A girl, I thought, gritting my teeth. Of course it had to involve a girl. A jock boyfriend usually implied a pretty cheerleader-type girlfriend. A popular blond ditz who, if she stayed true to stereotype, was stupid enough to fail calculus but smart enough to latch onto some brainy guy and use him to help her pass the course. And who better than the new kid, someone desperate to fit in, make some friends? I wondered if Thaddeus had a crush on this girl. I wondered if maybe it wasn’t just the Neanderthal boyfriend and his two buddies I should beat up but the girlfriend as well—the real instigator of this mess.
I took a deep breath, determined to act responsibly, both as Queen and as older sister. I would not give in to my primitive urges, which were screaming for vengeance.
“I’ll talk to your principal, Mr. Camden,” I said, not knowing what else to do.
“No!” Thaddeus said with horror. “If you do, you’ll make it impossible for me at school.”
“He’s right, my lady,” Quentin said, speaking up from where he sat with his family down at the other end of the long table. Speaking to Thaddeus he said, “Dante and I just went through what you’re going through now. High school can really suck if you have some guys gunning for you. My brother and I taught at my dad’s self-defense school. We’d be happy to work with you. Get you used to your new strength, show you how to defend yourself. Make you more comfortable with how much strength to safely use against human opponents.”
“You two went to high school?” Thaddeus asked. “During the daytime?”
It surprised me, also.
“Sure, most of the time in school is spent indoors. We only went out during gym, only a forty-minute period. A few guys used to pick on me because of my looks. Called me a girly girl, said I was gay, things like that.”
“What did you do?” Thaddeus asked.
“I ignored them, but they kept bothering me until one day I fought back and knocked them on their asses. They left me alone after that.”
And therein lay the answer to Thaddeus’s dilemma. He had to stand up for himself. If someone else did it for him, it would only make him look weak, and the bullies would continue to pick on him.
Thaddeus looked to me with eager excitement. He obviously wanted to accept the help Quentin was offering, help given by someone who knew exactly what he was going through. It had been my original plan to enroll Thaddeus in Nolan’s self-defense school—a school that might never be now.
My own safety I might be willing to risk. But the real question was: Did I trust Dante near my brother? Because the help Quentin had offered had included Dante. We’d be happy to work with you.
“That’s generous of you, Quentin. Thaddeus, would you like to train with them during this next week while they’re here?” Anything longer than that was not guaranteed. Come the next Council powwow, the twin Morell boys were likely flying this coop.
My brother nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
“Then I would be very grateful for your help,” I said to Quentin, accepting the offer.
Quentin smiled at Thaddeus and me. Dante did not. His pale, hooded eyes gleamed at me. Opaque, inscrutable.
“Great,” Quentin said. “We can begin tonight.”
FOURTEEN
THEY DID INDEED begin that very night, right after supper. Not in the clearing, which was deep in the woods, but on the lawn behind the house. Another smooth move on pretty boy Quentin’s part—choosing a spot where it would be easy for everyone to keep a discreet and not so discreet eye on them. Aquila and Tomas chose to do their watching from the kitchen window, which overlooked the back lawn, while Nolan and Hannah more tactfully sipped tea in the parlor, affording them a nice side view of things.
I was much more blatant about it. Come on, now. This was my baby brother. And not just him but Jamie, who had volunteered his help as the human Thaddeus could practice on. With Jamie’s Mixed Blood strength, he was essentially just that—only human strong. His sister, Tersa, had silently come outside with the rest of us to watch. The rest of us being Chami and me. Chami was ostensibly acting as my guard. His true charge, though, was Thaddeus.
Dontaine had gone out with his men to attend to their regular duties, though he had wanted to stay. I had seen it in his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw. But with Chami, Tomas, and Aquila watching over me, he’d had no reason to linger.
Quentin was a good teacher, keeping things low key and casual. He demonstrated the move first with his brother, Dante, who acted in the role of aggressor. A simple maneuver of blocking Dante’s slow punch, grabbing his wrist, and sweeping him over a fast, tripping foot, using his opponent’s own momentum to send him flying. Quentin and Dante went through the moves in slow motion two more times, calling out the steps—punch, block, grab, sweep, and trip. Like a dance.
Then Quentin had Thaddeus practice it on him.
“You don’t have to worry if your strength flares up with me,” Quentin told my brother. “Try to keep it at human level, though. I’ll let you know if you start using too much force.”
He put Thaddeus through the steps three more times until he was more comfortable with it, keeping the moves slow and deliberate.
“You learn the steps first,” Quentin said, “then you worry about speed and strength.” Though he did work on the latter. He didn’t automatically just go flying past Thaddeus when my brother pulled on his wrist. He made him exert enough strength to accomplish the maneuver on his own.
“Yes, like that,” Quentin praised, and Thaddeus’s face lit up with a wide smile. “You won’t need to use any more strength than that when someone’s really trying to hit you, putting the full force of their momentum behind their punch.”
After Thaddeus performed the steps consistently two more times, he paired him up with Jamie.
“Keep it nice and slow,” Quentin said, watching them both closely. “That’s it. Perfect.” And it was. Jamie swung at my brother, moving in slow motion. Thaddeus blocked and grabbed, and tripped him.
“I didn’t hurt you, Jamie, did I?” Thaddeus asked anxiously.
“Nah, you kidding? You could grab my wrist even tighter if you wanted to. The pull was good, though. I went sailing right by you.”
And so it went. Then it was Jamie’s turn.
The two boys joked with each other, their eyes lit up with excitement, eager to learn. They were clearly having a blast. The rest of us were much more relaxed, seeing how well Quentin had matters in control. He used Dante only in the initial demonstration; he had no actual contact with Thaddeus and Jamie. The slow, step-by-step instruction paid off when they moved on to the next phase.
“Now we’re going to practice it faster,” Quentin said to the boys’ cheers.
He illustrated the move at a more realistic speed with Dante. They were beautiful together, all effortless strength and lithe grace, executing the moves in perfect choreography. Two healthy young animals. One fair, the other dark. Both natural superior warriors by blood and birthright.
“And when you are comfortable with that, even faster, like this.” Quentin caught his brother’s punch with an easy block, a punch that came at him so swiftly it was just a fast blur. The next two movements flowed naturally—sweep and trip—and Dante went sailing past Quentin. He hit the ground in a smooth, tight roll and sprang to his feet.
“Hopefully the guy you take down will just hit the ground hard and lie there instead of doing what Dante just did,” Quentin said, grinning.
“Oh, man! Can you teach us how to do that next, the roll Dante just did?” Jamie asked, eyes shining.