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Chapter 10
Bree
In the mornings,Bree trained with Rafe, Eurig, and Lyra. Before, she had always looked forward to her time with Rafferty, but Eurig was making the Academy practically unbearable thesedays.
Rafe clapped his hands and raised his voice when his three trainees had joined him in the center of the room. Eurig had been late. As always. “Today, we’re going to be working on building yourstrength.”
Bree smiled. This was one exercise she was used to. They had worked on it together before the new recruits had arrived. Bree would shift into her beast, and she would pick up pieces of stone off the floor until she was too weary to continue. She flexed her hands and smiled when her claws immediately responded to hercall.
“Not like that today, Bree,” Rafe said before Bree could get too far into hershift.
Frowning, Bree let her claws snap back into her skin. “Then, likehow?”
“In your fae forms,” he said with a tight smile, knowing how she’d feel about this particular brand of training. “There will be times when you are unable to fight in your beastly form, where staying fae is a far better option. And we need to train your abilities as a fae, just as much as we need to train yourbeast.”
With a sigh, Bree nodded. She knew he was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. The truth was, Bree’s fae form was far weaker than her beast. And no matter how much training she did, she doubted she would ever excel without herwolf.
Eurig, on the other hand, looked smug ashell.
“What are you smiling at?” shesnapped.
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “With those puny arms of yours, I should have guessed you wouldn’t be happy about training your strength. I bet you cannot even do a single push-up.”
She glared at him. “Excuse me? Did you just call my armspuny?”
“Prove to me they aren’t then,” he said with a smile, and crossed his arms over hischest.
Bree stomped over to him, sizing him up. Okay, so he was massive, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from showing him up. Not that she could really show him up. He had muscles larger than her head, and it didn’t look like he even had an ounce of body fat. If she tried to punch him, she’d probably hurt herself far worse than she’d hurt him. But she could notstandthe smug expression on hisface.
He didn’t expect her to actually do anything. She could tell by the glint in his eye. He knew that she knew just how much of a muscular tank he was. Sometimes, the element of surprise waseverything.
So, Bree pulled back her fist and slammed it straight into Eurig’s stomach. Pain lanced through her hand as a crunch echoed through the room. She cried out loud, doubling over at the sharp stabs that shot through herknuckles.
Shit!
Tears sprung into her eyes, but she blinked them away. She couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing her crying after she’d just tried to punch him in the chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he hadn’t budged an inch from her attack. He just stood there looking at her as if nothing had happened atall.
“Bree.” Rafe’s soft hand was on her back. “Are youokay?”
“I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth. And, in fact, shewasfine. The pain in her hand had already begun to ebb away. Taveon’s healing powers poured through her veins and pooled around her throbbing knuckles, softening them until the bones clicked back intoplace.
Rafferty stared at her hand, frowning. “Do you needto—?”
“No,” she said firmly. She would not let Eurig get the better of her. “I’m fine. Let’s continue withtraining.”
Rafe gave a nod but leaned down to whisper in her ear before he left. “Try not to punch your fellow trainees,eh?”
Heat filled her cheeks, and she kept her gaze focused on Rafe. She knew that Eurig was still staring at her, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him look into her eyes. Instead, she pretended he wasn’t there for the rest of thesession.
Rafe had them doing all sorts of bone-wearying tasks. They ran sprints from one side of the domed room to the other. He counted out push-ups. First, they did ten. Then, they did twenty. Somewhere, he’d found a rope that he hung from the ceiling, and they were forced to climb to the top at leastonce.
Bree could only make it halfway up before her limbs gave out. When she fell hard onto the stone floor, she could have sworn she heard Euriglaugh.
At the end of the session, Bree could barely think straight. She stumbled down the corridor back to her quarters, but a hulking monstrosity stepped right into her path to block herway.
“You look as though you’ve been trampled by horses,” Eurigsaid.
She stopped short and glared at him. “Get out of my way, Eurig. I really don’t feel like fighting you rightnow.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Funny,youwere the one who punchedme. You never even gave me the chance to fightback.”
“Is that why you’re here?” she barked out a laugh, though she could barely manage the words with the weariness that clung to her bones. Her knees almost buckled, and she had to place a hand on the wall just to keep herself upright. “Fine. Hit methen.”
But instead of knocking her flat onto her ass, Eurig swept Bree off the ground and into his arms. Irritation flickered through her, and she hated how she could feel his muscles ripple as he held her close to hischest.
“Put me down,” she said through gritted teeth. “Where are you takingme?”
“To your room.” He kicked open the door to her quarters and dumped her unceremoniously on her bed. “You looked liked you were going to pass out. Get some rest, Bree. You’ll need to be ready for round twotomorrow.”
