by Skyler Andra
Tor clapped his hands and stepped forward, his cape swishing behind him. “Okay. Now that we’ve all compared the size of our magic wands, maybe we could train, huh?”
I snorted. Fuck Knoxe. He’d underestimated me for the last time.
“That would be fantastic.” I pressed my hands together and smiled.
Knoxe muttered under his breath as he grabbed another belt and more stakes from the rack.
Tor handed me a wristband. “Try this on. It’s called a Projector. It’s kind of like a mini crossbow. You’ll need practice shooting.”
“Tor, mind your own business, and get on with your training.” Our fearless leader.
He snatched the wristband from Tor, then tossed it to me, as if he couldn’t stand the thought our hands touching.
I slipped my hand into the armband and adjusted the straps. “Oh, and if you’re my boyfriend, Tor, then I expect roses and chocolate on our next date.” I said that just to piss off Knoxe.
“You got it, Supergirl.” Tor grinned.
Holding the back of my arm against my waist, I couldn’t get the buckle to catch. With an impatient sigh, Knoxe grabbed my arm, fastened the buckle. Holy shit. That touch…a spark formed in my core, crackling and circling like a firework that shot all the way to my chest. I ached to be closer, to breathe him in—if I could’ve caught a breath, which at that moment was impossible.
I jerked away. No way was I attracted to Knoxe. Nope. This was a residual…thing from all the audiobooks I’d been listening to, A psychosomatic reaction to any man because I’d gone without for so long. No way did it have anything to do with him.
Even if he smelled really good. And was the Miriam Webster definition of sexy. And had eyes so fierce I could’ve let myself fall into his every gaze. I was not attracted. Period.
Damn him. I couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t stop thinking about his fingers brushing my skin. I wanted more. In different places. I wanted Knoxe.
Whoa!
No.
No!
No!
Silver Blazes, I needed Raze to dose me with more smoke to cleanse me of all this crazy Knoxe juju.
The logical side of me didn’t want Knoxe anywhere near me. Didn’t want to feel that pull. Didn’t want to contemplate him in any role other than as my leader. The confusion of my unexpected reaction left me rocking.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds and thought of the most unsexy things I could think of. Scrubbing the oven clean. Doing my laundry and ironing my clothes. Suffering through a Drake song.
It worked, until he seized my wrist again, roughly fastening another buckle. Probably because I stood there, staring off into Neverland as my strange feelings bamboozled my thoughts again.
When his fingertips touched my skin again, another sizzle of electricity zinged me. “I can do it.” I pulled away, strapping it myself and slipping three stakes in the spring loaders. “So, I just aim and press this button?”
“Um…yeah.” But it was a question not a statement and no way could he deny being as affected as I was.
Good.
I raised my arm, shaking a little. He watched me. Expectant. Dismissive. Probably wanting me to fail so he could send me to another team. I wanted to ignore him. Tried. Failed.
I closed one eye, pretending to check my aim. Who was I kidding? No way could I focus on anything but him and how much I wanted him. Fuck.
I crossed my fingers behind my back.
Here goes.
Chapter 15
Astra
I pressed the button with my thumb. The spring snapped. My arm jolted upwards a fraction, and the stake shot out, hitting the wall behind the troll.
Wow. “I’m a badass.” I smiled, feeling the words. I’d missed the target, but it was my first try. With practice, I’d get good at it.
“You go out in the field like that and you’ll be dead before you can take a second shot.” Knoxe just couldn’t let me have this. But he was probably right.
I sagged a little, lowering my arm.
“Not bad, Supergirl.” Tor paraded forward and collected the spike from the mannequin. If it wasn’t for him, no way would I survive this place.
“Thanks,” I said as he approached.
Instead of handing me the stake, Tor grabbed my arm and locked the weapon into the shooting mechanism. Holy shit. My body was in meltdown. I was one step from a horny swoon. Not another one. My heart couldn’t handle all the hormones. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen a hot guy before. The Shadows was full of them.
And these guys are criminals. Of course, so was I by Guild standards.
