Donovan is in the middle of a full swing, when out of nowhere Connor leaps at him, shoving him onto the grey mat. Donovan quickly tosses his sword, which surprisingly, Kaleb catches.
“What the hell?” I exclaim, while Donovan quickly shifts his head to miss being punched in the face.
“Can’t be sure if another opponent is going to come at you,” Nolan explains with a sigh, as he stands up from a lunge, “so D has Connor jump in at random times during his sparring with Kaleb. It also tests his combat endurance, going from sword fighting to fist fighting with no break in between.”
“That’s… brutal,” I reply, flinching at the sharp slap of fist hitting flesh.
Nolan shakes his head. “You have no idea.”
He’s right. With the swords, the strikes mostly fell against the opposing blade, but with hand to hand, it’s either dodge or be hit.
With only a two-inch height difference, their reach is evenly matched. Though Donovan looks like he has more weight to throw behind his attacks, Connor is blurringly fast and his shifter strength clearly makes his lean appearance misleading. The wild energy that Connor normally has coiled tight around him appears to have snapped.
The song playing matches the savagery of the fight with heavy drums, gritty electric guitar and bass, and vocals that switch between guttural growls, harsh screams, and sneering promise. The vocalist embraces what their abuser has made them and the demon they’ve unleashed.
“What’s this song?” I ask, my heart now thundering with the beat.
“‘Down With the Sickness’ by Disturbed,” Nolan answers with a muted tone to his voice.
I swallow heavily, the song tugging on fears I’d rather not look at. “Interesting variety in your playlist.”
“We tried trading days for who picked the music but that mostly ended with us bitching over the selection,” he comments ruefully. “So we finally broke down and made a playlist that had songs each of us liked.”
“Very diplomatic,” I murmur, glancing over at him.
He shrugs, his face strangely unreadable.
A deep groan emanates from the mat, and I give up any pretense of continuing to warm up, my focus locked on the fight. Logically, I know this is something they’ve probably done a million times, but their sparring looks more like a last man standing than friendly training. The twisting in my gut won’t go away, as I watch two people I’ve come to care about try to pummel each other into the ground.
At first, they circle each other, mixing quick one-two punches with various forward and side kicks that look painful even when they’re blocked. Then Donovan throws a right hook with his whole body behind it that doesn’t connect, because Connor is already in mid-motion with a roundhouse kick that lands with a sickening thud against the side of his head. Donovan stumbles back, shakes his head like he’s trying to gain back his equilibrium, and is barely quick enough to evade the follow-up kick.
Donovan quickly wipes the blood from his mouth, a streak of crimson painted across the back of his hand, then dives forward and grapples Connor’s head down. I jerk when I hear the crunch as he lands a strong knee to his face. Before he can get in a second strike, Connor breaks free by tucking his arms in between Donovan’s and quickly pushes out.
With Donovan’s face unprotected, Connor does a sharp uppercut that connects, snapping his head back, then does a low kick that causes Donovan to drop to his knees. Donovan quickly shifts sideways to avoid getting a shin to the face and fluidly spins into a low sweep. Connor drops onto his back, his head bouncing hard against the mat.
Donovan wastes no time and mounts Connor’s chest. He pulls his arm back to what looks like the start of a flurry of blows, but Connor twists his body, jarring Donovan and preventing the punch from landing. From there, it’s a tangle of limbs that ends with Donovan on his back and his knee being pushed in the wrong direction. He quickly taps out, and that’s the end of the match.
Connor stands up, his dark brown hair hanging in damp curls that fall into his amber eyes. He cracks his nose back into place like he doesn’t feel it, then wipes away the blood and sweat dripping down his face and neck. Panting with hurried breaths, there’s a tempestuous savagery to his expression that feels foreign to his normally cool control. Without acknowledging anyone, he turns and silently walks out of the room, bruises already blooming on his stomach, chest and face.
Donovan simply lies on the mat for a few minutes, his chest rising and falling with heaving gusts, while bloodied sweat drips down his body. He pulls out his mouth guard and grunts, “One of these days, I will beat him.”
“What. The. Hell. Was.That?” I screech, my gaze bouncing from Donovan groaning on the floor to the door Connor just stalked out of.
The music has shifted from rage to something gentler-- an electric rock song of the wounded both wanting to reach out for help while also wanting to protect others against the demons inside them. It echoes my own feelings, and I wonder if Connor chose the song.
Kaleb walks over to us with a white towel slung over his neck and a few growing bruises of his own along his left side. His eyes hold the weight of the world within them, the desire to help his friends painted on his features.
“Demons won’t go easy on Donovan,” he explains with a weariness to his voice, wrapping both ends of the towel tight around his knuckles. “He has to train like each time he holds his life in his hands, because when the real time comes, he will.”
Nolan has a pinched quality to his face when he adds, “And Connor can’t show weakness of any kind and survive in the pack. To keep from getting challenged every other day, he has to be able to show in a fight that they’ll be the ones that lose.”
And just like that, the awe I had of the supernatural world now has a heavy lining of ugliness. There’s a harsh reality in witnessing what Donovan puts himself through to up his chances of survival, and a sinking fear of the hellish flames Connor continues to walk through.
“Is Connor all right?” I murmur, looking at the door. “Should someone go after him?”
“No,” Nolan answers with a visible tick to his jaw. “He’s going to go get cleaned up, then he has to head home and check in. If he’s not seen on pack grounds at least once every twenty-four hours, the Alpha considers him a deserter, and he’s cut from the pack.”
“And as I understand it, that’s really bad,” Felix shares solemnly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Lone wolves don’t do so well.”
