Page 30 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)

M y breath shuddered out, my knife clattering to the cobblestones.

Keil released my wrist, smirking. “I suspected you weren’t fond of me, but I didn’t think you were serious about murder.”

“Were you following me?” I asked, heart still racing.

“Must we go through this every time?”

“How many more times do you plan on following me?”

Keil chuckled and stooped for the knife.

But it was too coincidental. First, Carmen’s suite—and now the city?

I’d assumed Carmen had hidden the Bolting Box after my break-in, but had Keil returned to steal it himself?

Of course, he couldn’t have known the code for the combination lock.

But he was the one who’d told me about that lock.

He might’ve tricked me out of following this lead so he could find the compass first and take it to his empress.

Keil straightened, surveying the symbol on the knife handle with an interest that raised my hackles. Then he threw me an easy smile. “I haven’t seen eurium in a while.” He flipped the knife, offering me the handle. “Yours?”

I studied him with narrowed eyes.

If he’d trailed Carmen to Backplace, he must’ve similarly realized the Bolting Box was a dead end. But I had to remain one step ahead from here on out. If he believed I was also searching for the compass—which I now suspected he did—he would quicken his pace.

I snatched the knife without answering.

“You’d think a Hunter’s daughter would know how to wield a weapon.”

I paused. “Excuse me?”

“You’d do little damage with that grip.” Keil reached for me. “May I?”

I started to refuse, then remembered how I’d lost the knife during my attack. How the man’s fist had reared back, and I hadn’t known how to fend him off. Even tonight in the city, I’d felt unusually vulnerable, expecting the copycats to rush from the shadows.

Whether or not Keil was racing me for the compass, he now offered something I needed: the knowledge to defend myself without my specter.

So I nodded.

Keil’s brows quirked in surprise before he took my knife-wielding hand. His skin was warm, the calluses on his palm scraping my knuckles.

“Everyone,” he said with an air of instruction, “no matter how physically strong, holds some kind of power. The power to run. To fight. To scream.”

My skin tingled at the new authority in his voice, low but firm.

“An attacker’s first job,” Keil continued, “is to identify where your main power lies... so they can take it away.” He drew my arm to its previous position; my cloak slipped off my shoulder, cool air kissing my skin. “Strike at me.”

I hesitated, then thrust the knife down.

He snapped forward—hands on my arm, my wrist. I stumbled, cloak twisting around me—

My back thumped hard against his torso. His left arm had encircled my waist, trapping my arms down and pinning me to him, while his right hand encased mine around the knife handle.

“ This ,” he murmured against my ear, “is not a position you want to be in.”

I breathed fast, growing steadily warmer, though I couldn’t tell if it was from Keil’s body heat or my own rushing blood. I’d out-flustered him in the grand foyer, with our bodies pressed almost as close. But now we were on Keil’s turf—playing his game—and I was acutely aware of his self-assurance.

And even more aware of my overactive specter, now flittering like a second heartbeat beneath my breast.

Then Keil said with deep command, “Reclaim your power.”

And I blinked back into the moment. I twisted, trying to free myself from under his arm, but it had turned solid around me. My shoulders writhed against the wall of his chest, but with my elbows locked flat against him, I had no leverage to thrust him back.

“You see why it’s more difficult now?” His voice vibrated along my spine.

I kept struggling, determined. It was like trying to fight against iron. “Because you won’t let go?” I said, winded.

“No. My victory isn’t here .” His left arm contracted in emphasis, the movement bringing me closer. His contoured muscles shifted against my back. “It’s here .” He lightly squeezed my right hand, still wrapped around the knife handle.

“When you attack from up high,” he explained, “you’re showing me your weapon before you use it.

I know exactly where you’ve placed the majority of your power.

And now”—he freed my right arm to raise my hand, turning my own weapon against me—“I only have to do this .” I froze as the blade flashed under my chin.

“And you go still. That quickly, your power becomes mine.”

I swallowed, less focused on the knife than on his strong arm across my waist, his warm breath stirring my hair.

His left hand remained closed at the side of my torso rather than spreading across it, and I knew he was being careful not to touch me with that degree of intimacy while I was at a disadvantage, locked against him like this.

And maybe that was one of the reasons why I didn’t fear the blade as I would have if someone other than Keil had been holding it. Why I felt curiously safe with the man who, three minutes ago, I’d accused of following me into the city.

