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“Fight back,” he said.
“What?”
He pushed me backward again. “Come on; I’m right in your face. What are you going to do?”
“Stop it!” I protested.
Mykel snorted. “Sure, because when a vampire wants your blood, he’s going to back down when you ask him to stop.”
He pushed me again, and I stumbled, falling backward. I hit the mat with a thud. Mykel was still coming toward me, so I scrambled backward. When it didn’t look like he would let up, I aimed for his shin and kicked him as hard as he could.
He howled in pain and hopped on one leg a few times. His eyes flashed again with something more dangerous than a moment ago, and he pulled his lips up at me in a snarl.
“Come on, man, that’s enough,” Lazlo said from behind Mykel. “We get where she’s at.”
Mykel growled, an unearthly sound, but then his face split into a grin.
“At least you tried to do something that time.” He offered me a hand up. I didn’t take it, pushing myself up instead and climbing to my feet. Mykel raised his eyebrows, a mischievous grin still on his face.
Lazlo stepped up to me. “We’re going to give you the tools to defend yourself, but it’s pointless if you don’t use them. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Good, let’s get going.”
“We’ll have to start from scratch,” Mykel chimed in.
“We all have to start somewhere,” Lazlo said.
“Yeah, but—”
Lazlo pinned him with a hard look so that Mykel stopped arguing. He snapped his mouth shut.
“Just doing what the boss ordered,” he muttered under his breath, walking away from us.
I glanced after him at the broad back and tall stature. Mykel was a great warrior, and clearly someone Colter confided in, but he was a complete dick. Maybe that was why he and Colter got along. Colter seemed to be rough around the edges, too, although he’d been much nicer to me lately.
“Don’t mind him,” Lazlo said. “The beta is just sour that he’s stuck on babysitting duty. He figures himself more important than that.”
I glanced at Mykel again, who dropped himself on a bench and squirted at least half a bottle of water into his mouth before coming up for air. He had a mischievous high-school boy energy about him, but I could easily imagine he had a darker side that came out to play.
“You’re going to have to work on your strength,” Lazlo said. “We’re doing strength training, general fitness, and then we’ll work on fighting techniques.”
“That sounds like a lot of work to cover,” I said, worrying my lower lip.
“It is, but you’ll learn.” Lazlo offered a warm smile. “We’ll make sure you’re safe, so don’t you worry about not being able to defend yourself right away. It will change quickly, you’ll see. A week or two, and you’ll already be in a much better place.”
I nodded. Lazlo was being sonice.It was hard to imagine that he was a vampire, too. Since I’d started working for Jerry, he’d creeped me out, being inappropriate, getting too close to me, sniffing my hair… it made more sense now if Colter said vampires wanted my blood, but Jerry was a vampire. After also being attacked by one, and what I’d learned about where they fit into the pecking order around here, I’d assumed Lazlo would be an asshole, too.
Instead, Lazlo was the one who made me feel at ease, and Mykel was a complete asshole to me.
I guess even with enchanted beings, I couldn’t judge a book by its cover.
16
COLTER
“It looks like things are going okay,” Rory said by the end of the week. I’d found her in the dining room alone when I walked in.