But who was I kidding? I didn’t need anyone to tell me what I needed. I needed one hot night of sex and then I’d be back to normal. Bring on the hot miners in one week’s time.
Wanting to clear Tor and Knoxe from my system, I quickly shot off another two rounds. The first struck the wall with a thud, a little closer to the troll mannequin. My second blast hit right between the legs. I was getting better.
“Look. You have to center yourself. Stand like this.” Tor stood, knees slightly bent, shoulder square, back straight. I tried to mimic his pose, but of course, I did it wrong. “Your hips need to be more square.”
What did that even mean? Before I could ask, he put a hand on each of my hips and twisted until he had me the way he wanted me. If that meant flustered. Ready to turn around and press into him, to align all the best parts of his body with the desperate and needy parts of mine. He stepped back and I cleared my throat. “Um, thanks.”
But he’d already walked back to his spot.
To my left, Pascal and Raze shot perfect shots, hitting the troll in the eye, the armpit where their hearts were located, and even in the balls. Damn. I had a long way to go to get to their level. I tried not to watch Knoxe. But damn. He filled out a jumpsuit like no one else.
I took another shot and the Troll’s hand sizzled.
Tor strode forward like a superhero on a mission. “Remind me not to mess with you.” His attempt at a joke cheered me up.
I stopped him, shooting my final stake, just missing him. It slammed the troll skin right between the legs. Yes!
His face pinched. “Oof. Was that meant for me?” he asked, his pitch a little higher.
“No,” I said. “Not at all.”
I would’ve like to say it was a warning shot to put the rest of the team on notice, but it was eighty-percent luck, ten percent aim, ten percent lust.
Knoxe let me practice a few more rounds until I had the operation of the arm brace to a standard to defend myself or weaken a gantii.
“That’s enough, Tollens.” I didn’t know why he called them soldiers instead of using their names. He selected a pen-like device from his belt. “Nomical, I want you in here every day, practicing. I don’t want to be distracted out in the field having to watch your ass all the time.”
One step forward, ten back. Knoxe and I were going to have that kind of relationship. And it was fine with me, but no way could I let him keep tearing me down in front of the group. And because he deserved the same respect, I would wait to call him out on it. I stood taller, lifting my chin, not letting him see he’d won.
“I’ll watch her ass,” Tor offered.
Knoxe glared and Raze chuckled.
“You might bump into something if you’re not watching where you’re going,” Pascal said innocently, misinterpreting the joke, typical of someone who took everything literally.
“Hah! It was a joke, man.” Tor clapped him on the shoulder.
“Oh, right.” Pascal frowned.
Knoxe sighed, long and loud then pulled a second weapon for demonstration. “This is a rune blaster.” He held up the pen.
“Wait until you see what this bad boy does,” Tor interrupted.
All Guild technology was meant to wow, especially the ones Cole created back at the Shadows.
“See these?” Knoxe held out the pen so I could see the different symbols carved into the shaft of the weapo
n. Ancient druid runes for the different gantii; werewolves, trolls, goblins, vampires, mermaids, unicorns, djinn. He twisted the pen to reveal even more sigils and creatures circling the entire staff.
“You set the pen by pressing the sigil of the creature you’re hunting.” He pressed the troll rune and aimed. “Then push the button on the end.” The red laser hit the troll skin, burning the character into it.”
“And boom!” Tor pressed his hands to his sides as if he were a walking corpse. “Down goes the troll!”
Guild of Shadows law strictly forbade the killing of gantii. Our magic powers had the potential to kill, but we were taught to dial them back, to cause an effect that lasted for a couple of hours. That was why we trained for so long. My skills, for example, dematerialized a creature for several hours. Long enough for Blaze, my instructor, to sweep them back through a space portal with his djinn magic, returning the balance to the veil.
“Do you mind?” Knoxe snapped. “This isn’t Tor’s Instructional 101.”
“Fuck you, man,” Tor muttered, folding his arms, and retreating to the back of the room to lean against the wall. “You need to pull that stick out of your ass.”
