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“In case you weren’t listening, Kitten, you and I are bound now. My survival depends solely on you not dying. So until I can get rid of you, I guess you have a new bodyguard...and trainer.” He said, the latter almost as an afterthought. I raised an eyebrow.
“Trainer?”
“Well, if last night was any indication, all anyone has to do is send someone with basic motor skills, and you’re pretty much a goner. Watching you try to battle that spider-bitch was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen.” He drained the last of his coffee and dropped the cup in the sink with a clank. “So yeah, I’m going to train you.” My face flushed red at the insult.
“Well, I didn’t see you jumping in to help at all.” I snarled at him. He rolled his eyes.
“And what? Risk this handsome mug? I don’t think so,” He preened, gripping his chiseled jaw. He looked me up and down and made a face. “Go change into something, you’ll feel more comfortable getting your ass kicked in. I’ll meet you out back.” Before I could come up with anything witty to say in return, he was gone.
I debated locking the door behind him and curling up to watch TV, but thought better of it. Knowing him he would blow the door right out of the hinges and drag me outside by my ankles. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to try and learn how to fight with him. Maybe, if I got good enough, I could kick his ass right back. So, with that cheerful thought in mind, I dragged myself upstairs to change.
30
I walked out into the backyard in black joggers and a t-shirt. I had to dig through the closet to find a pair of Clair’s old Nike’s that, thankfully, fit just fine.
Rycon looked at me critically as I ambled outside. My feet felt heavy, and my head was swimming. I almost felt like I was coming down with a cold. I shook my head and a wave of nausea roiled through me, but I forced it down. I was not going to puke in front of this asshole.
“That’ll do,” Rycon grunted. He had shrugged off his leather jacket and was standing before me in his boots, jeans, and white cotton t-shirt, smoking a cigarette. I wrinkled my nose at him.
“We’re about to work out and you’re smoking a cigarette?” The smell of the smoke was doing nothing to help my nausea. He took another pull, the ember burning red between his blunt fingernails, which were coated in chipped black polish. When he spoke, plumes of smoke escaped with each syllable.
“Correction, you’re going to work out.” He smirked.
I snorted at him. “I thought you said you were going to teach me how to fight? Aren’t we going to spar or something?”
I had learned to spar in gym class, where I reigned undefeated in our boxing unit. Until, of course, I had been told that I was ‘too aggressive’ and was excused from participating in future matches. I mean, it was boxing. The whole point of the sport was to knock the other person out. I hadn’t understood all the backlash at the time. Now that I had been expelled, yet again, for fighting, I guess it made sense. I could understand why people were uncomfortable with me learning to be even more deadly.
Rycon literally laughed out loud. “Spar? You look like a strong gust of wind would knock you over. You probably couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “If you’re trying to piss me off, it’s working.”
“I’m not trying to piss you off, Kitten. Pissed off just seems to be your natural state. I’m telling you the truth. You look like shit. You’re too skinny, and you probably couldn’t run a mile without collapsing. When was the last time you did a sit-up?”
I gave him a vulgar hand gesture, and he rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He said, flicking away his cigarette. “You want to spar? Come at me. Give me your best shot.”
I started moving before my mind even registered what I was going to do. I had barely made a step, and I knew he was right; I was much too slow. He was so fast that he was barely a blur. Before I knew it, he suddenly had me in a chokehold with one arm twisted behind my back.
“Whoops. You’re dead. Which means I’m dead.” He let me go and kicked me between the shoulder blades, forcing me forward. I whipped around, catching my balance at the last minute.
“Again.” He said, standing there with that infuriating smirk on his face. I lunged for him, and he hit me in the stomach this time, hard enough to send me to my knees. I nearly threw up right there and then. Panting on all fours in the grass, I spit up the bile that had begun to gather in the back of my throat.
“This is serious, Kitten.” He said as he began to circle me slowly. A great cat, closing in on its prey. “The people you’re going to come up against aren’t going to care that you’re a girl.” He didn’t wait for me to get up, he kicked me in the side, and I grunted, gritting my teeth. “They will murder you without a second thought. This is not a game. ” He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me to my feet. I hated him, I hated him, I hated him!
He threw me away from him and beckoned for me to try him again. I clutched my side, trying to discern whether or not he had cracked a rib. I limped forward, pretending I was more hurt than I was. His eyes flashed. I feigned right, then went left, only to earn myself an elbow to the nose. I cried out and hit the ground again, this time on my back. I curled into a ball, cradling my face. I could taste blood.
“Lesson number one, Kitten. Never try to trick a shifter. We can smell a lie a mile away. I knew you were going to go left before you even did.” My eyes were slammed shut, but I could hear him pacing around me.
“Except I was able to trick you yesterday.” I gritted out, head still between my hands.
“I knew you were up to something. I just didn’t know exactly what.”
I let the world fall away, and my aura shimmered in my mind’s eye. I forgot about the fact that I could feel my pulse in my lip and that my nose might be broken. In this state, I could trace Rycon’s movements from where his humid rainforest energy whispered past me. The shimmering trail of power that bound us to each other glinted and whipped between my tiny planets like a muscular tail, and I drew strength from it.
When I felt he was close enough, I struck. I whipped my legs back and blasted myself off the ground to my feet faster than I thought would have been possible. I was setting up a roundhouse when he kicked me hard enough in the chest to wind me. Before I could think, I was on the ground again, gasping for air. Rycon chuckled.
“Lesson number two, don’t get up once you’ve obviously been beaten down; your opponent is less likely to hurt you. That was actually pretty good, though. If you weren’t so damn slow, you might have been successful. Who taught you how to do a kick-up?”
I couldn’t answer. I was still trying to breathe past the vacuum in my chest. I had no way to tell him I had never done anything like that before in my life and had no clue where it had come from.
