Page 6

Della

The next afternoon, we walk into the gym and I can’t be the only one whose mouth falls open.

A man stands on the mat, wearing all white, holding a white mask with a silver mesh on the front. And not just any man.

He’s tall. Broad shoulders. Shaved blonde hair, striking light green eyes, and neck tattoos on olive skin that I’d give my left arm to see up close.

If trouble, AKA hot guy from the wrong side of the tracks, had a look, I’d be taking a picture of this guy.

“I will be your fencing instructor this afternoon,” he says coolly, raking those pretty light green eyes over us. “Put on your masks and pick up your foils from the basket.”

His deep, gravelly voice adds to his mystery. And, let's be honest, his hotness.

Ms. Huffman stands off the mat in pink leggings, examining her French manicure. She looks bored out of her mind.

The double doors slam behind us, and I gaze wide-eyed at the basket filled with slender silver swords. We drift toward the mat like lemmings.

It doesn’t take long for Ms. Huffman to kill all my mounting excitement at getting to play with a weapon.

“A little less enthusiasm, Miss Farrow,” Ms. Huffman calls out serenely when I test out a swing.

I rein in my frustration by sheer force of will. “With all due respect, Ms. Huffman, would you prefer if I just lie down on the ground as long as I did it gracefully?”

I was joking, but she actually considers it.

“I would see no issue with it,” she eventually says. “Mr. Tomaz, perhaps you can show Delilah more grace with that thing. She seems determined to hurt someone with it.”

The fencing instructor is busy showing another student how to hold the foil. I thought they were swords, but they are called foils.

He motions me over. “I had a different lesson in mind for Miss Farrow.”

I perk up. “Yeah?”

Wariness creeps in at the predatory look in his eyes.

“Step on the mat and put on your mask,” he orders.

“Um…”

His eyebrow arches. “Or did you want to sit this out with Ms. Huffman?”

My lips flatten. Maybe I shouldn’t take it as a criticism to be compared to the shallow Ms. Huffman, but I can’t help how I feel.

When he comes at me, it feels like less of a lesson and more of an attack.

He swings. I do the smart thing and duck. Someone laughs.

Mr. Tomaz motions me forward again. “You seem afraid.”

There’s a taunt in his voice that makes it easy to shake off my wariness. “Just getting my footing.” I roll my neck and hope I’m not making a mistake by not sitting this out.

“There are several offensive movements to win a point,” he explains.

“Okay. I’m ready to?—”

“The lunge.” He lunges toward me, and I yelp, throwing myself to the side before he can skewer me.

“Then there is the compound attack.” He comes at me with a series of strikes that make me squeal, back up, trip over my foot, and crash onto my ass.

Rubbing my sore ass, I look to Ms. Huffman. Not for a rescue, but I’m an omega here—a fake one, but still . She should be protecting me from a teacher beating me up.

She’s on the floor with her eyes closed, head tilted back against the wall, and mouth half-open, snoring.

She might not sweat, but she sure knows how to drool.

“If this is too much for you…” Light green eyes taunt me through the fine mesh of his fencing mask.

Bristling, I scramble to my feet, fingers tightening around the hilt of my foil.

He puts me on my ass again.

And again.

And fucking again .

Ms. Huffman conveniently sleeps through my punishment as the other omegas watch with increasingly concerned expressions.

This isn’t a one-to-one lesson.

This is humiliation.

I snatch up my foil for the millionth time, wanting to smack this guy over the head with it.

Did I get out of bed on the wrong side this morning, or am I being paranoid in thinking I have two teachers out to get me?

My fingers tighten around the handle, and I prepare to run it through him. Will I go to jail for it? Probably. Will it be worth it? Abso-fucking-lutely.

A soft female cough pulls my gaze to the side of the mat.

Mr. Huffman is awake and back on her feet.

She raises her eyebrow at me. “Were you getting ready to charge him with that thing, Delilah?”

Why is now the time she decided to wake up?

“No. He…” His smirk silences me like nothing else could. I sound like a kid snitching to their parents. “Never mind.”

“The lesson is over,” he declares before I can get payback.

The girls set down their foils and masks and head for the changing rooms, though not before Ms. Huffman, who beats them all out of the room.

“Not you,” the fencing instructor calls out, pointing at me.

The wellness center is pure luxury. As they leave, the girls with free periods are deciding between a swim in the Olympic-sized pool or time in the sauna. I could use a relaxing hour in the sauna. It might help me sweat out all this rage.

