Ezekiel finally looked up. “This isn’t simply an academy. You’re an army and you’re assassins. The supernatural world send their undesirables here, and we train them to take on the dirty missions that they can then deny all knowledge of. It’s how we’re funded and have such independence from witch law.”
Put like that, it sounded even worse than in my own head.
I glanced underneath my eyelashes at Magenta. She looked pale and stunned, as if she hadn’t known. But her family had established this entire operation with its Gateway to the missions. How hadn’t she known? And if she hadn’t, then that made her the most innocent, rather than the most wicked, witch in the academy’s history.
I couldn’t help the grin that she wasn’t truly like the other witches, and then realized how creepy it must look considering that she’d just been told that we were assassins.
When Lysander shot me a funny look; I shot him one back.
“I’m awfully sorry but I need to fight now.” Magenta’s eyes blazed. “I suddenly have a terrible amount of rage to express.”
Sleipnir nodded. “By the Valkyries, I’m right there with you.”
Ezekiel held up his hand. “We’re not here to simply beat each other up.”
“Pity,” Lysander muttered.
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s about the discipline in the kill. Today’s lesson is to knock your opponent to the ground in two moves. Creativity is awarded extra points or…” He marched towards Lysander and me. “…disarm your opponent within two moves. But no drawing blood; there are enough others who’d hurt you. Rebels should stick together.”
Ezekiel should’ve been a camp counselor.
When Ezekiel stretched out his wing, it flamed so brightly that I covered my eyes. Lysander stepped forward eagerly, however, thrusting his hand into the flames.
My eyes widened. The fae was a bastard but he had balls (big ones as his trousers showed, snicker).
When Lysander pulled back his hand, he was holding a glowing scimitar with runes down one side. He looked different. What was it…? Then I realized: he was happy.
Lysander cradled the scimitar, kissing the metal. “Welcome back, baby.”
I looked away because his joy made me uncomfortable and I wasn’t even sure why. “Whatever gets you off.”
Ezekiel’s wing flamed again, and Ezekiel shook it at me encouragingly. I bounced up and down on my toes because the angel had never allowed me near a weapon before, saying something about me being at risk of cutting off your own fingers or something even more important (maybe he had a point).
I took a breath, before I thrust my hand into the flames and pulled out…
A wee fencing sword.
A wee blunt fencing sword.
The gym echoed with the grunts and hollers of Magenta and Sleipnir as they practiced moves on each other, but all I heard at that moment was Lysander’s mocking laugh.
“To be honest,” Lysander drawled, “I was expecting him to get a dagger.” He held up his long, curved scimitar next to my short, thin sword. My sword almost wilted. “He probably measured our dicks and—”
“Decided that I didn’t need to overcompensate,” I snarled.
“You’re fast, graceful, and cunning,” Ezekiel interjected, gently. “You haven’t the strength to swing a scimitar.” At Lysander’s smirk, he added, “And Crown hasn’t the speed for your sword. This lesson is about working out your strengths.” All of a sudden, Ezekiel swept closer to Lysander. He looked as ancient as I knew he was and a truly righteous angel. “Oh, and it’s tipped with iron. It’ll hurt like a bitch if it even grazes a fae.”
Lysander shrank back. “You can’t do that.”
Ezekiel’s lips curled into smile. “And yet look, I have. I’m only making things fair. Surely your royal personage isn’t frightened?”
Lysander’s face smoothed into a haughty mask, as he strolled closer to the windows and into fighting stance. “One is never frightened.”
I snorted. Royal liar.
I slunk after him, holding up the sword like a snake. What happened when you struck a fae with iron? I was hoping that he’d start singing and dancing the “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” song.
Lysander eyed me. “Don’t slow me down today. I’m aware that you Immortals don’t take training seriously but I do. It’s the only time that I’m allowed a sword in my hand and to feel like…” His face was strained as he looked down. “From the time that I was a boy, I was never parted from my weapon.”
I bit my tongue from the obvious joke because Lysander had never spoken so many words to me that weren’t insults, and I knew that it pained him now to speak to a lowly incubus. This must be important, so I didn’t want to be a dick.
I nodded.
Lysander finally let out a breath of relief. “I’m glad that we can work together on this. My guardian, Prince Titus, expects me to train hard and a prince doesn’t let down their elders.”
“I know, just everybody else.” My palms were sweaty on the hilt of the sword; I circled Lysander.
Lysander was so rigid that he could’ve been a puppet. “My uncle—”
“Got Hector killed.”
“My uncle got me locked up,” Lysander growled.
He lunged, and I dived to the side, escaping his blow, but then he twirled around cracking my back with his open palm. When I stumbled, he locked his arm around my throat, forcing me to drop my sword.
“In two moves.” Lysander shoved me away, grinning. “Pick up your weapon.”
Incubi had an old adage, and it went like this: owww…
I rubbed my sore back. Then I snatched up my sword and held onto it more tightly.
How was I supposed to beat somebody who’d been fighting like this since he was a kid?
“No need to be rough,” I grumbled.
“I thought that your kind liked it rough,” Lysander sneered, prowling around me in a way that made the hairs on my nape rise. “You only have yourself to blame for bringing out my bad side. Your stunt at Hecate’s Tree has risked my whipping boy in the Rebel Cup. Do you believe that I wish his wings to be broken?”
I’d once watched Lysander make Midnight, the Princes’ whipping boy, crawl at his heels for the length of the castle. It was a tough call on which way to answer. But there was something about the way that Lysander’s hand tightened, until his knuckles were white around his scimitar, which meant that he didn’t want Midnight to be hurt.
I pouted. “Aw, how sweet that you care.”
Lysander tilted up his snooty nose. “I don’t. Yet one such as me doesn’t have the time to care for a sniveling whipping boy who can no longer fly. Damaged goods are beneath royalty.” I flinched: he meant like me. “That’s why I intend to do anything necessary to win.”
“Do as you wish.” My gaze was steely “But I love my whipping boy, and no one’s killing him.”
Lysander studied me with a look of regret. “Love…? Then I’m sorry…”
He punched me in the nose with the hilt of his sword.
I hollered, falling backward onto my arse (and that’d bruise). I cradled my nose, dropping my sword, as my eyes watered.
“One,” Lysander said, quietly.
Why wasn’t he grinning this time?
“Enough,” Ezekiel bellowed; his wings pulsed a deeper violet in his fury. “And you two, don’t you dare move.”