain. Now."
Kieran ran a hand through his hair and shrugged, suddenly finding something about his boots fascinating. "Who I was isn’t important. I haven’t been a prince or considered Sigrid’s son since she abandoned me when I was fourteen years old."
"Oh my God," I whispered, unable to resist the urge to step forward and wrap my arms around his waist in a fierce hug. He couldn’t possibly feel it through the steel breastplate, which was cold against my cheek. "Kieran, I am so, so sorry."
He sighed again and absently ran a hand through my hair. "It’s all right, Lauren. That was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore."
I looked up at him with a frown. "Are you sure?"
Kieran nodded. "Yeah, I’m sure." He cupped my cheek and kissed me again, this time more slowly and gently. Without thinking, I stopped hugging him and let my right hand slide up the breastplate and around the back of his neck. My fingers tangled in the curls at the nape of his neck, and his hand that had been cupping my cheek mirrored the movement. After the best few moments of my life, Kieran pulled back and leaned his forehead against mine. "This is probably a very bad idea."
Our noses grazed as I nodded. "Yeah, probably."
He stared into my eyes, and his were warmer than I’d ever seen them before. "Do you want me to stop?"
"Not even a little bit." I kissed him and enjoyed it when he slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against him.
When we finally came up for air, he gave my hair a playful tug. "I see what you’re doing."
I chuckled and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Really? What’s that?"
"Trying to avoid weapons training by distracting me with your feminine wiles." He shot me a smug smirk, and I couldn’t help laughing.
I shook my head, trying to look innocent. "You kissed me first. Twice."
"Hmm. Guilty as charged. I blame you, though. It’s not my fault you’ve got some irresistible magnetism about you." His smile made me hot from head to foot, and I brought my hands up to hide the blush on my cheeks. "Come on, now. Let’s get to work."
The moment Kieran charged at me with his sword raised, I flung my rapier at him on instinct and bolted. When I realized what I’d done, I turned around and came back. I could feel the embarrassed blush creeping up my face as I turned and saw Kieran doubled over with laughter. I stomped back over to him and snatched up my rapier from where it had fallen after bouncing off his breastplate. He shook his head and grinned at me.
"Well, at least we know you have some instinct for self-preservation. We can work with that. This time, try to resist the urge to throw the sword and run."
I tried to steel myself, but the second he advanced, the sword catapulted from my hand and clanged off his breastplate as I turned tail and ran again. His laughter grated my nerves as I turned around and walked back to him again.
"You’re never going to be able to stop throwing the sword, are you?"
My face felt like it was on fire. "I can’t help it! It happens before I can even think about it."
Kieran laughed and shook his head. "Burns said something about hunting down some throwing axes and knives for you. Did you tell him about your sword-flinging habit?"
When I spoke, it was through gritted teeth. "I told you, I can’t help it."
He reached out and gave my arm a gentle squeeze. "I was just teasing you, Lauren."
I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Now might not be the best time for teasing, you know. I am armed."
He laughed and shook his head. "I hope we can get you those throwing knives and axes soon. I think you’ll do much better with those."
"I hope so," I grunted, embarrassed by my incompetence. "Is there any chance we could detour from the swordplay into something else?"
"We can give archery a shot, but don’t think for a moment that this will get you out of the lessons with the sword indefinitely. You need to be at least able to use any weapon you pick up, even if not entirely proficient with it. What if you lose all your projectiles, and an enemy is advancing on you with a sword? You need to be able to pick up a sword of your own to defend yourself, okay?"
"I know," I grumbled.
Kieran sighed and closed the space between us. I tried staring at the ground, but he lifted my chin and forced me to look him in the eye. "I’m not doing this to embarrass you and make you miserable, Lauren. This training is a matter of ensuring your ability to survive. Do you understand?"
I nodded, words having escaped me for the moment because all my attention was drawn to the heat radiating from the place where his fingers had captured my chin. Please kiss me again and forget about this stupid training, I thought. He must have seen the train of thought in my eyes because he shook his head.
"Let’s move on to archery training. As tempting as you are, your safety is more important."
Kieran handed me the bow just as an unmistakably bossy voice rang out over the courtyard. "You’ll have to get back to that later. Rolf wants to see you again."
The young woman’s face was a familiar one, and her tone didn’t make
me want to do as she said. Instead, I shot her a forced smile. "I’m sorry, but I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced." You only spat in my face and threatened to turn me over to Sigrid, after all.
She looked me over with her hands planted firmly on her hips. Her assessment seemed interminable, but she blew out a sigh and returned my smile with a disgusted grimace. "Tamara...Tamara Lindsey. I’m the blacksmith’s daughter, and I’ll be in charge of helping produce this Linothorax you told Captain Burns about."
I couldn’t help sizing her up in return. She was short but still taller than I was, with light brown hair cut in an angular bob and dark green eyes. While she was feminine and curvy, she still looked like she could hold her own in a fight with just about anyone. She smirked at my blatant assessment and cocked her head, a challenging glint in her eyes. Something in her expression reminded me of the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park, and it sent a chill shuddering through me. At that moment, I knew it would be in my best interests to try to make friends with her.
I cleared my throat. "I guess Rolf wants to see me right now?"
She gave a sharp nod. "He does, and Sam wants to see you after that. He said you should make sure to return the device to him." She looked me over from head to toe once more, and turned on her heel, striding off with what looked like distinct purpose. Her tone had a distinct bite to it, and I frowned over at Kieran.
