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Chapter seven part two - Sexual tension and wanting to break hands

Using my dominant hand—it being the right—I bend my wrist toward my forearm, holding a throwing knife. I swing it across the field where the target dummy lies ahead and tilt my head in satisfaction at how it almost hits the center.

I tried forgetting about General Erion, and though he'd not appeared out here again, anger still seems to curl in my gut over what happened.

Except for some of it... some of it was directed at Lorcan. I hated I felt that way, but he'd only stared, and perhaps it was foolish for me to imagine he'd stand up for me, but I did think he would, just how he'd done with my brother.

My chest rises with each slow breath I take. Glancing down at the side table full of daggers, I remember how Ivarron had taught me so much. I preferred using blades even if I'd practiced with crossbows and all sorts—

"Miss Ambrose."

I still.

Oh, Solaris and Crello, save me.

The rugged voice is one I'd become all too familiar with already... Lorcan's.

Clearing my throat and not looking back once, I reply with, "Deputy."

"I apologize for earlier. The General meant no harm...you shouldn't take what he says or does to the heart. It's how he is with anyone."

"I don't take anything to heart." My eyes focus on the target again, hiding how what I'd said was a lie. I do take things to heart at times, but with the General, it's different. He'd found a way to disrespect me.

"If I'm honest with you, Miss Ambrose." Lorcan's presence seems to get closer. I did not need this right now. "I thought you were ready to leech forward and attack him."

"I'm no animal, waiting for when I'm next provoked." At least not all the time.

He hums thoughtfully, whereafter seconds go by of silence that I even think he's left until— "What caused that scar of yours?"

I close my eyes and inhale. The screeching metal of swords as they clash rings at the far end. "I'd ask the same about yours," I say, picking up a double-edged blade. "It seems mine is hideous to the General. I didn't see him mention your hand."

"Well, I've never spoken back to him... Miss Ambrose."

I huff, whirling around to meet his hardened eyes. "Is the second in command supposed to distract trainees?"

His brow lifts at the use of 'distract,' and I realize that must have come across differently to him.

I take a breath, seeing fit that I should just answer like a normal person. "A dragon did it... right when my father died. Its talon sliced along my arm up to my palm before it fled." It feels odd saying this. I'd never opened up properly to anyone, not even on my favorite color unless it were my brothers.

"A dragon?" His tone sounds more surprised than asking that of a question. "I suspect that is why you must despise them. Am I correct to assume so?"

Of course, that was it. I'd grown up seeing them as a threat to our land. "Wouldn't you?"

Something sneaks up on his expression when I ask him of this... something harsh though it leaves too quick for me to decipher. "Hate can drive you to immense extremes, Miss Ambrose."

"Only if you let it," I say, studying his face like I wanted to still solve what had long gone from his features as I add, "Deputy."

He takes a long look at me at my eyes while keeping his hand against the pommel of his sword, covering that red diamond on it. Seeing there's nothing left to mention, I spin and go back into my throwing stance, launching the blade. Once again, it lands just above the center but as I reach for another knife, Lorcan, not having moved from his position behind me, says, "Your aims are good, but you seem to use your strength more than skill."

What an observant.

"Like these daggers can do much harm to an immortal," I murmur with a frown as I suddenly think of the Golden Thief. Even though I'd stolen steel powder to protect myself in the past so I could repel any shifter possibly lurking around. I now knew the Golden Thief was immune to that. The last thing I want is to be bitten by a shifter.

Shifters may look like us mortals. Truth be told, they could even go as far as hiding their scent from other animals. Still, everyone knew their bite could turn you into such dreadful dragons unless, of course, your body rejected it. I'd only ever heard the rumors from Miss Kiligra on how most if not always a bite killed you in horrific ways. As if your insides were ripping to shreds, and every part of you would cough up blood until there was nothing left to expel.

"Dragons may be immortal," Lorcan says, making me stray from my thoughts as I look over my shoulder at him. "But they aren't invincible."

I knew that... despite immortality, a steel weapon to the heart, fatally wounded or decapitation usually did the trick.

"But if you want to weaken a dragon," Lorcan continues. "Be it a fledgling or an adult, then you aim here." He points to his eyes before dragging that scarred finger to his abdomen. "And here. However, when young, their scales aren't developed. It's easier to pierce their skin that way."

"What if it's a shifter in human form?" The question comes out before I can even stop myself.

"Then..." A waft of cedar hits me as he takes one step to my side and reaches his hand over mine. "You keep your movement fluid." His gaze sets on the target, never letting go of me as he raises my arm with the blade and aims it. I'm not sure how to feel or react, my instincts usually told me to punch or kick any man who'd approach me this way, but I couldn't do that. Not with him.

My breathing elevates to a degree I'm certain is not healthy. Lorcan side glances at me, and the corner of his lip twitches, making me narrow my eyes. Now I might just kick him, Venator or not. I do not care.

"Only add force when you need to," he says, soft, in contrast to what he was telling me to do.

For a moment, we stay like that, staring at each other until his name is called out over the fields. He steps away from me, running a hand through his hair. The wisps tapering below his ears burn bright like fire hearths. "Keep practicing. You already have more potential than most in here." From his hair, his hand comes down to his jaw, rubbing it as he walks backward. "And remember... we protect those who do not bear the flame."