As the door slams shut behind the last of the girls, my fencing instructor points at the foils and masks on the floor. “Clear those away.”

I blink at him. “But I’m a student here. We don’t?—”

“You do as you’re told,” he interrupts coldly.

“But I?—”

He grips my wrist and leans in to speak directly into my ear. “Do you know what happens to little girls who get involved in things they don’t understand?”

My heart races, but I push my fear down and pull at my arm. “Let me go.”

His grip tightens. “One of these things isn’t like the other.”

I go cold at his soft whisper. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know exactly what I mean. Whatever stupid reason you’re here, playing pretend ends today. If you’re not careful, you won’t survive it.”

I tear my arm free and walk away, back straight. My heart is in my throat, and I’m cold all over.

He didn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t need to.

He knows I’m not an omega, and I have no fucking clue what to do about it. Leave? Stay? Go back and run him through with a foil so he doesn’t spread my secret far and wide?

As I exit the gym, River beckons me to the door leading to the swimming pool. I spend the next thirty minutes floating in the pool with the other girls, puzzling over what to do.

Later, we pass the fitness center on the way out of the changing rooms, and there’s no sign of him—just the foils on the floor where the girls left them.

“Delilah? Are you coming?” River asks, distracting me.

“I’m not hungry. Go to lunch without me. I have something else I want to do.”

She smiles as she leaves. “Okay, don’t be late to ballroom dancing, okay?”

Back in the changing room, I put on my leggings and sports bra. Chilly from the swim, I pull a hoodie over my head on my way out.

In the fitness center, I grab a foil from the mat and head for the wall of mirrors.

I spent most of the fencing lesson picking my weapon—and myself—from the floor. But I try to remember how that asshole held his foil, the way he stood, and how he slashed out with his weapon to knock mine out of my hand.

I lift my weapon and turn to study my form in the mirror. “No. He was straighter.”

I stiffen my spine, and with slow, careful strokes, imagine I’m knocking a foil out of his hand.

Over and over.

And when my wrist is sore, and I’m positive I’m going to be late for my next class, I change hands and try with my left instead.

I flinch at the sound of a door slamming. Turning around, I scowl.

Him .

Then I frown, confused when he spares me a passing glance on his way to the foils on the mat. I watch him, my confusion growing as he starts stuffing them into the wide black baskets.

He’s changed out of his fencing outfit and is now wearing black sweatpants and a black hoodie. I don’t know where he went after our lesson, but I can guess why he came back.

More humiliation.

I’m not about to turn my back on him for a second. “You’re not making me do it?”

He stuffs two more foils in the basket. “Nope.”

“And that other thing you said?”

His veiled accusation that I’m no omega.

He lifts his head, expression blank. “What other thing?”

I give him a searching look. So, he’s not mentioning it, and if he’s not mentioning it, I’m certainly not about to. “Nothing.”

He returns to collecting the foils from the mat.

I observe him for a bit longer, wanting to make sure that’s all he came back to do. When he doesn’t charge at me with a foil, I return to my practice.

“You’re favoring your right.”

I spin around, ready for an ambush I was too distracted to see coming.

He’s collecting the last of the foils and stuffing them into the baskets, head down.

“Excuse me?”

He darts a quick glance up at me. “You favor your right. It’s why I was able to knock the foil out of your hand so easily before, and it’s why you stumble every time you swing. You’re off balance.”

He was watching me.

I scowl. “I don’t need your help. If you’re back to cause more humiliation…”

“I’ve told you what the problem is.” He gives me an indecipherable look. “Make of that information what you will.”

He bends his head.

I look at the foil in my hand. The information sounds right. I am stumbling every time I swing.

I correct my stance and try again.

I feel steadier.

"Better," he says softly from behind me.

I try not to feel pleased at his approval. After the beating he gave me before, I don’t care what he thinks of me.

“Your footwork needs work, though.”

I swing around, scowling at him. I’d expected him to be focused on his task.

He’s standing with his arms folded, his head cocked, watching me. He does it so intently that I can’t believe I didn’t feel his stare.

“I can show you.”

My eyebrow rises. “You mean the way you showed me to the mat a million times before?”

He picks up a foil and walks over to me.

My hand tightens around the hilt of my weapon as I prepare to kill him. No way am I letting him put me down again.

He stops inches away and settles into the same pose from his ass-kicking before. His right leg is in front, and his arm is raised. His left arm is low behind him. “Like this.”

