Page 15

“Faster!” Lukain belted.

He took aim and threw another wooden dagger at my face. The grayskin’s speed was blinding, but I had learned to watch his arm and the tilt of his eyes rather than the dagger in his hand.

I split left a hair’s-breadth before the dagger thwacked against the wall behind me—

Only to take another thrown rapid-fire to my leg as I made it two steps. The dull throb of the dagger, wooden though it was, made me yip.

Master Lukain sighed. “You were supposed to zig and zag. What happened? You didn’t zag.”

“Sorry, Master. Distracted.” I was playing nice today—all “master” this and “sir” that. I hoped he didn’t know I was planning something.

I rubbed the red welt on my thigh. At least the projectile hit the meaty part of my leg and not the bone of my hip, like the last one did.

I was startling to hobble, which Lukain noticed.

“You might face grayskins like me in the ring, little grimmer. Humans? They don’t move fast enough to dodge strikes like that.”

I tilted my head. “Yet you expect me to?”

“You need to be better than humans, is what I’m saying. If you want any chance against my kind.”

Letting out a sigh, I leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms under my chest and propping up my foot behind me. “What about fullbloods? Will I have to fight them?”

Lukain shook his head. “Purebloods don’t watch other purebloods fight for entertainment.”

“So that’s what this is then? Entertainment for the noblebloods in Olhav?”

“Did you have delusions it was anything else? Who do you think I am, Sephania, a rebel dhampir raising an underground armed militia?”

I smirked. “It had crossed my mind.”

“You think too highly of me.”

My shoulders lifted in a shrug. “When you killed that questioning boy I arrived with, I saw the fury on your face, Master. You hate purebloods.”

“How astute.” His voice and affect fell flat.

This was a dangerous subject. I knew there was real rage under the surface of that handsome face.

“Why?” I asked anyway.

Lukain took a step toward me. His stride was slow and measured. I could feel the heat of his body, fresh from sweat of chucking wooden daggers at me all day, trying to get me moving faster.

“Worry about yourself and what you have to look forward to,” he answered. His eyes took me in, and for the first time I felt like he was seeing me differently.

In a short time, I had grown strong and fierce. I’d seen men look at me this way my entire life, and had learned to capitalize on it when it suited my purposes.

If Master Lukain Pierken was looking at me as his property now . . . it was a different sort of property than he was used to.

I wondered if he thought my “talents” were wasted training with the boys, when I’d have a much better chance at survival with the girls.

“Pretty ones like you,” he said, flaring his nostrils, “are raped, bred, and made shelf pieces on the mantles of their vampiric masters until they’re needed for use again. Trophies. Conquests.”

His words struck me. My foot fell from the wall. I had trouble standing, and it had nothing to do with the welts burning on my legs. Why are you telling me this? To scare me? Working past a tight throat, I said, “Sounds like human men.”

Lukain hummed to himself, though not in a pleasant way. “Survive your first few matches in the Firehold and we might revisit the topic of why I hate the noblebloods. But it shouldn’t be that hard to understand given what you know about them, yes?”

I nodded, scared to be so close to him in the moment. There was a glimmer in his red eyes that spoke of untold danger . . . and excitement.

My innocence had been shorn long ago. Dimmon Plank made sure of it. Now, after months being here, I was starting to see Master Lukain in a different light—one that made my heart pound in my chest and my palms grow sweaty.

“You hate vampires more than the average grayskin,” I said, prying further, sinking deeper into his eyes. The gambit was a deadly one. “Why must I survive a few fights in the Firehold for you to tell me your truth, Master Lukain?”

He enjoyed my audacity. I knew that about him from the weeks we’d been training together.

Sure enough, a smirk curled the corner of his lips. It disappeared just as fast when he leaned in. “Because I don’t feel like wasting my words on a dead woman.”

With that, he turned and began to walk away.

He doesn’t think I’ll survive my matches.

I vowed to myself to prove him wrong.

Before he reached the door, I called out, “Wait, Master. I have a request.”

With his hand rising from the handle, he slowly turned. “You don’t get to make requests. I own you , not the other way around.”

His anger was burgeoning. I had to get the words out quick, so I bowed my head submissively. “I know, sir. I’m sorry. But it’s about a girl in the women’s quarters. Someone I know. She is being defiled by a peer.”

Lukain’s eyes lit up—though if it was for me asking for a favor, or for what I’d just said, I didn’t know.

“Have you seen this?” he asked. “Accusations are a dangerous weapon to throw around. Much different than wooden daggers.”

I stood up to him firmly—denying submissiveness to be the person he knew I was and that he enjoyed seeing.

“She doesn’t want to make waves, Master. All she wants is to learn how to defend herself. And I want to be the one to train her.”