He smiled, that calm, irritatingly confident smirk. “You’re not going to hit me.”
I scowled. Ash chuckled, then raised his weapon and stalked forward, all amusement gone. “Although,” he continued, sliding into predator mode with no effort at all, “I do want you to try.”
I gulped and backed away. “Now? Don’t I get a warm-up or something? I don’t even know how to hold the thing properly.”
“Holding it is easy.” Ash slid closer, circling me like a wolf. One finger pointed to the tip of his blade. “The sharp end goes in first.”
“That’s so not helpful, Ash.”
He smiled grimly and continued to stalk. “Meghan, I would love to teach you properly, from the beginning, but that takes years, centuries, even. And since we don’t have that kind of time, I’m giving you the condensed version. Besides, the best way to learn is by doing.” He jabbed at me with his sword, nowhere near coming close, but I jumped anyway. “Now, try to hit me. And don’t hold back.”
I didn’t want to, but I had asked him to teach me, after all. Bunching my muscles, I gave a feeble yell and lunged, stabbing at him with the tip. Ash slid aside. In the space of a blink, his sword licked out, slapping my ribs with the flat of the blade. I shrieked as I felt the bite of absolute cold through my shirt, and glared at him.
“Dammit, Ash, that hurt!”
He gave me a humorless smile. “Then don’t get hit.”
My ribs throbbed. There’d probably be a welt there this evening. For a moment, I was tempted to throw down the blade and stalk back to the house. But I swallowed my pride and faced him again, resolved. I needed this. I needed to learn to defend myself, and the ones I cared about. I could take a few bruised ribs, if it meant saving a life one day.
Ash brandished his sword in an expert manner and cocked two fingers at me.
“Again.”
For the rest of the morning, we practiced. Or, more accurately, I tried to hit Ash and received more swats that stung and burned their way through my clothes. He didn’t do it every time, and he never once cut me, but I became paranoid about getting hit. After several more thwaps that stung my pride as well as my skin, I tried switching to full defense mode, and Ash started attacking me. I got hit a lot more.
Anger burned, flaring up after each swat, each effortless smack that left my skin tingling with failure. He wasn’t being fair. He had years, decades even, of swordplay, and he wasn’t even giving me a chance. He was toying with me instead of teaching me how to fend off his attacks. This wasn’t a lesson, this was just him showing off.
Finally, my temper snapped. After desperately fending off a series of blindingly quick thrusts, I received a swat to my backside that ignited a rage. Screaming, I flew at Ash, intending to hit him this time, to at least smack that calm efficiency off his face.
This time, Ash didn’t dodge or block, but spun and caught me around the waist as I charged past. Dropping his sword, he snatched my wrist in one hand and pulled me to his chest, holding me and the blade still as I cursed and struggled.
“There,” he murmured in a voice of weary satisfaction. “That’s what I was looking for.”
Though still angry, I stopped fighting him. My senses buzzed and I held myself rigid in his arms. “What?” I snarled. “Me to get so pissed I wanted to stab you in the eye?”
“The moment you’d take this seriously enough to really try to hit me.” Ash’s voice, dark and grim, made me freeze. He sighed, resting his forehead on the back on my skull. “This isn’t a hobby, Meghan,” he breathed, sending a tingle down my spine. “It isn’t a game or a sport or a simple pastime. This is life and death. Any one of those hits could’ve killed you had I been serious. Putting a weapon in your hands means that, at some point, you’re going to have to use it. In a fight like this, you’re going to be hurt. Make a single mistake, and you’ll be dead. And I’ll lose…you.”
His voice trailed off at the end, as if that last part just slipped out. My throat closed, and all my anger drained away.
Ash pressed his lips to the welt across my shoulder, and my heartbeat stuttered. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, genuine regret in his voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I do want you to understand. Teaching you to fight means you’re going to be in even more danger, and I may be hard on you sometimes because I don’t want you to lose.” He released my wrist and ran his hand up to my shoulder, smoothing the hair from my neck. “Do you still want to continue?”
I couldn’t speak. I just nodded, and Ash kissed the back of my neck.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said, drawing back even as I wished he would stay there forever. “Same time. Now, let’s go put something on those welts.”
I HEARD THE PIANO MUSIC as soon as we crossed the stream. My dad was sitting at the piano bench when we walked in, and didn’t look up from the keys. But the music today wasn’t as dark and frantic as it had been the night before; it was more calm and peaceful. Grimalkin lay atop the piano, feet tucked under him and eyes closed, purring in appreciation.
“Hi, Dad,” I ventured, wondering if he would actually look at me today. The music faltered, and for a split second, I thought he was going to look up. But then his shoulders hunched and he went back to his playing, a little faster than before. Grimalkin didn’t bother to open his eyes.
“I guess that’s a start,” I sighed, as Ash disappeared into the kitchen for a moment. I heard him talking to a few unknown, high-pitched voices—