Page 31 of Blood Day

Then she slowly went to her knees in a submissive pose.

I gaped at her, stunned by her obedience and determination. That couldn’t have been easy for her—something she confirmed as a violent shudder nearly sent her sideways to the mat. But her muscles locked, and she closed her eyes as she gritted her teeth through the pain.

“If I told you to repeat the fight sequence right now, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?” I voiced the thought out loud because I was stunned by her kneeling form.

Rather than reply, she stole a deep breath and started to stand. When her feet went into the fighting stance, I darted forward to grab her hips and stop her.

“It wasn’t a request or a demand,” I said, my voice colder than I’d intended. But I was pissed that she’d almost begun the routine—a routine that would surely damage her more because it would require sharp movements with her fractured arm.

Her body trembled against mine, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth.

A coppery scent filled the air in the next moment, the fragrance drawing my focus to her mouth. She was trying to mask her pain because that was what she’d been taught. And in doing so, she’d bitten her lip so hard that it bled.

I wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her againstme and used my free hand to tug her lip free. She flinched, her eyes going unfocused for a second, then she blinked repeatedly as though trying to stay awake.

The injury to her head was worse than I’d suspected. I could see the agony in her dilated pupils and hear the internal damage to her abdomen and lungs through her raspy breaths.

“My delicate little flower,” I murmured, leaning down to lick the blood from her lip. She shivered, her reaction vibrating every inch of me. “Are you strong enough to put your clothes back on?”

She swallowed. “Y-yes.”

She didn’t sound very sure. Actually, she sounded almost mortified by the request. Maybe because it’d taken so much effort to undress. “Try for me,” I said, my tongue tracing her lip again to steal the fresh trickle of blood. “I need to send a message, then we’ll go.”

I didn’t elaborate on where or what I meant. Instead, I gently released her, but my hands hovered nearby in case she started to fall again.

She swayed a little, her eyes squinting closed for a long beat.

I waited.

Then she blew out a breath and righted herself.

When her eyes opened, they went a little wide at seeing me still right in front of her. Then she turned toward her clothes and showed me the redness forming on her back.

She’d hit that mat hard.

Her balance shifted as she tried to bend and pick up her pants, her knees giving out beneath her.

I caught her again, this time lifting her into the air and carrying her to my desk. I didn’t bother chastising her for her inability to dress herself. She’d tried and she was in pain.

Because of my lesson,I thought darkly.

She swayed a little as I set her on the wood surface, her gaze seeming to go in and out of focus. “Do you know why I changed your partner in tonight’s class?” I asked her.

She started to nod, then stopped to swallow, another of those convulsions going through her. “To show me I’m too weak for this.”

I frowned, not liking the way that sounded. “No. I wanted you to understand that perfect form means nothing against someone twice your size.”

I didn’t like to think of her asweak, just delicate. Which wasn’t her fault.

This society had ensured that she remained petite.

She was strong for her size, and her determination was admirable, but she couldn’t win against someone like Prospect Six Hundred and Forty-Two. It was a simple matter of size and strength.

But that didn’t make her weak.

“Strength isn’t always physical,” I told her softly before going to retrieve her clothes.

She remained silent as I started dressing her. I worked on her pants first, noting the bruises forming on her legs from trying to kick her partner tonight. It distracted me from admiring the apex between her thighs, my focus too consumed by the blemishes on her skin.