If anything, his scowl deepened.
“What makes you think I haven’t been going easy onyou?”
She drifted closer until she was at his side, leaning against the wall with one arm and beaming openly at the reaction she’d provoked. It wasn’t a smile but she’d take it. It did rather suit him, truth be told.
“I wouldabsolutelybelieve you’ve been going easy on me, gentleman that you are. But again; I invite you to prove it.”
Adeline saw his fingers twitch at his hilt. Then he took a step out onto the floor and turned to face her, crooking one finger to beckon her forth.
“If you insist.”
He took his starting position where he stood and she eagerly followed his lead and lifted her sword, neither of them bothering to move to the middle of the training floor.
It was only when the King advanced that Adeline realised her mistake.
The wall was just a few steps behind her; she had no space to move, to maneuver her body around his. And Daughters damn him, heknewit too, from the way his lips twitched behind his careful, stoic mask. He pushed and pushed and pushed, until her back hit the wall and it was all she could do to shield against his blows.
“Shit.”
Adeline gritted her teeth around the word, frustration spilling over.
But the King let slip a short huff of laughter, natural and bright. Adeline’s pulse echoed the sound with an offbeat stutter, and for a moment, time seemed to slow around them. Then all at once, Kai’s smile caught and spread like wildfire, and for as much as she’d been chasing it, Adeline was entirely caught off guard. Her hilt twisted in her clammy grasp, and when she fumbled her sword, Kai did not hesitate. His fingers curled around her free wrist, and the moment she lost her grip on her blade he pressed her into the wall, leaving no space between them for her to duck and grab the sword before it thunked against the ground.
In reality, the noise was probably not as jarring as it seemed. Far more bewildering was the sound that followed; the harsh rise and fall of their shared breath, heaving and entirely in sync for several endless seconds. Adeline was frozen. She couldn’t twist away, couldn’t hide whatever face she must have pulled to have his eyes gleaming with such vibrant triumph. She could do little more than stare up at Kai, hyperaware of his hand pinning her own. His swordpoint was tucked under her chin with his fingers curled tightly around the hilt, knuckles warm where they brushed her hip and rose a thousand unseen goosebumps up her side.
And he wasgrinning.
Practically ear to ear, all that rough bristle parted by a gleaming, triumphant smile and the laboured breath that lifted his chest just a whisper from her own. So there it was. It was with a rushing, heady sort of clarity that Adeline realised that she’d neveractuallyseen him smile before, not a full smile. Not like this. She would have remembered, if she had.
She swallowed, rough and loud. His smile curved higher, and she knew there was not the slightest chance he didn’t hear it. He wasveryclose, after all. So close she took in his scent with every breath, the smell of cold winter air and something soft and herbal, unfamiliar but intoxicating.
“Well,” she said, trying and failing to force a bit of cheer into the taut, crackling air between them. It was a challenge to sound as though her stomach and lungs had not knotted themselves together; as though she frequently found herself pinned to the wall by a towering Merrow King.
“Well,” he echoed, soft and low. He tilted his head, still with that dangerous light behind his eyes. Adeline could not read his intent. Not with his warmth wreathing a fog around her thoughts, and not with the tip of his sword still hovering at her neck. She swallowed again, and it was hard to miss the way his gaze slowly dropped to catch the movement of her throat, arched beneath his blade. Especially as his eyes stayed fixed there through her next few breaths, his own still as harsh and heavy in the pressing silence.
“I – I guess we’re even.”
Maybe it was the pathetic, breathy cadence of her voice that did it.
Kai’s eyes flicked back to hers, unreadable as he dropped her wrist like she’d burned him. He stepped away and took his warmth, his smile, and that clean, heady scent with him. He drew on those stately airs like a neatly pressed cloak, drawing his shoulders back. When he spoke, it was with the same careful, considered manner he’d been using all morning.
As if nothing had happened.
“I suppose we are,” was all he said.
And without another word, the King turned away and resumed his starting position. Adeline took a long moment to steady her breath, her confused, skittering heartbeat.
Alright, she told herself.It’s alright. New training partners, getting used to one another and all. That’s always a bit disorienting.
Bullshit,said a dry little voice at the back of her head. It sounded an awful lot like Ger. She ignored it.
Which was easy, because it waswrong. King Cumhaill had spoken barely a handful of words to her. He could hold her eye for all of ten seconds. And above all else, he was tragically, eternally,famouslyin love. Even if all the stories hadn’t said so, she’d seen the way he dimmed at the mention of the Sorceress. Her loss must have broken him in a way Adeline couldn’t begin to comprehend.
So she’d annoyed him, then. Despite what he’d said, the taunting had become too much and –fuck.She’d made such a mess, in just two short mornings. The sooner she spoke to Master Ellis, the better.
“Are you ready?”
She jolted a little at the words, a little clipped; overly polite bordering on curt. So that was that, she supposed. And it was fine, it really was. She’d speak to Master Ellis this afternoon, and set things right. That was the right thing to do.
