“Don’t struggle,” he said. “I’ve taken control of the situation and your body—the worst thing you could do is try to fight it. You simply need to retake control.”
I nodded. Finally, he was going to give me some actual pointers.
“Grab my wrists,” he said, “and then drop down into a squat.”
I did as he asked, feeling my center of gravity shift, and his along with it.
“Okay, good. Now let’s try it again, only this time, I want you to keep your head turned instead of facing straight. That way, the dude can’t choke you.”
We went down again, my hands clamped around his wrists, our bodies as close as we could be without spontaneously combusting.
“Stay crouched down,” he continued, “then you’re gonna step behind me and grab behind my thighs, right above the knees. Then lift me up anddropmy ass.”
I blinked, trying to make sense of what he just said. “Um. What?”
“You just…” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Here, switch places.”
I did as he asked, and he walked me through the whole thing in slow motion again, this time with me playing the aggressor. When he got to the lifting part, he picked me up as if I was no heavier than a sack of hair, then put me down on the grass, flat on my back.
He pressed his hand flat against my stomach, his touch warm and firm and distracting.
“You want to use your center of gravity to throw me off balance and get my feet out from under me. Once I’m on the ground, you can jam an elbow into my gut, or stake me, or do whatever the hell you need to do to buy yourself time to run.” He gave my stomach a light slap. “Got it?”
Right. He’d made it look and sound so damn easy, I felt like a complete moron for not comprehending it.
Not wanting to disappoint him, I nodded anyway.
He helped me to my feet, and we switched positions, going through the motions all over again. One more time. Two more. Three. But no matter how many times I tried, I just couldn’t get the leverage I needed to get him on the ground.
“Come on, Gray,” he said after the fourth time. Or maybe it was the fifth. I’d lost count sometime between the ouch-muscles-burning stage and holy-hell-my-quads-are-literally-jelly stage of this little exercise. “You can do this.”
“I’m not strong enough.”
“This maneuver isn’t about strength. It’s about smarts.”
“Then I guess I’m not smart enough, either.” Tears of frustration stung my eyes. Ronan had worked with me a lot over the years, sparring, teaching me about monsters, helping me learn basic self-defense. I thought I’d had a pretty decent skill set—not amazing, but enough to get me out of most situations.
Asher was making me feel as helpless as a newborn.
“I need a break,” I said, but Asher shook his head.
“No breaks. Not until you can convince me you’re not going to curl up and die the next time some jackoff gets the drop on you.”
“I’m twenty-five fucking years old, Ash. I might seem like an insignificant speck to an old-ass demon like you, but I managed to make it this far in my life without your help.”
“Doesn’t mean you won’t bite it tomorrow.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Asher’s eyes blazed, his frustration quickly degrading into anger. “I want you to show some initiative here. I want you to give a fuck about the fact that your psycho ex is a hunter, and he’s out there terrorizing witches, working his way closer to you every day. If that little stunt in your realm didn’t make thatcrystalfucking clear to you,” he snapped, tapping on my forehead with his index finger, “I don’t know how else to drill it into your rock-hard skull.”
I smacked his hand away. “Oh,Ihave a hard skull? Really?”
“You’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. You’re a pain in the ass who flat out refuses to open your damn eyes and—”
“Go to hell, Asher. I don’t need this shit.” I turned away, heading back toward the house. “I’ll figure it out myself.”
I felt the air shift behind me and tensed for impact, but it was too late. He knocked my legs clear out from under me.
