“Why are you poking the bear now?” I said to the screen. “About this?”
I didn’t bother to shove my feet into slippers.Ojoswas still recording as I raced out the door, barefooted, audio playing on my unicom. I took the stairs to the fourth floor, setting anobfuscationworking, making it hard to notice me, and asilenceworking, in case this was guy-talk and my physical presence would stop the conversation, and slipped in the door to the gym room.
“Willim was my Mithran sire,” Walter said, sharing something that was redacted in his file. “Willim was the vampire who forced himself upon me for decades until the British Empire freed slaves in 1833.” With a clink, Walter placed a glass on the low table between them.
EJ said, “And he hasn’t seen you since.”
Some small something made me think my brother knew more than that.
“Nor shall he see me ever again, except to die. The next time we meet, I will challenge him to Sangre Duello, and I will take his head. Such a challenge would have been imprudent at the reception for Edmund of Europe.”
“And rude.”
“Rude. Yes. It would have beenrude. And bloodied the Dark Queen’s beautiful wooden floors.” His tone was sardonic and dry.
“And Ivyanna Holmes? She’s beautiful,” EJ said. “Did you…knowher?”
Meaning did he sleep with her or drink from her or both back when Walter had lived wild and not been shackled to the Everhart-Truebloods through his agreement with the queen? I wanted to swat my brother.
Walter’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Her timeline and mine did not synchronize. I know her only by reputation and research. She was Willim’s blood servant for a year, or so it is said. And though she is beautiful, she is a snake in the grass, the kind of woman who eats men alive.”
With a kip, Walter threw his entire body into the air, spunwhile horizontal. And kicked my brother in the face. I stopped dead, my back to the door.
I had always known EJ wasn’t as innocent as he pretended, that he harbored secrets as violent as my own, maybe more so. But EJ made a move that rocked my own head back in shock. The instant of Walter’s kick, EJ’s face closed down in a flash of something beyond instinct and action/reaction. In that same fraction of a second, EJ took a single step back, angled his body, and stretched back his head. The black silk of Walter’s slipper brushed his cheek. As the foot swished by him, still at an impossible angle, EJ raised his arm and caught Walter’s ankle.
The momentum of the kick pulled EJ into the motion. Closer. He slammed his other fist into Walter’s crotch. Missed. Caught only his inner thigh.
Dropped the ankle. Still using the kick’s momentum, EJ delivered a fist into Walter’s kidney.
I flinched as I heard a rib break.
Walteroofedout a breath. Caught his weight on one hand, arm outstretched. Rolled across it. Kicked to free himself and landed on his feet. Attacked instantly.
EJ blocked twice. Stepped into a kick. EJ grabbed Walter’s thigh in the soft inner tissue. Delivered a fist to Walter’s throat.
“Holy catfight, Batman,” I whispered.
Walter leaped back. “Where in the fires of hell did you learn that one, boy?” he demanded, his face in a dead rictus of a grin. He pressed fingers to his throat. “If I’d been human that would have taken me out.”
EJ said simply, “Uncle Eli taught me that one after the war.”
“A sneaky bastard, Eli is. I like it. Show me again.”
Eli Younger was Alex’s older brother and both had been uncles to us when we were young: Uncle Alex and Uncle Eli. But Eli had changed when we left the queen’s household, andnot simply because he was the no-longer-human guy in charge of overall security for the queen’s house and grounds, training, her armory, the queen herself, her extended clans, family, and friends, and was known to one and all as the queen’s right hand. In the years since I was known as Angie Baby, Alex had become a hardass. Eli had become a block of stone masquerading as a biological entity. The war had damaged them both.
EJ and Walter went through the move several times and then began to refine it for when an opponent was in a slightly different position, or heavier, or shorter. Adding a thumb into an eye. A fist to a temple. And then they began to work through how to defend against the move. It wasn’t popcorn-worthy. But it was entertaining, especially when they went back at it, sparring move for move, block for punch, at full speed and strength for EJ and a fair portion for Walter.
After half an hour, EJ held up both hands and backed away, breathing as if he’d just been used as a boxing bag. My brother was surely covered with bruises. Walter dropped to the floor and lay there, needing to breathe, a rarity for the vamp. His heart must have actually beaten a few times during the match.
Walter’s sparring matches were always intense, sometimes leaving EJ or me needing to be healed by vampire blood, which was a much faster method than using healing amulets. Though Walter on the floor was a new one.
I couldn’t help myself. I dropped my workings and clapped. Slowly. Conveying both sarcasm and amusement. “Good work, children. You look like you both need a medical center.”
“I think I’m dying,” EJ gasped. He bent forward and held himself upright by putting all his upper body weight on his hands, braced on his knees.
“Scoot out of the way,” I said to my brother. “Now that Walter’s all warmed up, I may as well get in some sword practice.” I strodeacross the room while a soft voice inside my brain suggested this course of action wasn’t exactly wise, considering my mood. I ignored it. Royal protocol and royal restrictions were in my life again and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t go dance, so I’d fight instead.
From the weapons wall, I chose a wood waster and tossed it at the vampire.
