Page 31 of Bonds of Magic (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #3)

NOAH

I stopped in my tracks. “What?”

“Could you teach me how to use a sword? I’ve been thinking maybe I should know how to defend myself better. Physically, I mean.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need that.”

I laughed, then saw the flinch on Cory’s face. I tried again.

“What I mean is, there are other people who can protect you. Provided you don’t go running around looking for trouble, that is.”

His gaze hardened. “What if none of those people are there when I need them? People have been trying to kidnap or kill me. Are you seriously trying to convince me that I’m not in danger?”

I frowned. I hadn’t been there the night he’d needed me most. I’d been off in Pointe Claudette while he was doing his damndest to save Erika.

“You might have a point,” I said begrudgingly. “But you don’t need a sword.”

He opened his mouth to object, but I held up a hand. “A sword is a great weapon, but it’s also extremely noticeable. I can’t have you running around Vesperwood with one at your hip all the time. You’re not a Hunter. It would draw too much attention.”

Hunters didn’t usually walk around with weapons either, not until they were bonded with them their senior year. But there was no way I was letting Cory wear a sword, period.

“A sword would be too big for you,” I told him. “You’d trip over your own feet.”

“I’m not a child,” he said, his voice heated.

“I know, I know.” I held up a hand again. I hadn’t realized this would be such a touchy subject. “I just meant—how tall are you? Five eight?”

“Five seven,” he said, like the answer was being dragged out of him.

“The highest quality weapons are forged specifically for their owners,” I told him. “So while it would be possible to make a sword to fit you, the weapons I have in the armory? They’d be all wrong.”

I was sure he could lift the swords I had, but could he hold any aloft for more than a minute? Could he walk with one in a scabbard without tangling it in his legs? The thought made me smile, but I wiped my face clean when I saw him glare suspiciously.

“I’m not objecting to the idea of you having a weapon. But I do object to it being a sword.”

“Well, what then?”

I paused. “You know anything about knives?”

He laughed once, drily. “I assume you mean for more than just cooking?”

“Yes, for more than cooking.” I rolled my eyes.

Cory shrugged. “Not really.”

I slid the knife out of my right wrist sheath and held it out to him, hilt first. “Take this.”

His eyes went wide. “You’re giving me one of your—”

“Just to test it. Don’t get excited.”

Still, he smiled as he took the blade from me, and his eyes danced as he turned it over in his hands. He had the sense to hold it by the hilt at least, but he still brought his fingertip to the point and pressed it until a drop of blood welled up from his skin.

Why was the kid always poking things that would hurt him?

“Sharp,” he said, but he didn’t wince.

“It’s supposed to be.” I slid the matching knife from my other sleeve and showed it to him. “You hold it like this for slashing,” I said, demonstrating the grip and waiting for him to copy me.

He tried, but his index finger was all wrong.

“No, move your finger. Leaving it out like that is a great way to get it broken, or sliced off.”

He moved his finger, but only to a worse position. I sighed and sheathed the knife I’d been holding.

“Here, like this.” I brought my hand to his, moving his fingers into position around the hilt. “Got it?”

Cory’s eyes seemed to glow when he looked up at me. “Yeah?”

There was a question in his voice that I didn’t dare answer. For all I knew, he knew exactly how to hold a knife, and was doing this to fuck with me. But I didn’t pull my hand away. His skin felt too good against my own.

“You hold it like this to stab,” I said, shifting the hilt in his grasp. “Gives you more power and protects your wrist. Got it?”

“Got it.” His voice was breathy.

I swallowed. “And like this for throwing.”

I slid his fingers into position, then bent his elbow and brought his hand up to mime a throwing motion. Then I flipped the knife around, so he was holding the blade. “You can throw like this too, but it takes more practice.”

My heart was thumping, standing this close to him, touching his hand. But it was the best way to show him how to hold the knife. And he wasn’t wrong to want some protection. Frankly, I should have thought of giving him a blade before this.

Cory looked up at me, grinning. “Can I practice now?”

“We need to get to your lesson.”

“This is a lesson too.”

“Yes, but you need to dream.”

“Who’s to say I don’t need to know how to throw knives? Come on, Noah. I can dream on my own now. I can do it when I get back to my room tonight.”

“You’re still learning to control others’ dreams, though.”

“So we’ll work on that next time. Just this once, can’t we do something different?”

