AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She held her own, for about five minutes. After the first time he killed her, she pulled out power. Her ears rang with the clash of steel, but twice she wounded him.
Before he killed her again.
“You forget your feet,” he told her. “You forget the dance.”
As he lowered his sword to lecture her, she spun, kicked up. Her foot nearly grazed his jaw as she followed through and impaled him.
Satisfying.
“You forgot your guard.”
“Well done.”
He conjured a wraith, stepped back to watch her form. The instant she defeated the first, he sent two. And when she fought them through a shower of rain, when fatigue had her form shaky and her sword arm ached, he sent three.
Lungs laboring, legs shaking, she felt the sting of a strike that grazed her arm. “Burn, you bastards.”
They exploded into flame. Panting, she dropped to her knees. A demon dog whirled out of the air, charged.
And Bollocks leaped, sank teeth into its throat.
As it vanished, Keegan sent Bollocks a hard look. “That was for her to deal with.”
Bollocks just wagged his tail and pranced over to lick Breen’s face.
“We’ll go again.”
“You’re past your rotation.”
One arm hooked over the dog, Breen looked over to see Morena and Marco on a break. They sat on the paddock fence, nibbling biscuits as the shower moved off, as the sun brought a faint glow behind the layers of clouds.
“I could use a biscuit.”
“The bow first.” But Keegan reached down and pulled her to her feet. “You’ll try your hand at wraiths there instead of targets. A moving target, we’ll say, and one that can fight back.”
Because she felt soggy, she dried herself off, then did the same for Bollocks.
“And no magicks for the first round.”
“Why?” She had to bite back an actual whine.
“To test skill, timing, aim, strategy.”
“Hey, girl. I gotta do it all that way.” Marco jumped off the fence.
“Three bull’s-eyes in the targets.” Morena polished off the biscuit as she joined them. “And when we shifted to wraiths as Keegan wanted, my man Marco took two out of five.”
“Show-off.”
“I got skills, girl. Hey, Keegan, can I try a crossbow sometime? I could be like Daryl. You know,Walking DeadDaryl.”
“Is this a story?” Morena wondered.
“Oh man, yeah. Totally wild. Breen won’t watch it.”
“I don’t need to watch zombies chomping their way through humanity. But maybe I could try a crossbow. Buffy used one.”
“To fight the vampires. She was the Chosen One.” Morena stroked Breen’s arm. “Like our Breen.”