The realization produced a little swoop inside me. I could feel the blush rising up my throat, crawling to the tips of my ears, as Keil unlocked his body from around mine, and the knife clanged to the ground.

I turned to watch him retrieve it, my skin impossibly hot from where we’d made contact. He pressed the handle back to my palm. My hand drooped with the weight.

“It’s a weapon, not a quill.” He carefully adjusted my grip, positioning my thumb on the handle’s spine and tightening my knuckles.

“Keep a firm hold, or it’ll slip.” Then he nudged my feet apart with the toe of his shoe, murmuring deep encouragement.

“Good; a little to the left; that’s it,” he said as I landed in the proper stance.

I would’ve expected that teaching a member of the Capewell family how best to wield a weapon would feel counterintuitive to him. So I was surprised to find sincerity in his guidance—an air of wanting to impart this knowledge, so I would know how to defend myself.

But then, watching him patiently retighten the grasp I’d accidentally let slacken, I wondered why I’d been surprised.

From the start, Keil had treated me with kindness, even when he’d had every reason to hate me.

Even when he’d probably believed I was no better than the Hunters, and had still chosen to bandage my hand with the same gentleness he used now.

It was more than I would’ve offered if our positions were reversed. And though I didn’t know what kind of person that made me... I was starting to understand what kind of person that made him .

Now Keil took my waist from above my cloak, leaving an extra layer of fabric between his bare palm and my dress.

Yet as he angled my body toward his, as if leading me in a dance, my awareness narrowed on the broad shape of that hand.

On the way it molded around the curve of my waist, with the slightest hint of pressure to aid his instruction.

A new, hazier warmth stole over me, the blood pounding so palpably in my lips that I knew if he glanced toward them, he would find them full and strawberry-ripe.

“Aiming low gives you more control,” he said, so close now that the breath of his words grazed the side of my face.

“And you can better conceal the weapon until you’re ready to use it.

Deliver a good blow and you’re more likely to get away.

” With a soft press on my elbow, he added, “Keep this tight to your body.”

Then, with one hand still enclosing my side, he guided my grip forward, poising the knife tip against his abdomen. “The knife is an extension of your arm. Point your thumb where you want the blade to go... and push .” He applied enough pressure that his white shirt wrinkled under the blade.

At this angle, his soap-and-linen scent enveloped me. Each steady rise of his chest grazed my hair, and the heat of his hand was finally radiating through my layers of fabric, warming my waist.

The air thickened and his grip shifted, losing the pressure of instruction. Softening instead with a splay of his fingers—a slight, almost unconscious, brush of his thumb against my ribs.

For a moment, my posture loosened. I felt myself relaxing into the touch.

Then I blinked, catching myself. I started to pull back, but Keil didn’t let go.

I looked up to find him smiling faintly, his mouth rich with its own little blood rush of color. As though he’d been absorbing the feel of me with the same vivid detail.

“Always yank out the blade,” he said, a shade hoarsely, that sultry mouth still holding my attention. “They’ll lose blood faster.”

He hesitated, his hand twitching against me. He inhaled. Then he took a step back.

I drew a rushing breath, the stab of cool air scattering the steam of my thoughts. Keil’s mouth was none of my business. I would be a prize fool to make it my business.

And even more of a fool to lower my defenses for a man who could only ever be my competition.

So, ignoring the skin-prickle of my fading heat, I weighed the knife in my palm. “Should you really be telling me the best ways to hurt you?”

Keil’s smile grew, that little dimple winking in his cheek. “Go ahead.” He spread his arms as if to embrace me. “I suppose you’ve been fantasizing about this from the moment we met.”

I laughed, astonished. “You’re inviting me to stab you?”

“I’m inviting you to try .”

I couldn’t resist the challenge in his voice. So, I lunged, knife aimed at his stomach.

He shot forward so fast I couldn’t register the maneuver. I yelped as the knife twisted from my grasp and clattered at my feet once more.

Keil chuckled at the look on my face, then bent to recover the knife. I had half a mind to kick him in the head.

“So, was there a point to your little lesson?” I crossed my arms. “Or was it an excuse to show me up?”

“Of course not, my lady. That wouldn’t be gentlemanly.”