by Emma Dean
She took a step closer to him as the world around them darkened when the sun sank below the horizon. Mika wondered how long it would take her to feel comfortable in the forest again. “Then why are you?” she asked, unable to hide the irritation in her voice.
The conversation was going around in circles and Mika wanted—needed answers before she went completely insane. She wanted to know if she should care what the captain thought at all, if she should move on with her life, or try harder to connect with him.
If there was something else going on Mika couldn’t do anything about it, or help, until she knew what it was.
“I recently found out who my father is,” Malachi murmured.
Mika tried not to think about the fact that he’d waited until they’d fully entered the forest to tell her. Did he think the raven was gone? Did he know something about the forest that Mika did not?
She really needed to get her ass moving on those enchantment books.
“And?” Mika moved even closer until they were walking through the trees with her shoulder pressed against his arm.
“I’m not allowed to tell you.”
Mika stopped in her tracks and turned to face Malachi. He grimaced when she narrowed her eyes at him. “There are other ways for me to find out.”
She could ask his blood just as she had Patricia’s. And parentage? Blood loved giving that secret up the most, at least from what she’d read.
Malachi paled at that – she had never seen someone with skin that dark…lighten that way. It worried her even more. “Don’t,” Malachi practically hissed, grabbing her arm.
Ripping out of his grip was more for his benefit than hers, but Mika didn’t like how rough he’d been. Malachi was truly scared.
“You’re not alone,” she whispered, searching his face for some kind of explanation to his behavior. “I can help you.”
Then his large hands wrapped around her biceps and squeezed. Malachi pressed his forehead against hers, lips so close she thought he might kiss her for a second. “Don’t you understand?” he whispered. “It’s you they want.”
Mika jerked out of his grip and studied Malachi closely. His words could mean anything, but she seriously doubted it. “I can help,” she insisted.
He smiled sadly at her and shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” Malachi reached out like he was going to caress her face, and then thought better of it. His hand dropped and Mika ached at the space between them.
Malachi turned and walked through the forest toward Mandrake House.
She watched him go, wondering who exactly was threatening him, and what that had to do with his father.
“Well, well. Looks like you might be in danger after all,” Corbin murmured from directly above her.
Mika looked up at the tree above her to see Corbin sitting on one of the branches, a leg dangling down. “Appears so,” she said mildly. “Maybe you should do a better job of protecting me. Find out who it is and stop them before it happens.”
Corbin smiled down at her, but it was as dead as his eyes. “Clever witch, getting me to do your dirty work for you through the Council’s decree.” He dropped down and landed deftly on his feet, like it had been a foot instead of twenty. He closed the distance between them and stared down at her like she was some kind of strange specimen he didn’t understand. “I have to admit, I like it.”
She didn’t dare breathe. There was something off with Corbin and she had no idea what it was. Perhaps…perhaps she could get him to open up to her during one of their late night training sessions.
“Come on,” Corbin said, heading toward Oleander House. “Chicken parmesan sounds delicious right about now.”
17
“You’re stance is decent, but your core is weak.” Corbin eyed her from head to toe and Mika gritted her teeth.
If his training wasn’t so important she would snap back at him like she usually did during the day, but when he was her instructor Mika never opened her mouth except to ask for clarification or help. He deserved as much respect during their training sessions as she could muster. The most effective way for Mika to do that was to keep her damn mouth shut.
Corbin had noticed the difference in her demeanor immediately and had even commented on it the first time – trying to get her to snap at him like she usually did.
Some days she thought she was insane for agreeing to this. But it was impossible to pass up training from a raven. It would give her an edge that no one else could ever really gain unless they somehow had their own raven to help them.
But the assassins never trained outsiders. They rarely even spent time with the rest of the paranormals, let alone the humans, unless they were doing a job. Train anyone in their secrets and they would no longer be the best of the best.
They weren’t as strong as the larger shifters, but that wasn’t what made them so deadly.
“You need to add more core exercises to your morning workouts,” Corbin told her. “It’ll make everything a lot easier. What most people don’t realize is the muscles here and here,” he said, smacking her bicep and thigh. “Don’t do all the work. It’s here and here.” Another smack on her stomach and then her back.
Mika instantly fixed her stance, concentrating on those muscles and breathing from her diaphragm. Three years of doing absolutely nothing had weakened her body more than she’d ever realized before – even in her hunting class.
Corbin’s instruction was brutal and efficient – much like Hunter’s had been for her magic.
“Now take this.” He tossed her the sword she preferred in her hunting class.
Mika caught it and eyed it suspiciously. “Do assassins learn swordplay?” she asked, settling into her stance.
The raven walked around her then, eyeing her stance, adjusting her with tiny barely there touches. “We learn everything.”
Mika had honestly expected him to teach her knife play, maybe guns? But not this.
“Lucien doesn’t use his full strength with you,” Corbin muttered. “Which isn’t doing you any favors.”
