I pushed my sleep-matted hair out of my eyes and stifled a curse. I hadn’t expected Keane to show up today. I know life goes on and everything, but still …
I’d have tried to crap out on the lesson, but I knew Keane too well. He’d come into my room and drag me out of bed if he had to, then carry me over his shoulder to the practice mats.
“Tell him I’ll be out in a few minutes,” I said with resignation.
Usually, I shower before our sparring sessions, even though I know I’ll land right back in the shower as soon as the lesson’s over. Today, I just didn’t feel like it. I was pretty sure I didn’t stink, although one glance in the bathroom mirror was almost enough to make me flee in terror. Yeah, I looked that bad.
I brushed my teeth, washed my face, then combed out the tangles in my hair and arranged it in a messy knot at the back of my head. Then, still yawning, I dressed in yoga pants and a form-fitting tank top. When I’d first started training, I’d worn loose, comfortable T-shirts. I’d quickly discovered that loose, comfortable T-shirts don’t do such a great job of keeping you covered when you spend half of your time upside down or being dragged across mats. It still made me blush to think of the up-close-and-personal look Keane had gotten of my bra. (Thank God I’d been wearing one! I’m flat-chested enough that I could go without.)
Keane was waiting for me in the sitting room. The furniture had already been moved aside, and he’d laid out the mats. It was the usual routine, and yet when I got a look at his face, I saw that at least part of the usual routine was missing.
Keane is all about arrogance and attitude, and his catalog of facial expressions usually runs to smirks, smugness, and glowers. Today, he looked different. Whatever he was feeling, I wouldn’t call it a happy emotion. Was it because he knew what had happened with Ethan yesterday? Or was he still sulking about how his dad had kicked his butt in front of me?
Whatever it was, I didn’t want to deal with it. Hell, I didn’t want to deal with anything.
I gave myself a mental slap upside the head. Ethan hadn’t wanted to be captured by the Wild Hunt, either. What we want out of life and what we get are two entirely different stories.
I wondered what was happening to Ethan right now. Was his wound all healed? What had the Erlking done to him? Ethan was apparently destined to become a member of the Wild Hunt, but what did that entail? I remembered the Erlking saying that his Huntsmen don’t talk, and I shuddered as my mind tried to send me pictures of just what he might have done to them to keep them mute.
Damn it, tears were burning my eyes again. I blinked fiercely, determined to keep them back. Crying wasn’t going to save Ethan, and it wasn’t going to make me feel any better.
Keane proved to me once again that he was all heart. While I stood there in the doorway trying to get control of myself, he crossed the distance between us in a couple of long strides. Was he coming over to give me a hug, or commiserate with me, or tell me everything was going to be all right?
Not exactly.
Before I had a chance to react, he’d grabbed me and yanked me forward, pulling me off balance and then sweeping my legs out from under me. I was completely unprepared for the attack, and I found myself heading face-first toward the stone floor, since we hadn’t even gotten to the mats yet. Instinctively, I put my hands out to stop my fall, but Keane grabbed me under the arms and hauled me to my feet before I hit the floor. He then shoved me, hard, onto the mats.
Graceful as a wounded rhinoceros, I tripped over the edge of the mats and went sprawling. I’d had enough lessons with Keane by now to know that I didn’t dare lie there and catch my breath, so I rolled quickly to the right, avoiding Keane’s pounce. I hadn’t secured my hair well enough, and a strand came loose to dangle in my face.
I pushed to my feet, my body going on autopilot now that the lesson had started—whether I was ready for it or not. Keane was frowning at me and shaking his head.
“How many times have I warned you not to put your hands out like that?” he barked, doing his best drill-sergeant impersonation. “You could have broken your damn wrists!”
I tried not to flinch. I’d thought I’d gotten used to the way he yelled at me when we sparred, but I guess I was in a particularly fragile state of mind. It was true, though, that Keane had spent a lot of time teaching me how to fall, and taking the full impact on my outstretched hands wasn’t in the lesson plan.
Usually, I’d have had some kind of snappy comeback. Well, at least a lame comeback that I could pretend was snappy. Today, I kept quiet and wished I’d stayed in bed. Keane wouldn’t have been able to come drag me out if I’d hit the panic button and lowered the security doors in the hallway.
Keane must have been in as foul a mood as I was. Instead of waiting for me to say something or to brace myself, he swung his fist at my head. Once again, my body went on autopilot, and without thinking about it, I stepped into the punch, taking away his momentum, while sweeping my arm up to block it. I was too slow to block it completely, and ended up taking the blow on my shoulder.
I know Keane holds back during our sparring sessions, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when he hits me. When we’d first started, the pain had often shocked me into immobility, at least for a moment. Today, it just made me mad. I countered with a kick to his knee that would almost certainly have broken something if it weren’t for his shield spell.
We were fighting in earnest now, my entire being concentrating on blocking his blows and evading his holds, while still looking—unsuccessfully—for a way to get through his defenses. There was no actual teaching going on, not right now anyway. If my brain weren’t so busy trying to keep me in one piece, I might have wondered what had gotten into Keane this morning.