Page 7 of Homesick, Lovesick (Harper Valley Witch #3)

The start chime sounded, echoing across the field, and Lynwood moved with a speed that Ronan was forced to concede was impressive.

It was also clear that these three trained together often.

Which he'd kind of already known, but it was still interesting to see in action.

George wasn't as fast as Lynwood, but he had better movement, dodging and weaving elegantly where Lynwood was much more brusque, more lunging and retreating.

The end of the first minute rang out, and Lynwood dropped back as Agatha surged forward.

She was, obviously, way more force and muscle than the rest of them.

Much more on par with Benny's build.

Watching those two in hand-to-hand would be awesome.

The chime sounded and Ronan surged into motion, easily countering Agatha's first swing, sliding out of the way of the next, ducking, shifting his weight to his free hand and kicking her feet out.

He was well back on his feet before she'd recovered hers, and they'd barely squared off again when the chime came.

He blocked Lynwood's first swing, got clipped trying to dodge the second, but managed to block the third and send him reeling back.

Before they could go much further, the chime sounded.

So it went for the next several minutes.

For the most part, he was having fun, but every time he matched with Lynwood, the bastard seemed particularly nasty, far more vicious than he was with the other two, though it was clear he saw everything as a competition and had to be top dog.

Right as the minute chimed, Lynwood lunged—and cut Ronan's arm.

Swearing, Ronan withdrew, banishing his sword because he was fucking done now.

They only had a couple of minutes left anyway.

He scowled at the cut, a nice long slice on his forearm, just a hair away from cutting across his tattoo.

"Sorry, man,"

Lynwood said, not looking very sorry at all.

"I don't know how that happened. Is something wrong with your protection spell?"

"Match's mother did it for me, so no,"

Ronan replied icily.

"You wanna tell me—"

"Oh, sweaty Paladin with his guns out, my favorite,"

Match said.

Ronan turned, ire fading as he grinned and wiped his brow with his left arm.

"Hey, handsome."

"I am definitely not the handsome one."

Match tugged him down into a kiss, smiling when he drew back. "How—"

His smile vanished.

"Why the hell are you bleeding?"

He reached into the satchel that he was almost never without and pulled out a little paper envelope filled with powder and a small wooden bowl.

He poured the powder into the bowl, tipped out a bit of water from the bottle clipped to his bag, and stirred until he had a thick paste.

Scooping out the paste, he consigned the bowl to the ground, grasped Ronan's arm, and smeared the paste across the cut, completely uncaring about the blood.

Ronan braced for the next part, and despite the pain and all the eyes watching them, smiled faintly as Match reached into his pocket, drew out a box of matches and struck one, then grasped his arm again and set the flame to the paste.

There was a rush of not-quite-painful heat, the paste turned to gray ash, and Match stuck the burnt end in his mouth, smiling around it. Removing the match, tongue adorably blackened, he said, "All better, paladin. What happened?"

He immediately examined the tattoo on his bicep.

"Spell is fine."

"Of course your mom's spell is fine. I want to know what the fuck is on his sword,"

Ronan said, glaring at Lynwood again.

"Nothing!"

Lynwood insisted.

"I don't need to cheat to kick your ass."

All of a sudden Ronan just didn't fucking care anymore.

"Whatever, we're done here. See you at dinner, I guess."

Match took his hand, and they headed off, ignoring Agatha when she called his name.

Back at their cabin, before they went inside, Match took his arm again and with his bottle of water and a soap rag taken from his bag of goodies, meticulously cleaned off the ash. All that was left behind was a hairline scar, though even that annoyed the piss out of Ronan, because it shouldn't be there at all. Not from a round of Four Corners.

"I don't know much about Paladin swords, a problem I should have fixed by now, I'm sorry,"

Match said.

"Is there anything about them that could bypass a protection charm?"

Ronan shook his head.

"Nothing legal, and the illegal stuff isn't worth the hassle unless you're like, competitive. And even then, it's so hard to get away with, and the punishment so extensive, it's not really worth the hassle there either."

"What are the illegal things?"

"The most popular modification is called a bite. It does…well, basically this. It can punch through the protection spell just enough to slice you up. I don't think there's a single instance of it being fatal, mostly it's to startle and distract, so you can more easily disarm your opponent. Doesn't make any sense. This was a stupid, so-called friendly Four Corners."

Match seemed sad.

"That's your favorite. You and Benny get so ridiculous at the country fair when you do it with any visiting paladins. Wonder if they'll go through with making it an actual exhibition next year. Though that means a whole lot more people would be admiring your lovely arms, and I don't know if I'm about that."

Ronan grinned and kissed him.

"Dork. I'm gonna go shower, then maybe take a fucking nap before dinner."

"I would offer to join you in the shower, but we'd probably die,"

Match said with a sigh.

"Guess I'll just give you the blowjob after our nap."

"After?"

Ronan pouted.

Match rolled his eyes and gave him a shove.

"Get going."

Ronan bowed ostentatiously, and then got.