Biting her tongue against a retort was more difficult this time. Lucien never went easy on her.
“You’ll never be as fast, or as strong as a shifter or a born hunter,” Corbin told her, nodding his approval of her current stance. “But you can be better.”
He picked up a sword that was exactly the same size as Mika’s. She watched him flip it around like it weighed nothing, and then he crouched down in a stance much different than hers, more…feral.
It was hard to explain, but the way he held it over his head with one hand and how he put most of his weight on his back foot really made her notice the way his tattoos were so black they seemed to shine under the starry sky. The moonlight was always kind to him and it seemed to make his green eyes glow.
Even after chicken parmesan his look was completely dead. Mika wondered what had changed. At some point since her grandmother’s funeral he’d turned his emotions off. If she was unsure before, now it was undeniable. Mika had something to compare his previous behavior with.
There was no teasing, no little smiles, no prying questions. Corbin was nothing more than what he was supposed to be, and for some reason it made her heart ache.
Another nod and she attacked like he’d told her to. Corbin had noticed she preferred to wait to be attacked, but he wanted her to learn how to neutralize the threat before it got the best of her.
Their swords clashed, but Mika’s barely touched Corbin’s for a split second before he whirled around and slapped her back with the flat of his blade. It hurt too. She practically snarled, but Mika clamped down on the anger that rose up.
He didn’t want her getting emotional either.
The raven had told her that relying on anger for strength was a weakness. She had to know what she was capable of – always. She had to stay cool and collected if she wanted to win the fight. Let the opponent make the mistake.
And to Corbin, emotions were what made g
ood fighters die – emotions made them sloppy and left them open for attack, they left them vulnerable.
She turned and followed him across the roof of Oleander House, pressing the attack as best as she could. But holy hells he was fast. The sound of their blades was oddly soothing as she concentrated on keeping her core strong and her breathing even – that was what Corbin wanted her to improve on first.
Apparently mastering that alone would give her an edge. And as she watched him dodge her every attack, barely even trying, she could see why. He wasn’t even sweating yet and he wasn’t breathing hard.
Mika had a feeling that’s how he disappeared, but he hadn’t taught her that little secret yet, and she doubted he ever would. It was what gave the assassins such an edge after all. They simply…disappeared.
Then he flipped his sword and caught it by the hilt so that the flat of it rested against his forearm, essentially becoming an extension of himself as he suddenly turned on her, forcing her to dodge and weave and move in ways she rarely ever did.
Every muscle screamed in protest but Mika breathed through it and kept her core strong as she narrowly avoided the cut to her cheek.
Corbin was beautiful like this. He was savage and deadly and graceful. Every step was silent as death. Every move of his body was just the bare minimum – no wasted effort and energy. It was efficient and wicked fast.
Mika tried to get back to attacking him but all she could manage was a block here and there, dodging was safer with the strength behind his strikes. She used everything she’d ever learned as a hunter and a dodgeball player to avoid the little cuts Corbin usually left her with.
A reminder to do better next time he’d said, and then had told her it was much gentler than what he’d received for a mistake. Mika hadn’t asked him to elaborate.
One twist and flip got her over his sudden whip to her knees, but he brought the blade up and Mika let herself fall, using her new strength to drop into a pushup position. The wind whistled and she moved left, narrowly avoiding another cut.
“Good,” Corbin muttered. “But breathe through and use all your senses. Stop panicking.”
She was definitely panicking, but Mika didn’t know what else to do.
“Stop being afraid of pain,” Corbin demanded, louder this time as he whipped the sword around, barely missing her as she flipped backward.
Mika was running out of roof.
“Listen for my heartbeat, for my breathing, for the sound of the blade cutting through the air and displacing the molecules. Breathe and remember your body is strong. It can do what you ask of it.”
Corbin could be oddly inspiring and aggravating at the same time. Mika gritted her teeth and reminded herself she was strong. She listened as she parried, and froze when she realized she could actually hear his heart beating.
Slow and steady and strong.
Then his blade cut her inner thigh and Mika hissed in a breath.
“Any deeper and you’d bleed to death.” Corbin stopped and flipped the blade into the usual position once more. “That vein in your thigh…”
“Yes, I know,” Mika snapped, wiping the sweat out of her eyes. She slicked the hair back that had escaped her ponytail and let herself take a moment to catch her breath. “I know which veins to hit.”
Corbin tilted his head in that way he did – it reminded her of his bird form which she would never admit she admired. “A witch who knows her poisons isn’t that unusual, but a witch who knows how to physically kill is odd.”
Mika walked over to the same table that she’d mixed Audrey’s Name Day ingredients on and grabbed her water. She took a swig and eyed where she’d done the pentagram. There was still a bit of residual power, but the markings were gone thanks to a cleansing spell she’d done.
“The Marshall clan emigrated from Norway,” she told him. “We’ve always been warriors.”
Corbin’s eyes didn’t turn red, but the green seemed to shine brighter. “Vikings then.”