This kind of behavior was hardly conducive to creating a cohesive, tight team. Everyone reacted. Raze puffed more smoke around the room, and it got hazier by the second. Poor Pascal’s fidgeting and rocking got worse. Tor’s resentment grew darker, and any minute now, I expected him to punch Knoxe in the face. Normally, I wasn’t the type to hold my tongue, but today I just wanted to get on with the job. Maybe catching the vamps would take his edge off.
“So.” I cut the silence. “The gantii are rendered unconscious from the laser rune?”
“Paralyzed,” Knoxe advised. “For us to bring them back to the Guild for processing, imprisonment, and arraignment. Then we remove the rune from their skin with an equalizing laser.”
“Who hears the gantii’s case?” I asked.
“The Council of Elders,” Pascal piped in. “Consisting of Guild members from both factions and members of the Gantii Councils.”
I turned for a better look at him, now that he hesitantly and shyly glanced at me for longer than a split second. Wow, he had piercing green eyes with rings of a deeper blue. Crystalline, like the purest emeralds.
“There’s such a thing as gantii councils?” I mumbled, still lost in his eyes, right up until the moment he looked down at his hands again.
These men were all extraordinary in their own ways and being around them was going to be my undoing. I needed to get a hold of myself before I turned into some superhero hag… prison bitch…
“They oversee justice in their own realms.” He fiddled with his tuning fork again.
Of course... “I didn’t know that they weighed in on Guild business.”
“It’s been like that for centuries,” he said with a fleeting glance. “Ever since the Guild Pact with all the gantii realms declaring peace and friendship.”
Back at the Shadows, we’d learned basic Guild history and how it had been formed, its purpose, and about all the gantii races that threatened Earth. Most left us alone. But like Earth, those dimensions had bad eggs with evil intentions. Some gantii, like trolls, were just too stupid, and accidentally wandered into this world then smashed everything up because they didn’t know better.
“Could we concentrate? Maybe?” Knoxe butted in. “Right now, we’ve got business to attend to.”
Tor’s lips pressed together, and he fisted his hands. Each moment took us closer to a head-on.
Raze’s face tightened into a more deadly glare. He shook his head, adding a few more leaves from his pocket into his bowl. Clearly, his cleansing ceremony was not working in this room or on this team.
Pascal tucked his head a little lower and shuffled away.
Maybe there was no hope for the team. Too many frayed threads. Jaz’s death kicked off their ending and perhaps my coming here was the final tower crumbling down.
“Keep training, Tollens,” Knoxe barked. “Tomorrow, we’ve got vampires to catch.”
Nobody moved. Tor huffed and stared at the ceiling. Raze encourage smoke to roll over his body. Pascal stood silent.
“You know, maybe if you speak to them with a little more respect,” I said. “They might respond better.”
Knoxe’s eyes darkened, and his cheeks flushed, but I wasn’t giving him the opportunity to cut me down again. I snatched his rune blaster, aimed and shot. The kickback, like the stake projection, rocked me.
Fuck. Hit the wall again.
“Keep practicing while I’ll get Nomical a weapon’s belt.” His voice lowered to a barely restrained growl.
This guy didn’t like being spoken back to. Well, he was in for a big surprise with me.
Knoxe came to stand by my side. “You’re not leaving until you shoot twenty kill shots in a row.” When he left the room, the tension lightened.
Raze and Pascal got to work. Pascal like a machine, blasting the hell out of his mannequin, branding it over and over. Dedication. Fixation. Fanatical. Signs of his autism. Maybe I could use my Asperger’s to my own advantage the way I obsessed over pop culture.
Tor strode over with a glowing smile. “You’re a freaking rock star right now.”
I smiled even though I still wanted to slap Knoxe.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, flashing him a strained, but grateful smile.
I lifted the rune blaster for a second shot.
“There’s a trick to it.” He clasped my wrist, pulling it close to his body, running his fingers along the insides. I sweltered from the heat of his body so close to mine, from the way his chest pressed into my back, from the lack of air I could pull into my lungs. “Everything that discharges energy has a slight kickback. Don’t hold your arm so taut. Loosen it.”
