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Chapter6
The back of my neck prickled as beads of sweat formed and my hands started slipping from my weapon.
Prince Noah’s lips curled and he shoved forward toward me, harder.
“Ungh,” I grunted in frustration, twisting to try to reposition myself and maintain my grip.
I pushed my training weapon forward toward his chest.
“Not at the chest, Coraline!” Lieutenant Thomas shouted at me above the sharp clack noise of Noah’s wooden stick hitting mine. “The chest is armored, and hard to get through to the heart anyway with our bone structure,” he continued. “Aim for arms, legs, the gut preferably if you can’t get another blow. Slow them down, then kill is a human’s best bet against the Fae.”
Noah grinned as he blocked my various attacks. I saw his stomach unprotected with his arms coming down from above at me.
I ducked, lunging forward to try to tap his gut as instructed.
But I wasn’t fast enough.
Noah’s surge beat me out and he knocked my training stick to the side, holding the pretend blade at my throat while he straddled my stomach.
“All right, you two, great work.” The Lieutenant clapped his hands and touched Noah’s chest. I wasn’t sure if it was a silent message that we were showing too much for each other or what, but when I saw the open and gaping mouths around the training room, I knew we had probably just fueled the rumor mill fire for another few weeks.
Tomas reached his hand down, helping me up. “Cora, I’m impressed with your strength. You’re really getting to be a fearsome competitor. You’d give some of our warriors a tough time, I daresay.”
My face heated more than it already had as I stretched my neck to the side. I was still trying to get used to compliments, and positive attention overall, so to have such an incredibly strong one given in hearing distance of some of those very warriors from the trainer who never gave compliments was nerve-racking.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, before retreating to the back of the room where Nicole stood.
“Damn.” She bumped into my arm. “I don’t know if there was more sexual tension between you two during that scrimmage or between me and Captain Sexy the night before he left, but whew.”
My shoulders slumped and I pursed my lips. “Could you not here?”
Nicole shrugged, clearly unbothered by anyone overhearing. “He’s the prince. He can do what, and who, he wants. And you save the kingdom every five seconds, I’d imagine you could too.”
My mouth twitched as I tried to hold back my laugh but couldn’t. It came out as a garbled snort, which was more embarrassing. I covered my eyes. “At least we’re done,” I said.
“Yeah, for who knows how long this time.” Nicole waved at Gabe who pointed toward the door, indicating he was leaving. As his feeder, I imagined she’d have to go to him soon to let him feed on her. I shivered.
The training was helping somewhat with the fears that murmured through the castle now that the war had reared up again. Though it never truly ended, hearing about battles and having the king away from the castle were different than they had been when I first arrived.
“Our sessions have already tripled. War is not just words anymore,” I said.
Closing my eyes, I thought back to being captured in the woods again. The habit of remembering every detail was growing, like I had missed something and needed to remember so that I could help the Unseelie win. The Seelie and Prince Landon irked me, especially with the arrogant familiarity in how he treated me. And then, of course, the knowledge that the Seelie army had trained dragons.
The enemy was hard at work building an advantage, and the Unseelie had to make sure our skills were better. We didn’t have friggin’ dragons on our side.
“I better go,” Nicole said, grabbing her bag. “Gabe’s been feeding before his afternoon meetings.”
“He’s not around much anymore,” I said.
She shook her head. “A lot of these guys aren’t. Oh well, more me time.” She winked and waved, staring down Tomas for a heated minute before she left the training tower like it was his fault the captain wasn’t with us.
I sat down on the bench nearby, wiping my face with a towel.
Noah approached, pulling at the guards around his wrists. “Tomas said we should probably train apart in public. Together alone.”
“It’s not my fault you can’t keep your emotions in check around me.” I winked at the crown prince, who grinned back at me.
The rumor mill was flourishing once more now that Vanessa’s trickery had been defeated and Noah was technically on the market again. Most of the rumors were around how he couldn’t leave me alone. And though they were right that we had become somewhat inseparable, we didn’t need to flaunt it.