The Venator's motto.

My brows lift at that as it just takes a second for him to turn his sturdy back on me.

Every dragon carried the power of fire that no mortal could. Be it an Umbrati who thrived with its shadows of the night or a Merati capable of creating illusions to lure their victims. I'd learned this through Idris's books. Perhaps I'd have known more if I hadn't stopped going to the village school after my parents perished.

"What did you do to have the Deputy smiling so much?" Freya runs up to me, bow in one hand and a quiver on her back, carrying all the arrows. I'd seen her earlier hitting every target with ease. It was obviously her forte.

"He must have had a good breakfast." I shrug.

Trying not so much as to glance in his direction, I look toward the target, repeating what he told me as I throw the dagger. It lands straight in the middle, startling me.

Freya laughs incredulously, handing me another blade like it's nothing. "Lorcan rarely smiles. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing him do it, and I've known him since I was eight and him just fourteen years of age... he's a right old grump."

She's known him for years? I eye her suspiciously. "Can't be worse than General Erion."

Freya's body solidifies like water turning to ice. "Yeah... I—I actually wanted to talk to you about that."

Pinching my brows together, I angle my head down at her.

"He—" She mutters 'Solaris' in-between. "He's... my father."

My blade loosens in my palm, and from the look, I must have on my face Freya adds with a wince, "General Erion Demori."

Well, that explains the resemblance I'm only just realizing now, but the shock still reigns over me. "I—why didn't you tell me?" I hadn't expected her to last night, but perhaps I'd have kept quiet—no, that is an outright lie, I'd still have said something to the General.

Freya's hands pick at the bow to the point; I think she'll break it in half from trepidation. "I'm sorry, Nara, it's the reason many never room with me. They despise my father! And I was so excited to meet someone new—"

"If he's your father and the General, why do you reside in the common rooms of the Barracks?"

She sighs deeply, looking back to the open doors leading inside the weapons room then at me. It's quiet before she says, "I grew up here, never having explored the city on my own terms. My father trained me well, thinking I wanted to become a Venator... Instead, I'd always refuse up until the age of eighteen where I told him I wanted freedom."

Despite differences, I understood the feeling of wanting freedom.

"We've never been close, but he gave me a preposition where I'd be free to go live my life as I please, and if by the time I turned twenty, I hadn't found a purpose, I was to go back. But this time train to be... them." Her eyes dart to Lorcan, and all the leaders starting to sword fight against each other. "I do not get special treatment, nor would I want it."

My heart tightens as if it'd been twisted a thousand times for her. General Erion didn't so much as bat an eyelid for his daughter when she was beside me. He treated her like the rest of us. I wondered how someone so joyful and bright could have a father such as the General.

I open my mouth, wanting to tell her how it doesn't matter to me who she is or not, but two young men near the bushes on the far right appear to be cornering another man.

"Is everything—" Freya starts, looking behind her when I drop the blade and storm past.

I'm not sure what's willing me to go over to them but seeing how they were pushing him reminded me of Illias. How I'd defended him countless times during the years when others mistreated him.

I stop just a few meters away from them. The two men, one with long ebony hair and the other ending just below his chin in a dark auburn gleam, swear and move a sword around in the air. The other male tries to grab it before he's pushed by the other.

"Give it back to him," I order, and they all turn to look at me.

"This doesn't concern you," says the one with ebony hair. "Isn't that right, Link?"

The man whose name is Link and the person they'd taken the sword from doesn't look my way. His sight was far more interested in the ground below while his golden-brown hair—wavy and staggered—moves briskly as he shakes his head.

Rotten bullies.

"And why might it not concern me?" I ask once the two dismiss me as if I'm nothing but a piece of useless lint to them.

This time the auburn-haired man creeps towards me, his pale moon complexion just like his friend dulls. "Listen," he says. "I suggest you walk away, princess—" Reaching his bony hand over to my hip and knowing where he wanted to slide it down to. I fist my hand around his index and middle finger, tilting them at an angle it should never be slanted at.

He yelps as his friend comes to his aid but stops, staggering back when I lift the blade, I still have on me at him.

"Lovely hand you got there," I say with such calmness you would think we were having a simple conversation. He whimpers, bending over slightly as the bones on his fingers begin to click under my own. "Would hate for it to break."

Grass crunches from behind before Freya is next to me. "Oh, my—Nara."

"Give. It. Back," I spit, tightening my grip so far that my own knuckles turn opaque.

His sunken face grows paler than it already was as he gestures his head for the other to hand the sword back. Reluctantly he does as told.

"Go." I motion my chin to Link once he's got a hold of it. His eyes wide and of crystal blue color, look at me before bowing his head and jogging away.

As soon as Link's out of sight, I let go of the hand. The man winces, clutching his fingers as it trembles within his grasp. His lips thin out, and eyes made of grey and moss green colors send me a deathly glare, one that screams I'd made the biggest mistake ever crossing him.

I don't cower and give him a blank stare before they both retract, walking away though never breaking eye contact with me.

"Well," Freya exhales, looking at them just how I am. "That's one way to start your first day of training..."

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