Nicole ignored how his momentarily deepened accent did things to her. Then took a breath, relaxed her body, and unstrapped the gloves so they dropped to the floor.
She struck.
Her fist met his palm with a fleshy smack.
He didn’t move an inch.
She made a thoughtful little noise that only made his lips curve more.
‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked, testing out another punch, trying not to note how large his hands were. How the warm skin sent a shockwave of physical reminders through her body.
‘I like watching you think,’ he said softly.
It was such an earnest comment it caught her off guard, warmed her. But she couldn’t let herself be distracted.
Nicole punched again, bouncing a little on her feet, cracking her stiff neck and allowing the slow beginnings of satisfaction as her Empyreal stretched languidly inside.
‘You’ve got a good technique.’
She sniffed. ‘I know.’
That smile grew into a grin and tugged at hers.
‘Tell me about your trainer, did they work for the Wake?’ Nicole asked.
‘No, she taught me before I was drafted. She was an infamous female Empyreal called Scáthach who had a fortress on the Isle of Skye.’
The name had a slight throat-catching sound on the ‘ach’.
‘Her name sounds familiar,’ Nicole mused, trying to recall her mother’s stories. She hadn’t written about many female Empyreals, and Nicole wasn’t sure if it was because she feared for their safety should the notes be found, or simply hadn’t been able to interact with many if they’d already been oathed by the Wake.
‘Tell me about her,’ Nicole said.
‘She was tough, took no shit, and beat any smugness out of me right away.’
Nicole smiled. ‘Were you a cocky teenage warrior?’
He laughed slightly and her stomach clenched at the sound, awareness zinging to his face. ‘The stories seem to say so. But she also dragged me out of rough mental places several times.’
Nicole moved as he integrated a swipe of his thickly muscled arm for her to duck under, which she did with immediate ease. But concern threaded through. ‘You were in a bad place back then?’
‘The worst was after my family were killed.’
Nicole recalled what he’d told her in Estwood: that he’d woken up after killing the creature that slaughtered the Druids, finding himself on a boat to Scotland with little memory of how he’d got there.
The Druids … after all this time their thought-to-be-lost magic could still be here.
‘Speed it up,’ she said.
He did as she asked, and Nicole revelled in the wary increase of her strength with each punch, the burn in her muscles and hot gratification releasing down her limbs.
‘What happened to her?’ Nicole asked.
‘No one knows. Some say she was killed, others say she still lives in Skye, hidden so well that’s why people think she’s a ghost. But then her name does mean “The Shadowy One”. Her face is blurry to me, now. But she was older. Not just older than me in terms of immortality, but she looked in her thirties, maybe?’
‘You can’t remember?’
He shook his head, brow furrowing as if he hadn’t thought about it in years and the loss of her features was a disturbing revelation.