After a second, I mirror his pose and then stop. Neither of us is wearing a mask.

“You won’t stab me in the face, will you?” We’re definitely within stab-in-the-face distance.

A hint of amusement softens striking light green eyes. “No.”

“If you try, just know I will stab you right back.” I sniff. “In your eye.”

His amusement grows, then fades as he gently taps his foil against mine. “Position.”

I settle into my pose, still wary of being stabbed in the face.

Instead, he does what he didn’t do before.

He gives me a one-to-one lesson in how to fence, moving slowly enough for me to follow along with his movements.

Every tap against my foil comes with an explanation about what it means, how to counter it, and how to repeat it.

This is the fun fencing experience I was hoping for.

“How’d you learn?”

He’s young for a fencing instructor—not that I expected them to be old—but he can’t be thirty, maybe late twenties?

“Practice.”

Vague much.

“I didn’t think fencing people had tattoos.” I always thought it was a sport for the rich. The fact that it’s taught in this school has only added to that belief.

“Did you?” Before I can ask about his neck tattoos and if he has more hiding under his layers, he taps my foil again. Not hard enough to knock it out of my hand or anywhere near my face, but to refocus me. “Try the lunge.”

He humiliated me in class. We’re still within stabbing-in-the-face proximity, but if I lunge at him, he could seriously hurt me. Maybe even kill me.

“I will not stab you in the face, the eye, or anywhere else,” he says quietly, reading my wariness.

And, fool that I am, I believe him.

He corrects my posture and shows me how to lunge low, where to point my foil, and how to retreat. Up close, he smells nice, not intense like Professor Vincent’s raspberry and dark chocolate or decadent like the sexy gardener.

Spring and warm amber.

Everleigh practically lived in our backyard, drawing anything and everything. Our garden smelled fresh, safe, and warm, like the perfect spring morning.

I am no omega to be so fascinated by scents, but hell if this academy isn’t changing me in more ways than I thought it would.

It gets hot, and I start to sweat, regretting the hoodie I put on. I wedge my foil between my legs and pull my hoodie over my head, tossing it aside.

He lowers his gaze to my sports bra, and his expression turns blank.

I brush off the moisture collecting on my collarbone and grab my foil. “You’re not going to say something about Haven Academy girls being forbidden to sweat, are you? I get enough of that shit from Ms. Huffman.”

“I doubt that woman has sweated a day in her life.” His lip twitches. “I didn’t expect to catch her drooling over herself, though.”

What happened to the asshat from before? Why do I like him now when I was getting ready to run him through with my foil an hour ago?

“You don’t look like a Mr. Tomaz,” I say, curious about his first name.

“And you don’t look like a Miss Farrow,” is his bland response.

Shit. That is a dangerous conversation to veer into. I change the subject immediately. “Can you show me that lunge again?”

Lips flattening as if to mute a smile, he shows me the lunge.

In the distance, a bell rings.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” he asks.

“Yeah. And?” I wait for him to kick me out.

“You’re favoring your right again.”

I blink. “What?”

“You keep falling out of position. You have to be hyper-conscious of your stance until muscle memory means you correct yourself.”

I reassess my posture and return to the one he showed me before.

“Good.” He taps his foil with mine.

I guess he doesn’t give a flying fuck about me missing my next class.

We get into a rhythm, and it feels good. Sweat coats my forehead, and my breathing picks up.

We trade another series of blows, and I lunge. He sidesteps. I lose my balance, wobbling. He wraps his arm around me, catching me.

And suddenly, I’m in his arms, way too close for comfort.

“Levi,” he says, eyes flicking to my mouth.

I blink up at him like a brainless twit. “What?”

“My name.”

“Oh.” Obviously, I can’t tell him my real name, so I continue to stare up at him as his hands burn through my thin spandex leggings.

A door swings open, and his arm falls away as I straighten and twist to see who it is.

Una, a brown-haired omega who smells like coconut macaroons.

Her eyes dart from me to Levi and back again. “You’re late for ballroom dancing.”

“Is it too late to ask you to stab me in the face?” I mutter as I hand him my foil, and I can’t help but notice his lips flattening.

I nod at him, silently thanking him for the lesson. Then I follow Una out, asking her to wait for me while I change.

With every step, I sense him watching me, and I feel the lingering echo of his touch on my hips.

Why was he such a jackass earlier? And more importantly, why did he become a different person when we were alone?