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“There’s no way you’re stronger than me,” said Eric, baiting him.
Caelan sniffed. He didn’t need to prove himself, but if required…
“Show me, then.”
They rose from the frozen, rock-hard ground of a sheep field that was empty of creatures at that time of year. They’d been huddled against one of the boundary walls, the jagged and ancient stones it was made from digging into their backs.
Caelan’s legs were thicker and more muscular than Eric’s yet even Caelan’s legs wobbled as they stood up. It was exertion, lack of food, exhaustion.
Eric tried to throw a punch but Caelan caught it in his fist and squeezed until Eric landed on his knees in the hard ground, bones crunching.
Eric’s dirty tactic was to try headbutting Caelan in the groin in response. Caelan kept Eric’s strongest hand hostage inside his, then used his other hand to rip out half of Eric’s girly ponytail before he could ever headbutt him.
Eric rolled around on the ground clutching his head, some blood on his hand as he rubbed at the wound. Furious, he got up and came at Caelan again.
This time, Caelan wasn’t playing games.
He split open Eric’s cheek, then his jaw, sending him flying back into the frozen, uncompromising earth.
Eric kept getting up. Kept wanting more.
Caelan gave him more and more, never accepting one blow to his own body.
Eventually, Eric crawled back to his sleeping bag and huffed a broken laugh, shaking as he recovered, the wind having been knocked out of him by several punches to the gut.
“Who the fuck taught you to fight like that?” Eric could barely speak.
“Yer tank is empty, with all yer showing off and such,” said Caelan. “Ye always have to save something for later.”
Eric gasped, finally showing weakness. “How could a man save anything after walking fifty miles across this endless, frozen wasteland?”
“That’s the difference between you and I. To me this isna a wasteland. It’s a playground. I ken these places like I ken my own fist and what it can do.” Caelan sank onto his own sleeping bag, sighing. “Are you broken now?”
“No, only injured.”
Caelan grunted and settled down to rest. “If ye dinna break, I’ll have ye tossed out. I canna have a reckless, thoughtless sociopath on ma team.”
“But you could do with someone who’s almost as tough as you, right?”
Smarmy little tyke.
Chapter Forty-Three
~ Flora ~
“How did you eventually break him?” I asked, after he’d given me that little insight into his first encounters with Eric.
“I ne’er broke, once,” said Caelan, who was sitting with me by the pool beneath the stars. We’d just eaten a crab salad, Harold and Morag had gone into town, and the baby was sleeping upstairs, the bodyguard still playing computer games. “And it broke him. That he couldna find weakness, no way to get beneath ma skin. And gradually, I kent he felt more than just a brotherly bond. It was easily ignored most of the time. He did screw women.”
“I see.” So, that part was true. “He told me he’s not gay.”
“Aye, he’s something… beyond rules. Beyond… well… y’ken?”
“I think so.”
“He was jealous of Dani. No doubt about it.”
“I can imagine.” I took a deep breath, asking the question I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to. “You never, ever did anything, then? Never encouraged him, let him just… nothing?”