She nodded and took another sip. “We went all the way west and settled in San Francisco during the gold rush. We’ve been trained as hunters since we came to America; it’s not normal, but it’s also not that weird. There are quite a few witch hunters.”
Corbin eyed the sword in his hand and then tossed it onto the ground next to the other weapons he’d brought up. “Hunters don’t usually know the easiest way to kill. They’re more like officers of the law than they are killers.”
Assassins, he meant.
“Yeah, well, my family has never been normal.” Mika set the water bottle onto the table and glanced up at the moon.
How much of what her family taught each generation was because of their history, and how much of it was because they’d never truly wanted to lose their heritage and the Old Ways? Why didn’t they come right out and say it?
‘By the way, these matriarch jewels are blood stones’, or something along those lines.
But then Mika remembered. Blood witches were once as common as healers – rare, but just as respected. Then suddenly…they were gone and there was no record as to how or why. Only a few blood magic spells. Most of the more advanced ones were locked away or destroyed.
Even those didn’t have everything that her own books had, books that Hunter had given her from his own source. Books that made her feel like less of a monster.
“Tell me something,” Corbin said, getting closer. “Why have you never asked for your blood crystals back?”
Mika dabbed at her forehead with a towel as she studied Corbin. Her necklace was still around his neck. She could see the slight bulge under his white, button down shirt. What those crystals were could be the answer to every question she had.
But Mika had wanted to see what Corbin would do with them.
Every night he took the necklace off and studied them, based on the outline she could see through the wall thanks to her watch, but then he just put them back on. Never once did he try to open them, or find out what they did.
It was odd.
Mika looked up at Corbin and tilted her head. Not quite the same way he did, but close. “Why haven’t you given them to the Council?”
“Were you testing me?” he demanded, taking a step closer.
Smiling slightly she tossed her towel on the table. “I don’t even know what they are or what they do. Giving them to you cost me nothing and gained me everything.”
Those eyes burned up all the green and glowed a red so bright and yet dark they rivaled her rubies. Mika took a step forward and mirrored the same movement Corbin had done back in her bedroom. She slid her finger under the titanium chain, barely brushing against his silky tattooed skin as she tugged the necklace from underneath his shirt.
Her finger slid down toward the crystals, and Mika’s knuckles brushed against his chest ever so slightly. She ignored the way his heart sped up just the littlest bit and focused on the tingle of power coming from the crystals.
It leeched into her fingertips until they felt like they were humming as well, but Mika didn’t feel her volatile deadly magic rise up and try to take over. Rather it seemed to settle in the presence of the crystals.
“How did it gain you everything?” Corbin asked, voice slightly hoarse.
Mika looked up and finally she saw something in his eyes. “Because I know you won’t betray me, at least not in this. It’s too closely tied to whatever it is you know that I don’t. The Morrigan is sacred to you in ways I can’t even begin to understand. So that means you know what this is to some degree, and what it means.” Mika rubbed her thumb along the column of the largest crystal.
“I might,” Corbin admitted. “But it would just be an educated guess.”
“I trust you,” she murmured, watching as tiny flickers of emotion went by in the depths of those gorgeous red eyes. “To keep them safer than I ever could right now.”
“And not your rubies?” he asked. Corbin tried to hide his doubts behind a smirk, but Mika could read him just like she could Hunter.
“My rubies are precious family heirlooms and protected by some pretty badass enchantments. But if you wanted to wear those as well I wouldn’t stop you.” Mika released the necklace and the crystals hit his chest with a dull ‘thump.’ “I doubt anyone would be able to take them from you.”
His red gaze flared as she turned away, not taking the necklace back from him. “You certainly are a conundrum, dove.”
It was the first time he’d used that nickname in a while and Mika wished she could figure him out more. Corbin was hot and cold and generally confusing. Her attempts to win him over were causing them both a lot of emotional whiplash.
Mika glanced over her shoulder at him. The raven was numbly tucking the necklace back into his shirt like he didn’t know what else to do. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, knowing he could hear her.
That sharp gaze whipped to her. “For what?”
Turning back to face him she grabbed her sword again. “For making this all harder.”
For making a raven feel.
Mika hadn’t realized what would come of turning him. But now they were both mired down in this confusing conflagration of emotions. If he couldn’t decide soon it would take them both down when the Council finally demanded real answers.
“Will you show me that trick with the blade across your forearm?” she asked, steering them back onto safer ground. “I may never be as strong as the hunters like you said, but I do want to be better.”
The red settled back to green and Corbin smirked for real this time. “Of course you do.” And with that his hand directed hers through the motions over and over until Mika got it, but neither of them were quite ready to move onto the next step.
Whatever this was between them was dark and addicting and dangerous and neither of them really knew how to pull back, how to stay away. The line that designated him as her bodyguard and potential assassin and nothing more, was fading.
And neither of them was ready to admit it.