It occurred to me suddenly that maybe Cory didn’t want to go to my cabin tonight. If he were embarrassed about what had happened last time, he might be sensitive about going back to the same spot. Or maybe he was worried I would peer into his dreams again.

Maybe I was being an asshole.

I sighed. “Fine. You can practice. Come on.”

I led him to the gym and pulled out a target, a big bull’s eye stuffed with straw.

Then I went into the armory and selected a new knife for him.

The balance wasn’t as good as the balance on my blades, but it would snuggle neatly against Cory’s forearm in its matching wrist sheath, and I didn’t mind loaning it to him for the long-term.

“Here,” I said, trading the new knife for my old one and sliding that one back up my sleeve. “You can practice with this one.”

“It’s smaller,” Cory said, eyeing me with more suspicion.

“It’s less noticeable. If a knife is going to be any use, you need to carry it with you at all times. The smaller it is, the easier that’ll be. Now.” I pointed at the target. “Hit the bullseye.”

He moved his hand into something that vaguely resembled the grip I’d shown him earlier, raised his arm, and threw. The knife arced up, then came back down, hitting the floor two feet in front of the target.

“Oh God, that’s embarrassing,” he said.

I stifled my urge to agree. “Not bad for a first try.”

“You’re only saying that to make me feel better.” He gave me a flat look.

“I’m saying that because as far as I know, you’ve never thrown a knife before. I don’t expect you to know what you’re doing yet. But we can definitely work on your form.”

Even his feet had been wrong.

“You ever play baseball as a kid?” I asked. “Soft ball? Or play catch with your dad in the backyard?”

He laughed bitterly. “No. I didn’t exactly have a lot of aptitude for it. And my dad never cared enough to teach me. Not when berating me was easier.”

Once again, I couldn’t make sense of the man who’d been his father. A child was a gift. A treasure. Back when I’d had Ben, I would have done anything for him. The day he turned four, I’d bought him a ball and glove. We’d played catch under the beech tree behind the house.

Of course Ben couldn’t throw very far yet. He wasn’t even in school. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to spend time with him, to let him know that—

I winced, shutting down that line of thought. I worked hard to keep my memories of Tara and Ben buried. It was easier that way.

It would never stop hurting, and I didn’t want it to. I didn’t deserve that. But the sudden pain in my chest, the way it scraped up my insides to draw a breath? There was a reason I kept those memories below the surface.

I shot Cory a look. “No offense, but the more I learn about your dad, the less I like him.”

“Try living with him,” he said with a grim smile.

“So he never—”

“Nothing my dad ever did with me is worth talking about.”

Cory’s voice was firm. It was the steeliest I’ve ever seen him. It killed me that he didn’t have a dad he could look up to. Someone he could trust.

I didn’t know how to respond. The way that he talked about his dad always shut down the conversation. I should probably stop bringing it up. But I couldn’t let it go.

“It’s got to be hard,” I said. “No parent should ever abuse their kid. Even if it’s only verbal, that’s still—”

Cory laughed again, and this time it was wild and high-pitched, the sound skittering through the empty gym. His eyes were staring at something only he could see, but finally, he looked over at me.

“No. You’re right. Verbal abuse is no picnic.”

My brow furrowed. “Cory, did he do more than verbal abuse?”

Cory turned, suddenly very interested in a spot on the ceiling twenty feet away. But his hands were balled into fists, and his knuckles strained where they gripped the knife.

I knew I was prying, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Did he—”

“He hit me, alright? Is that what you want to hear? He hit me, punched me, kicked me. Pick a verb, he did it all.”

“Fuck, Cory. That’s—”

“Awful?” he said, his tone still high and jittery. “Despicable? Shameful? A terrible thing to do to a kid, let alone your own son? Yeah, I know. Believe me, I figured that out pretty quickly.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. I know.” He shrugged. “Thanks.”

He didn’t seem to mean the words. “Cory—” I began again, but he interrupted me.

“I learned early on that other kids’ parents didn’t hurt them. But I also learned that if I told other people what my dad did, I got in more trouble. An ACL injury ended my dad’s football career, but he was still plenty good at throwing his weight around when he wanted to.”

He turned back to me. “I know you’re trying to help. And I appreciate it, I do. But there’s a reason I don’t talk about this stuff. It’s in the past, and he’s dead, and there’s nothing anybody can do to undo it. So I don’t see the point in bringing it up.”

His words echoed things I’d said about my own past. And if I didn’t want people prying into my wounds, I couldn’t pry into his.

“Okay,” I said. “In that case, let’s get to work.”