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“Mostly just failing at it.” I said the words lightly, but Cole didn’t seem to know how to take them.
He cleared his throat. “Your pack doesn’t train females?”
“Not in self-defense.” My pack had definitely been concerned with training females to be useful, submissive, and quiet.
He started to take me through a series of basic moves. He showed me how to throw someone. When he did it to me, I soared through the air—it was a strange, weightless moment—before landing on my back in the soft grass. The landing knocked the air out of my lungs, and the bright blue sky above me spun lazily. The pain in my kidneys where Nathan had kicked me made me gasp.
Cole’s worried face appeared above me. “You can try it on me now. Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I promised.
He offered me his hand, and when I took it, he pulled me easily to my feet. But he kept hanging on, tugging me closer, still frowning down at me. “You may be too badly hurt to fight today.”
I laughed at that. “I’ve been fighting whilebadly hurtfor the last five years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe not fighting in the way you think of it,” I admitted. “But I’ve been fighting for my life—and Dylan’s—every day with Nathan, since he found me with Brennan.”
It felt reckless to even mention Brennan, but Cole didn’t trip over the name; he seemed focused on me. “How?”
“I had to figure out what to do to stay alive,” I said. “How to head off his anger or pacify him. It might look like I’m weak because I was his victim. But I wasn’t weak just because I was trapped. I was always fighting.”
I’d told myself that like a mantra over the past several years. I wasn’t sure I believed it anymore, but I wanted to.
Cole cocked his head to one side, studying me. I felt stupid suddenly for saying all that.
“Then you have the mindset of a warrior already,” Cole said. “That’s the biggest thing. The rest is all technique.”
“Is that all?”
“I’m very good at teaching technique,” Cole promised, startling me into a smile.
But I had the feeling he was a good teacher as well as a fighter.
He finally seemed to realize he was still holding my hand and dropped it. I missed the contact when it was gone.
“We’ll start simply,” Cole said, moving quickly away to face me. Something had changed in his face, and for the rest of our training session, he focused on nothing but throws and punches, looking as if he regretted it every time he got close to me or adjusted my stance.
Cole looked as haunted as I felt.
But why?
CHAPTER25
Shaw
“Well, look who showed up today,”Teresa said when I walked into the library for our daily briefing.
I flashed her a smile. “You don’t have to try to hide your delight at seeing me, Teresa. You never succeed in hiding it, anyway.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever get tired of yourself?”
“No.” I took my seat. “Just like you never get tired of me, Tee.”
But my heart wasn’t in antagonizing-slash-flirting with Teresa today. It was just habit. I couldn’t get Amelia off my mind.
I wanted to know if any word had come in about Nathan.
