I preferred blondes.
Gemma dumped out the bag and I laughed. Weapons of every kind littered the grass. Daggers, knives, a sword, some ancient-looking things I had no clue as to what they were and even a bow and arrow.
“Pick your poison.”
I reached down and snagged a dagger. It was all steel and gleamed in the sunlight. I liked the weight of it in my hand.
“Good choice,” Gemma said, pleased. “Although, I think we better get in the basics before we move on to weapons.”
“Seriously? Why would you show me a bag of toys, then tell me I couldn’t play with them?”
She grinned, enjoying my annoyance. “Just giving you something to work toward. First, you have to prove to me that you are strong enough to play with the big-boy toys.” She patted my cheek as she spoke.
I slapped at her hand. “I passed the big-boy test a long time ago.”
Gemma smiled. “Prove it.”
I shrugged and tossed the weapon back with the others. “Let’s do this.”
“It’s important you learn to fight in your human form, without weapons, because you never know when a threat might present itself. You won’t always have the freedom to shift, to pull out a weapon – so you need to become your own weapon.”
I nodded. What she said made sense. I wanted to be as strong as humanly possible in both my forms. I had to protect Heven. I had to protect Logan and this was the best way to do it.
“I think the best way to learn is through actual fighting,” Gemma said, walking a few steps away. “Are you ready?”
I smiled.
“Oh, and one more thing,” she said and looked over her shoulder. “Don’t hold back because I’m a girl. I might be a girl, but I will kick your ass.”
I laughed and as I did she charged. She was fast, impossibly fast, and part of my brain wondered if it was because she was a fallen angel. The other half of my brain was busy anticipating her moves, calculating what she was going to do before she did it.
I managed to throw off her first hit, but didn’t expect her to practically snap back and come at me with a well-formed kick. She sent me sailing into a tree, a branch snapping when I hit it. I picked up the branch and launched it at her and she barely moved in time. I charged her, feeling the familiar quiver in my body–the need to change. It pounded through my blood—begging to be released.
“Don’t do it,” Gemma called. “Shift your focus. Use that desire to shift and put it toward your fight.”
It was harder than it seemed. To deny your body something that came so naturally was nearly impossible, but I held onto my human form and the force of the effort took away my concentration and she headed off what I meant to be a solid hit and sent me flying backward into the tree again.
I jumped up with a loud roar, and instead of heading for her head on, I changed my strategy. I ran off to her right, away from her in a wide arc, cutting back toward her at the last possible second. Then I jumped up and caught a low hanging branch and swung myself up and around, sending myself at her feet first. I hit her in the shoulder and she fell. I took advantage of her moment of vulnerability to grab her legs and flip her over so that her face was in the dirt. I shoved my knee into the center of her back, my fingers pinning her shoulder down.
“He learns fast,” Gemma said.
“Hope you like dirt, you’re going to be eating a lot of it today.” She did some kind of maneuver that I had never seen and I ended up on my back, once again staring up at the cloudless sky. A dagger came crashing down inches from my skull. I reached for the dagger, but she kneed me between the legs—just beneath the place that would have had me crying, but I reacted instantly, curling my body up to shield myself.
“I never took you for a girl to land a low blow,” I said, my voice slightly strained.
“No one touches my dagger but me.”
I made a rude noise and jumped up.
“You’re not tired yet, are you?” she taunted.
I answered by charging her and landing a series of punches and kicks. She laughed as she deflected the final blow. The fighting/training went on for a long time, until I thought my body would drop, but somehow, I found the energy to keep going. She never once treated me like I couldn’t do it. When I started dragging, she would say something to make me mad or indignant, and I discovered that I could push further than I realized. I was stronger than even I knew.
Turns out I was lousy with a bow and arrow, so-so with a knife and lethal with a dagger.
Gemma was good at all three. It made me try harder.
Finally, we called a truce long enough for me to gulp down an entire jug of water. I’d long since shed my shirt and the sun was hot against my back. I ran my hands through my sweat-soaked hair and took a deep breath. Gemma was standing a few feet away, drinking water of her own. I walked over and she eyed me warily—waiting for me to dish out a hit.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, curious.
“I told you, I want to help.”
“But why do you care?” She didn’t strike me as the kind to get involved with anyone, especially people she hardly knew.
She avoided my stare as she capped her water jug and sat it on the ground. “I might be a fallen angel, but that doesn’t make me a bad person. I saw what was going on around here. I didn’t like it. You two got a bad deal and I was tired of watching you both fight so hard.”
“You think we are going to lose? You think that one day I’m not going to be strong enough and we’re both going to die.”
“It’s happened before.”
“To people you know?”
“I don’t know anyone. Not anymore.”
I stuck out my hand. “I’m Sam. Nice to meet you.” She looked at my hand then back up at me. I grinned. “Figured if I was going to keep kicking your butt, we should at least be properly introduced. I want you to know where your butt kicking is coming from.”
She rolled her eyes but then she put her hand in mine and shook. “Gemma,” she murmured.
Then she yanked and I was sailing through the air again, taking out yet another one of the tree limbs. For a moment I laid there, marveling in the fact that just being a hellhound made my human form stronger… if I were only a human, I would probably be dead.
The sound of running feet caught my attention and I looked to my left and saw Heven running through the orchard toward us. I jumped up and turned to face her.
Gemma took that moment to strike out again. She was ruthless! Heven was yelling as I face-planted. I rolled onto my back and sat up. Gemma came to my side. “Never let your guard down.”