Page 45 of Ash and Roses
“That’s a bit excessive, isn’t it?” she asks, eyeing the belt. “Don’t tell me you wear those everywhere.”
I don’t—not anymore, but I’m not about to tell her that. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I wink at her again because I like the blush that forms on her cheeks when I do. It appears, just as it did both times in the kitchen, brought on by some mixture of arousal and anger. I shouldn’t tease her like this, but I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun. It may be selfish, but I’m not ready to let that go yet.
“Give me one so I can stab you.”
It takes everything I have not to smile at the threat. Two can play at this game. I take a step back and spread my arms wide at my sides. “Be my guest.”
She slips off the wall and immediately loses her balance on the landing. I make a mental note that we’ll have to work on that, too. Knowing how to use a knife is one thing, but if she can’t even stay balanced on her feet, then it won’t do her much good in a proper fight.
She grabs for my hip, and as much as I’d love to let her get her hands on me, I sidestep out of reach. She goes for me again, and just as easily as before, it takes only a single step to avoid her attack. “Bastard!”
She’s angry.Good. “If you keep this up, you’ll be wishing you didn’t skip breakfast. At this rate, we may not even get to training.”
Eleven, twelve, thirteen times I dodge her, not letting her get any closer to me than her first attempt. “You’re such a cock!”
“What was that about my cock? I couldn’t hear you over all that heavy breathing.”
She lets out a frustrated groan and feigns moving to the left. It’s far too obvious, but at least she’s trying something new. I don’t want to discourage her, so I pretend not to notice and let her get just a finger on the hilt of a knife before jumping out of her reach again.
“Close enough,” I say, pulling the knife she touched from its sheath and holding it out to her. “You can keep this one.”
She stares down at it in her hands, the small blade only about as long as one of them. “Is this a joke?”
Does the size really bother her? “I told you. Small is better.”
She jabs for my abdomen and if I hadn’t been expecting it, she may have actually broken skin. “We’re not talking about last night,” she hisses.
Now that’s a low blow and a fucking lie. I’ve disappointed a fair number of women in my life, but not once was the size of my cock the problem. “Careful,” I warn, all traces of humour gone. “That blade is sharper than your tongue.” She’s been baiting me all morning, and, like a typical man,thisis the thing that has my nostrils flaring.Stupid.
The smirk on her face tells me everything I need to know. She thinks she’s already won. When she swings wide, I step out of reach, just as I have for the entirety of this dance of blades. Her footwork is all wrong, and she’s swinging without purpose. Either she doesn’t actually want to hurt me, or she’s just that bad. “Hold still and we’ll see which is sharper.”
She thinks she has the upper hand now, even if she hasn’t drawn blood. My reaction gave her what she wanted, and that hit to my pride is worse than taking an actual blow from her. I need to regain control of this lesson, and I can only see one way to do that.
I do as she says and plant my feet firmly in the soft soil. At my sudden stillness, she attempts to halt her attack, but the momentum of her unbalanced step keeps her going just as I knew it would. The blade connects with my forearm and slices through the flesh like butter. Not too deep, but apparently deep enough to have her gasping in horror and dropping the knife.
“What are you doing?” I grumble to hide my wince. Prepared or not, pain is pain.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Never drop your blade.” I pick up the knife and hold it out to her, hilt out. She takes it more carefully than I’d expected and looks down at the smearing of blood along one side. It’s nothing compared to what’s running down my arm, but I don’t bother to staunch it. She needs to prepare for this just as much as she needs to know how to use a weapon. “Don’t tell me you have a problem with blood.”
“I don’t,” she says, but her face pales. The words are spoken too softly, and I realize it’s not fear or disgust that grips her.
“Don’t think about it. Whatever horror is playing in your mind, don’t think about it. Allow it to feed your anger in a fight, but never let it make you hesitate. Hesitation is death.” She doesn’t answer, so I take it a step further. She needs to push past whatever trauma she’s reliving before it prevents her from defending herself. “Do you know how to kill a person?”
She snaps her eyes up to mine, a look of horror plain on her face. From the question itself, or perhaps it was how casually I’d asked it. The words may have been cruel, but they did what was intended. She’s back in the here and now.
She’s silent for a long moment, but I wait for her answer. She swallows and then says, “Pointy end in?” I roll my eyes and pull off my shirt. “What are you doing?!”
Are my scars really so repulsive that she had to shriek like that? I guess I can’t blame her. At the very least, they must remind her of her own. She can’t see hers, so I can’t expect her to ignore mine.
“I didn’t realize my body was so offensive to you.” She bites at her lip. Is that regret or something else? I move on before I can’t resist the urge to find out. I have to stay focused. “Show me how you would kill me.”
She doesn’t move, save for bringing her eyes down to the knife in her hand and then back up to my chest. “You… You want me to stab you?”
I laugh. “You won’t get thepointy endanywhere near me. Don’t worry.”
I’d meant only to tease her, but her scowl says she’s taken that more as an insult than a challenge. “I cut your arm.”