"What the hell is that girl’s problem?" I hissed it between clenched teeth, and stared after her with narrowed eyes. Literally everything about her pissed me off.
Kieran’s face held a broad grin. "She’s been in love with Sam for her entire life. I think she believes you’re trying to steal her man because Sam’s been seen trying to flirt with you. If I were you, I’d watch my back. Tamara’s a little crazy. I don’t think her setting you on fire while you sleep is entirely outside the realm of possibility."
My mouth fell open, and I was stricken with momentary abject horror. "Please tell me you’re kidding!"
He laughed and shrugged. "I am...mostly."
"Boy, that’s comforting," I snorted, shaking my head. "Just what I need...one more crazy woman who hates my guts for something that isn’t my fault. Awesome."
"Sarcasm isn’t attractive to most people, you know." I could tell he was trying to get a rise out of me.
My only answer was a glare at Kieran over my shoulder as I turned to walk back to the fortress.
The first thing that struck me when I entered what I’d come to think of as Rolf’s study was that there was parchment everywhere. I wish that were an exaggeration, but it was on every possible surface of the stone room—tables, walls, benches, and floor included.
The second thing that struck me was that Rolf looked like his blood pressure was just short of stroke-level. His face was purple, his temple veins were standing out and throbbing, and he was pacing, kicking stacks of parchment with reckless abandon as he went.
Wynne, on the other hand, sat on a stool in the corner, studying him coolly. I could tell by the way her arms were clamped tightly to her chest that she was irritated, at the very least. Future couples therapy, I thought. I bet they don’t even realize they’re in love with each other.
It took me a minute to realize they were both staring at me in awkward silence. I shuffled my feet and cleared my throat. "The angry girl with the fussy and borderline psychotic attitude said you wanted to see me?"
Both of them seemed momentarily caught off guard Wynne leveled an amused gaze at me. "I see the two of you didn’t exactly hit it off."
I shook my head and gestured wildly as an angry rant poured out of my mouth unbidden. "No, I don’t think we did. As a matter of fact, Kieran seems to think she’s likely to set me on fire while I sleep. That’s super comforting, just so you know. I love knowing some crazy chick wants to murder me when I’m at my most vulnerable."
"Ah," Rolf murmured, struggling for an appropriate response to the scathing bitterness of my rant.
Wynne stood and closed the distance between us, wrapping her arm around my shoulders in a soothing, motherly gesture. "We probably should have warned you about her...fixation on Sam. I should also have told you about Sam’s tendency to flirt with everyone female who lives and breathes. When you combine that with the fact that Sam is utterly oblivious to the fact that Tamara is a wee bit obsessed with him, it can cause volatile situations for whoever Sam is focused on at the moment. It will pass. Sam never focuses for long."
I pursed my lips, searching for an answer that wasn’t overwhelmingly sarcastic or filled with pure meanness, and it took me a couple of minutes to find one. "First of all, I wasn’t encouraging Sam's was ’flirting’ with me. As a matter of fact, I have done everything in my power to discourage it. Second, has anyone ever thought about correcting this behavior in either Sam or Tamara? Having to work with her is going to be very uncomfortable for me if this crap continues. Third, was there an actual reason you sent for me, or am I just here for kicks and giggles?"
It took me a while to realize I’d fallen into a defensive, cross-armed stance, but I forced myself to drop my arms to my sides. I huffed out a frustrated breath and forced myself to relax my stance as I waited for them to respond.
Rolf was the first to gather himself. "I called you here because I discovered this cache of parchment in a previously unexplored cavern within the fortress. The issue is that they are all prophecies similar to the one we found about you, but there are thousands of them with minute differences. Now we don’t know which one is the correct one, or if you are the person the verses refer to, at all."
"That’s because you’re a bloody idiot!" Rolf and I both jumped at the disembodied shouting brogue, but Wynne seemed unruffled. I backed against the door as Rolf drew his sword, but Wynne dissolved into a fit of helpless giggling.
"Put the sword away, you jumpy dolt," Wynne gasped around peals of laughter. "Mack isn’t going to hurt you."
"Mack? Who the bloody hell is Mack? I think you better start explaining now!" Rolf’s dark eyes fixed on Wynne in a furious, unwavering glare.
Wynne, obviously unconcerned with his temperamental attitude, rolled her eyes. "Mack is the prophet, Rolf, the dwarf seer. You weren’t supposed to find all his drafts. The only prophecy you needed was the one that I brought you...the one that I said I found when I was exploring the caverns."
She strode over to one of the corners of the rough-hewn room and shoved on what appeared to be a solid stone wall. The portion that she pushed against hissed and slid back, revealing a stout, muscular man with wild sandy brown hair and sharp green eyes. I couldn’t stifle my excitement.
"Oh my God, it’s a real, live dwarf," I squealed with glee.
Rolf stared, wordless and open-mouthed as Mack drew himself up to his full four feet of height and strode into the center of the room, his eyes fixed on me.
"That I am, madam. Wallace MacQueen, at your service." He gave a ridiculously formal bow, and when he straightened up, he beckoned me to him. "Let me have a good look at my promised heroine, young lady."
"I’m nobody’s heroine," I stammered as I walked over to him. "I keep telling everyone that I’m nobody special and that I’m just here by accident, but nobody believes me. I’m willing to try to help however I can, but I feel like everybody counting on me could be a really bad idea, and also a very disappointing one." It all came out in an unstoppable rush, and I was blushing furiously and staring down at Mack’s boots by the time I was finished.
Frost: An Otherworld Tale (The Otherworld Tales Book 1) Page 17