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Evan heads to the back wall of the game room and leads me behind the bar. She fiddles with an expensive bottle of Scotch and presses a hidden button on the mirror behind an empty decanter. Like an old film noir flick, a secret door opens to reveal a dark staircase.
“What the hell is this?” I stare in awe.
“You said you wanted to hit something. There’s a whole training center in the basement full of hot, sweaty men just waiting to get a crack at the girl who kicked their king’s ass.”
“Wonderful,” I deadpan, not too eager to traverse those stairs now that I know what’s awaiting me down there.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
Chapter Eight
AURELIA
Silently, we make our way down three steel flights of stairs, leading to an open room, lit by several industrial pendant lights. The room appears to be used as a sparring and lifting gym and seems to be twice the width and height of the house above it, and maybe three times the length.
In the far-left corner is a boxing ring. Five red ropes surround the elevated platform, and Rhys and West are circling each other on the canvas like rabid dogs. West is shirtless, soaked in sweat, his hair up in a man-bun with stray hairs falling into his eyes. His loose, black Gi pants hang off his hips in such a way that one wrong move could turn this sparring session into a full show. His nose is bloody, his left eye a little swollen, but otherwise, he doesn’t look too bad considering how hard Rhys is hitting him.
I cock my head to the side to get a better view of his ass.
“You know, he’s not bad looking with the tattoos and gauges and shirtless and sweaty and those pants…” I shift to face Evan in admiration. “You did good, kid.”
“I know. He’s yummy, isn’t he? I guess I’ll keep him. Rhys isn’t bad looking, either. You could?—”
I pinch her lips together to shut her up. “Already angry. Let’s not push me over the edge just yet. Let me hit something first.”
Suddenly, I taste the tang of blood and my nose starts to drip. I wipe beneath my nostrils, and my fingers come away red. West must have gotten in a hit hard enough to make Rhys bleed.
Rude.
But my gaze strays back to the ring. Rhys is covered neck to wrists in a blue compression workout shirt, paired with loose black workout shorts, his hands covered in lightly padded, fingered sparring gloves. His nose is just as bloody as mine, his upper lip stained red.
Rhys’ moves are economical and calculated—for every step West takes, he has a counter. For every strike with a leg, there is a back-fist or an elbow. They aren’t playing by any rulebook that I know of—their style is more like “anything goes” mixed with dirty street fighting. Neither seem to want to grapple, and even when one of them is open for a takedown, the other appears unwilling to take the bait, making the sparring session go on and on.
To the right of the ring is a swinging, red heavy bag, hanging from the concrete wall. Javier— his hands in black wraps—is pounding the bag hard enough to make it sway almost off the hook. His hair and skin are damp with sweat, and every once in a while, he picks up the T-shirt draped over a nearby metal folding chair to wipe the salt off his face.
Carver is right next to him on the speed bag—hands in white wraps—hitting the bag faster than my eyes can track. His lean build is cut with diamond-hard muscle, barely covered in a sleeveless workout shirt.
Along the right wall are three sections of lifting platforms. The first one seems to be used for dumbbells and kettlebells, while the second and third belong to the two side-by-side squat racks laden down with enough weights to sink a ship. At the last rack, Kyle is setting up for a lift that would crush a rhinoceros, his damp hair falling into his eyes.
On the near-right wall is a sea of pegboards, and the adjacent surface is covered in the handholds of a climbing wall. Why an indoor climbing wall is necessary with a whole fucking mountain outside, is anyone’s guess. Aidan is fifty feet above us—at the top of the board—with a peg in each hand. As he goes to wipe his brow on the sleeve of his compression shirt, his hand slips from its hold on the dowel, and like a fucking moron, he’s not tied into the safety ropes hanging intermittently from the ceiling rafters. He begins to fall, but swiftly smokes out from his rapid descent and is back at the top in his original position, no worse for wear.
Okay, maybe he’s not a moron.
Ian is appropriately tied into a climbing harness hooked up to a self-belay system in the rafters. It occurs to me that the reason he’s tied in and Aidan isn’t is because Ian can’t transport himself like the other wraiths can. How odd. Maybe he’s young or doesn’t possess that particular ability.
That, I completely understand.
While I might have wings, they are utterly useless. Not only did I not learn how to fly—thanks, Mom—Iva permanently clipped my wings when she tortured me.
I swear if I ever meet that woman again, I’m going to cut her fucking head off.
In the largest area at the middle of the room is an immense sparring mat. The thick, blue canvas spans approximately fifty feet wide and one hundred feet long, offset by the substantial collection of weapons affixed to the adjacent wall. The “Wall ‘O Weapons” includes every bladed instrument I can think of and some I haven’t seen in nearly a century.
“So heavy bag, weights, climbing wall, or the mat?” Evan ticks off our options on her fingers.
“Mat,” I tell her, but I notice West has stopped messing around with Rhys and is leaning on the ropes.
His body is coiled in such a way, if I suggest sparring with my best friend, he’ll launch himself over those ropes before I can blink. I meet his gaze, shaking my head. I won’t spar with his little bird, no matter how likely it would be that she’d kick my ass.
