Oh, I did have questions, but I wasn’t going to voice them. Having any sort of exchange with Hiko would be bad for my confidence and my confidence had taken a huge drop already within the two weeks of my stay at the court thus far.
We left the palace in complete silence and headed towards an area separated from the rest with low walling. A wide-open space gaped in the middle, while off to the side several dummies stuck out of the ground on decent-sized poles creating a thin forest. It was a training field of sorts. The rest of the warriors already stood there waiting.
I avoided looking at Karmuth. Didn’t care to look at any of them, really. I’d escaped the courtyard soon after I’d seen the kiss of death performed right before my eyes that commenced the gathered fae into a raving mass.
I didn’t see Karmuth on my way through the crowd that parted like I carried a plague letting me through without a hitch, so unlike they’d received Karmuth.
I stopped short, not moving forward from the barrier pointing out the start of the training field, instead sitting on the carelessly laid limestone wall. It was just high enough to perch on top of with my feet still touching the ground.
Apparently, I was to bear witness to their fighting session. As if they hadn’t scared me enough last night, I now also had to see their physical prowess. You know, in case they couldn’t get to my ecos, (which now was momentarily protected by the ring), they could still give me a swift death by force.
I stood at a disadvantage no matter how you looked at it, so I decided to at least stand as far away from them as I could.
“What’s she doing here?” one of the warriors asked, not the bald one that Karmuth had called a Rottweiler, but the other one.
He was shorter than the rest, which did not mean he was short at all, and his broad shoulders more than made up for it. When he looked my way, there was a glint of something dark in his eyes I didn’t recognise in anyone else’s, Sinister included. An unease creeping up on me suggested he was one to look out for the most.
“Couldn’t leave her wandering around the grounds all by herself,” Hiko replied sullenly. “Father’s orders.”
“Great.” The other fae grinned. I think his name was Ferris or something of the sort. “We can use her for target practice. I’m tired of aiming at unmoving sacks of hay.”
“Ferro,” Karmuth rebuked. That was it, like iron. Like a good sharp piece of iron moulded to slash deeply and efficiently. “If the assignment was to miss, you could have her standing in front of your bow all you want, but I doubt that’d give you the desired rush. Nobody is using Isay for target practice.”
“Protective, aren’t we?” Regar pitched in, bumping Karmuth’s shoulder as if to congratulate him for standing up for me.
He was shoved away with a grunt. “She is under our protection.”
Karmuth threw an apologetic smile my way that I was not looking at. Just as I wasn’t looking at the way his muscles flexed as he pulled out an impressive blade strapped to his back, nor the way his body moved with quiet assurance into a fighting stance that tensed those muscles I wasn’t looking at, and highlighted their strength further.
“You can use me for target practice all you want,” Karmuth said, grinning widely.
My heart leapt out of my chest when Ferro took him up on that, drawing a mean bow quicker than I could register and shooting an arrow at his awaiting form.
A swish of that big blade broke the flying stick in half before it reached its destination in Karmuth’s heart, and so the dance began.
While Karmuth and Ferro battled out their indifferences, the rest of the warriors did not sit idly and started their own sequences, two against one.
The prince was attacked from both sides held his own. I wished he would lose his footing or let his guard down, but he didn’t. Instead, Regar ended with a slash across his biceps, and Sinister the Rottweiler lost his weapon when Hiko directed all of his attention at him.
Ferro and Karmuth were more evenly matched even as Ferro stuck to his bow and occasionally used its pointed limbs to counteract Karmuth’s sword. Stunned and unable to look away, my mouth gaped open as I followed the deadly dance with wide eyed wonder. At one point, Sinister joined Ferro’s efforts to overpower Karmuth, then Regar. Then the blue-eyed warrior was standing on his own against all of them at once, and while I could see considerable signs of fatigue from Ferro who’d started out as his equal, Karmuth never wavered.
I was so entranced in the training session I didn’t realise someone sat down next to me, and I jumped when a raspy female voice spoke up. “Magnificent, isn’t he?”
My hand rose to my chest to stop my heart from jumping through as it raced faster than a horse in a competition and didn’t stop as I took in the dark fae now beside me.
“If that’s your taste, sure,” I croaked.
Throaty laughter that fit more to the bedroom than in the battle field erupted from the female’s throat. Her short black hair fell to her eyes as she crouched over from the amusement. I didn’t think I’d been that funny.
“Kar is everyone’s taste, darling.”
I swallowed. “Perhaps in the Vindican court. Where I come from, we have higher standards.”
“You want me to believe that looking at that tight ass does nothing to you?” the fae taunted, studying me like I was a marvel and not because I was more often considered a meal than a conversation partner.
I hadn’t been looking at Karmuth’s ass, but now that she pointed it out I couldn’t not look. She laughed again, raspy and seductive.
“You can have him.” I cleared my throat. “Like I said, not my taste.”
“Oh, I do,” she sighed happily. “Every now and again. You think he looks good now, wait until he loses those pants.”
I jerked my head toward the woman, my cheeks heating up and not because I was imagining Karmuth pantless—o,r well not, only because I was imagining Karmuth pantless—I was imagining him pantless with her. I didn’t care for that image.
She drawled, “I’m Sela, by the way.”
“Isay,” I grumbled, then turned my attention back to the warriors.
“Oh, I know.” She smirked.
“If you’re here to warn me off Karmuth, you’re wasting your time. He can’t even touch me.” I did not sound convinced. Can’t rang like a lie with the ring in my finger thrumming quietly.
“Warn you?” Sela laughed. “No, I am not beyond sharing. I just wanted to see if the rumours held any truth to them.”
My eyes widened. “Do they?”
“They most certainly do,” Sela said with satisfaction. “You’ve got him wrapped around your little finger and you don’t even know it. I thought you were more than just a pretty face and a tempting life force, but frankly I don’t know what he sees in you beyond that.”
Sela stood up and left without waiting for my reaction. It didn’t matter, because she’d left me dumbfounded as my brain tried to wrap around what she’d just said. Then I was the one laughing. Only, my laugh didn’t sound like sex on a rainy day, it sounded like cracking of wood under the hooves of a deer scared shitless by a chasing predator.
