Page 101

“Deal,” Nora agreed before he could continue.

I lit up with joy even as she stormed toward the center of the field, unstrapping her weapons with a ferocity in her eyes that promised she wouldn’t take it easy. Excitement and adrenaline coursed through me. The first glimpse of a crack in the wall she’d been building since the reveal, giving me an opportunity to tear down her defenses. And I wanted her hands on me, no matter how she’d give them.

Odion straightened, no doubt noting her approach and recognizing that fire. I tossed him a look that asked him to pray for me, and he gave one in turn that said, good luck.

We started circling one another, and though rage glittered in those dark eyes, I also saw a glimpse of that masked girl in the night. The one who, for whatever reason, chose to trust me.

She was mad, yes, but she knew this thing between us still lived. Perhaps that’d been a reason she’d gotten so angry, all of it becoming complicated when it’d been so easy and natural.

While I admired her and reflected upon our connection, she moved as quick as a lightning flash and struck. My hands barely raised in time to smack her fist away from my face. I stepped back when she advanced, her hands up between us, readying for another attack. The little minx had seen my wavering focus and used it to her advantage.

I couldn’t contain my smile, the pure elation that she elicited by giving me a morsel of her attention. While I gazed upon her furious beauty, her leg swiped, striking my ankle. Before I could rebound and regain my balance, her elbow had come up, knocking into my cheek.

I stumbled back out of reaction, and could have sworn a glimpse of a smile started forming on her pretty face. “Is that all you’ve got?” I taunted, knowing she could have hit me a lot harder. Encouraging her to unleash herself, to gather all her rage and cast it into her punches. If that’s what it would take for her to let some of it go, I’d stay until I could no longer keep myself standing.

My comment struck its target as effectively as a punch. She expelled a combination of rapid movements, my tired body hardly moving fast enough to keep up. Not one ounce of guilt graced her face when she advanced on me again.

This time, instead of smacking her blows away, I grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward. It caught her by surprise, and with her own momentum, sent her flying into my chest. I wasted no time locking my arm around her waist, pinning her to me.

“That’s uh… a new technique,” Odion commented from the sidelines.

I gave her a scoundrel’s smile, knowing it would only fuel her. I hadn’t expected her to stomp on my foot, which made me release her as I yelled out. Before I could blink, her heel jammed into my kidney. With a throbbing foot and shooting pain to my side, I collapsed onto the ground, trying to hold myself up. I’d never seen someone execute a roundhouse kick so fast. A moment later, she tackled me, pinning my splayed elbows with her knees, just as she had that night in the market.

I could have crossed my legs and twisted, sent her rolling off me. Instead, I remained still, panting in recovery from her blow. Her fists were balled at her sides, and she looked down at me with cold indifference.

“Do it, Nora. I deserve it.” I swallowed down my guilt for all the ways I’d inadvertently hurt her, preparing to pay the punishment.

That broke her trance. She blinked a few times, coming back into herself, releasing all that’d been pent up but not spent. “I don’t want to,” she whispered, as if it was some sort of shameful confession. Her hands relaxed.

I should have considered this a victory, taking it as evidence that she did, in fact, care for me in some way. Yet, it stung like loss. To see that sorrow in her beautiful brown eyes, to sense that she felt like she betrayed some part of herself for allowing her affection toward me to influence her.

“I’m sorry, Nora. Tell me how to make it right.” I’d run out of my own ideas, but I needed to know.

“There’s nothing you can do,” she admitted, quieter than before.

My chest cleaved in two. “There has to be,” I begged, my vision blurring, the words nearly clogging my throat.

She hauled herself off me, wasting no time getting to her feet. I attempted to sit up, but my hand flew to my side. She’d gotten me good. By the time I worked through the surge of pain, she’d made it halfway across the field and shouted her goodbyes to Odion.

The sight of her fading into the distance kept me on the ground for a while.

50

Nora

Curse this whole gods damned planet.

Why did he have to be there? Of all the places he could have been, what were the chances he’d be at Odion’s the same afternoon I was finally able to leave my house?

And why didn’t I leave immediately upon seeing him there?

That choice had caused irreparable damage. It’d been for that reason I never wanted to see him again, because I knew that when I did…

Standing with him on that field, nearly walking away, but hearing the way he called after me… There was something in me that called to him, too. Something I’d wanted to bury, to refuse to acknowledge. Something powerful.

I’d used sparring as an excuse because I didn’t want to stay away, even though I’d been furious. And he knew. He’d read me like a book, and let me try to work out my frustration. He’d take it, if it meant I’d give him something.

But when he’d looked up at me from the ground, wounded because of my anger, and begged that I do more, thinking it might repair what’d broken between us, my anger fizzled into anguish.