I hadn’t missed that key factor, which meant only one thing.
Elder Merrick had caught me in some kind of lie the first day we had met, and possibly knew something was amiss. In his twisted, genius mind — which he definitely had — he was definitely scheming. Whether he kept his assumptions private was beyond me, but Ezra and I never did anything to give him pause, neither of us rising to his bait. But I did believe that if I chose to hop into his bed, he wouldn’t be opposed to it, his invitation never a lie. But his attraction for me normally waned when Ezra wasn’t around, which I thought interesting in itself.
Rubbing my stomach, I burped quietly before reaching King Kincaid and Elder Merrick. I shouldn’t have eaten that fourth chili dog at lunch. “I’m not feeling so hot, so can you make it quick?”
Both appeared puzzled, staring where I had started rubbing my back.
I chuckled and whispered quietly, “Cramps, gentlemen.”
Their faces blanked.
God, men were so easy sometimes.
King Kincaid cleared his throat first. “Well, I wanted you to try these out.” He turned, bending to open a case, and lifted two swords from inside. “See how they fit your hand. You’re so small, I know it’s hard to find swords that fit well in your hands.”
“Oh.” I nodded, lifting them from him. I weighed them inside my palm, giving him my input on the balance and size. They were still too big for me, but better than the ones here we had to use. Just a little smaller and they would be pretty perfect for my petite stature.
“Want to swing them around for a bit?” Elder Merrick asked, picking up two swords from a nearby selection. “Tell him where they could be corrected?”
I agreed, but jerked my head toward the bleachers, asking him quietly, “What’s Antonio doing?” Antonio sat between Cahal and Elder Jacobs, but his head was in his hands, and he was staring at the floor, both Elders continuing to eye him between resting from their own workout and watching others spar. He and I hadn’t talked since he had threatened Ezra and me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t notice him when he was around. In fact, I noticed him more now, my emotions vying between want to yell at him and wanting to cry on his shoulder, hoping he would hug me back.
Elder Merrick shook his head. “He came in an hour ago. Beat the living shit out of a few Mages before sitting down like that.” His forehead crinkled. “He hasn’t moved since.”
My own forehead scrunched. That wasn’t like him. “Well, let’s do this.” I swung my swords a few times and glanced one more time at Antonio before settling on a section between the mats for better footing. Cracking my back, I rotated my shoulders while holding the swords as Elder Merrick moved people back so we would have room to move without risking injuring others.
“Are you sure you’re fine for this?” Elder Merrick asked quietly, standing in front of me.
“Just because I’m a woman, that doesn’t mean I’m a wimp,” I muttered, then rotated, coming at him hard, arching one sword down, but blocking with the other, knowing he was as good as me. He grinned, the clanging of our swords joining the rest of the battle sounds of the room. The match was on. He had taught me in the past few weeks to use my strength to avoid being hit, and that was exactly what we both did.
Our jumping and flipping high into the air sometimes felt like flying, but we had to make sure we landed right, or risk breaking bones. That was what I was focused on when I went light-headed during one of our parries in midair. Elder Merrick didn’t realize this, and took my distraction as an opportunity as we fell. I managed to arch, evading the zinging blade by a mere inch, but missed avoiding the brutal blow to my shoulder, which he pulled back at the last second, making it the heel of his shaft that hit instead of the slicing edge.
I landed hard on my side, my swords clattering loudly on the ground as they tumbled a few feet from me. Vision still blurry, I shook my head hard. I could tell it was Elder Merrick who stood in front of me, recognizing his shoes, which I saw way too often while lying on the mats during hand-to-hand against him.
He cursed, squatting in front of me. “You’re off your game.”
I shook my head again, rubbing my forehead. “I don’t feel right.”
He quickly set his swords down, gently placing his hands under my arms and lifting me slowly to my feet. I wobbled, utterly dizzy, and fell against his chest. Cursing again, he wrapped his arms around me, holding me steady, and shouted, “We need a medic!”
My stomach chose that moment to cramp, ten times worse than before, and I groaned, “Trash can!” I swallowed hard. “I’m gonna puke.”
“Shit,” he growled, lifting me off my feet and rushing me to the nearest one.
He lowered me, and my face, to it right on time. As I gripped the edges, my stomach clenched, and I heaved what felt like my guts into the thing. The smell didn’t help matters, while Elder Merrick grabbed my hair, holding it back as I continued regurgitating every goddamn thing I had eaten today. Which was a shitload, I realized as I saw it make an undignified reappearance.
Elder Merrick and King Kincaid were arguing directly over me.
I could hear general murmurs beginning farther away. I waved a hand as I started dry heaving, choking, “He didn’t hit…my stomach.”
“I f**king told you,” Elder Merrick explained to King Kincaid, growling under his breath, his wolf taking voice. “I only hit her shoulder, and she fell on her side.”
“What the f**k is going on?” Ezra’s voice boomed through the growing crowd.
“Ezra!” Cahal barked harshly, a warning, from somewhere close to my right.
I wiped my mouth with a damn handkerchief — seriously? — someone handed me, and pushed up…only to fall flat on my ass against the trash can. My vision was spinning, so I placed a bracing hand on the ground, even as Elder Merrick and King Kincaid both grabbed my shoulders to keep me from falling over completely. I blinked hard, trying to focus on King Kincaid’s face, finally finding his dark eyes. I repeated myself. “I don’t feel right.”
“Shh,” he hushed me, brushing my hair out of my face in soothing motions. His eyes left mine, darting around the growing crowd before snarling, “Where the f**k is the medic?”
Letting my head fall back on the trash can, I blinked out into the crowd as a Mage pushed through them, yelling for them to move. I saw Jack and Pearl standing a few feet away, their expressions frantic, and Ezra was a few feet from them, his eyes glowing dimly while glaring at Elder Merrick, but his dad had a white-knuckled grip on each of his shoulders, standing behind him. When Cahal had moved from my right, I didn’t know.