My heart sighed as he moved to stand beside me, demonstrating, bending my arm slightly. His cobalt eyes caught mine, and I was transfixed. My fucking heart was a damn tramp!
“That way, your arm absorbs the kickback, and you don’t jerk and move the laser pointer and miss.”
Chivalry wasn’t dead. Thank God, too, because Tor was a hunk, and not many men who looked like him had manners anymore.
He let me go and my heart sighed.
“So,” he said with all the casualness in the world, because I couldn’t say a thing with my heart pounding in my throat like a horny bitch. “Show me that nifty little talent of yours. It looks like some sort of vanishing act.”
I channeled a little of my friend Luna and smiled up at him. Coy. Sweet. Playful. “I’ll tell you if you tell me yours.”
He smiled, the skin taught on his European cheeks. “Touché.”
I needed to be wary of this one. He was a heartbreaker at best. A murderer at worst and I wasn’t in the market for either one. Best to stay away from him. I could admire and drool all I wanted, but that was it.
He cocked his head and smiled as if daring me.
All right. I’d let him in on my secret. “I dissolve things into their chemical components using mathematical equations.”
“So, you’re a geek too.” Tor lifted my wrist, nudging me to keep practicing.
I let off a round, further from the target than the last shot or any of the others before it. Damn. These guys were going to be my undoing if I didn’t get my head on straight.
Tor bent my arm again, which I’d forgotten to do. “I can manipulate the mind of gantiis to make them see whatever I want them too.”
I took a deep breath, focusing hard on the rune blaster. When I let go, the shot hit wide.
“Close. But no cigar.” He gave me an encouraging smile.
I had to make twenty kill shots before I could leave, and I hadn’t made one yet. It was going to be a long day.
Knoxe barked from behind us. “What do you think you’re doing, Tor?”
“Just being a gentleman and giving this lovely lady a hand.” His feigned innocence wasn’t convincing even me and I was pretty suggestionab
le right then because it wasn’t everyday a hot guy offered to help me. Back at the Shadows, I didn’t date much. Too many good boys, not enough spirit in them. But here… whole other story!
“Are you going to hold her hand on missions too?” Knoxe shot back, raising an eyebrow. “Protect her from monsters?”
“I can hold my own,” I assured him with enough fire in my voice to set the whole building aflame. “I helped reign in a Shaitan, battled Aquarians and Ignatias. I’m not exactly a helpless maiden.”
I’d faced enough gantii and serpents to have confidence in my abilities. I didn’t need any man to save me. The exception to the rule: my fantasies with some nice role-play in the bedroom. Me acting as a lost Princess and my man saving me from kidnap.
“Thanks, Tor, for helping me out.” Knoxe could suck it.
Tor winked and flashed me a lightning smile. “You got it, Supergirl. Wait until you get to the grenades.” I liked the way he brushed off Knoxe’s cruelty, even though behind Tor’s eyes, I caught the glare of his resentment.
I turned and blasted the mannequin, missing mostly, but inching closer with every shot. Determination buzzed inside of me. I was going to show Knoxe he didn’t scare me. That I’d meet every challenge he threw my way and exceed with flying colors. Even if it I had to practice all day.
Over the course of the next two hours, I got three hits in a row. Not the twenty Knoxe had ordered, but still, three. Yay, me.
“That’s enough for today,” he announced, clapping everyone but me on the shoulder. “Tomorrow we’re going on a mission. Vamp hunting.”
Everyone else whooped.
Hunting. Yes! I’d been on a few field trips with the Shadows. Encountered a few gantii, even shoved a Shaitan—an air djinn—back through a veil rupture.
Tor waited by the door. Maybe for me? I smiled and walked toward him.
“Nomical.” Knoxe’s clipped voice called me back, and I turned, waiting as he approached me. “This is your weapon’s belt.”
He handed me a leather belt with sheaths and pouches full of stakes, grenades and a rune blaster, like the one he’d been wearing until I’d dissolved it. It’d be back in a few more hours. Let him sweat it.