by RJ Blain
Somewhere around the four to five month mark, something changed. Kennedy's hands blistered still, although not as often as when we'd first begun the horror show thinly disguised as training.
Samantha watched Kennedy. I watched the elf, and the thousands of repetitious movements clicked, crystalizing into something I could turn into lethal force.
I forgot the names of most of the moves; Samantha didn't care much for naming things, instead doing a single demonstration of what she wanted, slowed down so I could follow, and demanding I mimic it until she was satisfied I could do it a hundred times without error.
Then another hundred.
One of those moves would put my sword in the perfect position to strike along her ribs, a narrow window beneath her elbow she might not be able to defend. The steps she'd taught me, too, subtle motions meant to put me in the best position to resume any one of the countless exercises she'd pushed me through each day.
"It's about fucking time," the elf muttered, straightening her posture.
The opening vanished, and I tensed as her attention turned to me. "What's about fucking time?"
"You finally looked at me like I was the main dish of your dinner. And don't even try to deny it. I see it every time I look in the mirror. I was wondering how many times I'd have to have a damned mage fix Kennedy's hands so I could beat them up again waiting for you to tire of me smacking your woman around."
"You did that to her on purpose?"
Killing my instructor would land me in prison, deserved, although I doubted I'd survive facing off against her. It'd be worth it, however.
Kitten, Destroyer of Worlds climbed up my legs and sank her claws into my shoulder. I howled at the unexpected feline assault, although I somehow prevented myself from flinging her off. "Kitten!" As cats were above reproach, my feline overlady purred and nuzzled my cheek. Torn between fury and melting over her affection, I surrendered and pet her. "Not cool, cat. You're supposed to play with the damned dog and watch, not use me as your personal scratching post."
"She's smarter than you give her credit for," Samantha announced. "Of course, she has no way of understanding I'm goading you into attacking me so we can have our first proper spar. It's pointless to teach you so many wonderful moves without giving you a chance to experience what it's like to face your death. And when you cross swords with me, I promise you'll be fighting for your life, Reed."
I hated elves. I'd only met one, but if other elves shared even a single similarity with Samantha, I'd do my best to avoid them. Elves meant nothing but trouble. Sighing, I returned to the cat and dog bed set out in the front of Samantha's cabin and tied her leash to the post by the door. To ensure Puppy, Savior of Worlds hadn't learned a habit from his feline sister, I tied his leash to the post as well.
I returned to my spot, fighting to keep my expression neutral. "Let me see if I understand this. Unless I fight you, you're going to willfully continue tearing up Kennedy's hands?"
"If you don't, tomorrow, she'll have shredded strips of skin over bloodied ruins of muscle and bone. Not only will I make you watch, I'll give her a few licks. Fresh blood's delicious."
"I hate you," I announced, and had I been anything other than tired, achy, and ready to sleep for the remaining time until I had to attend a damned charity gala event at a museum, I might've had the life in me to sharpen my tone.
I wouldn't waste my breath. I'd need it to do my best to land even one hit on the damned elf.
"On one hand, I'd love if I could be left out of this. On the other, I want to grab a beer and watch her kick your ass for implying I'm too weak to handle her." Kennedy shook out her hand, which bled and oozed in several places. "First, while it hurts like hell, she and her goon of a mage patch it up as good as new before bed. Second, I haven't given up, so kindly do not give up for me."
"I'm not asking you to give up! I'm asking her to not lick your blood off your hand. And don't you even start, Kennedy Young. She scared you so much you wanted to run for the border and kill me for having the balls to hire an elf. We get to share the same bed most nights, but that devil with pointy ears has you so worn out you're asleep before I can even join you."
"That's true. Neither of us have gotten any for months. How have we not imploded already?" Kennedy clucked her tongue and shook her head. "That is a crime. I bet if you give her a good sport, she'll let us go to bed early without sending us straight to the end of our ropes. Honestly, after the first month of this bullshit, I got numb to it. Another day, more hell. It ends in a month, right? Then you have that meeting with that devil and we're both free of the elf, devil, and angel. Honestly, I spend most days looking to the bright side of things."
"Riddle me this, Sammy. Why isn't Kennedy terrified of you anymore?"
"Exposure therapy. She's become numb to it. She might have even adapted to it. I haven't eaten her yet, and she's bled around me every day for weeks. If I was going to snap and eat her, I would've the first time a blister bled."
"That's good to know," I admitted. "That's still not an excuse to hurt her to piss me off."
"You need to be willing to hurt me to fight me, and the only way you're going to be willing to hurt me is if I hurt her or your cat. Honestly, while cats are delicious, yours is unfortunately too cute to kill."
"Unfortunately?"
"For my digestion."
"You disgust me."
"If I wasn't disgusting you, I wouldn't be doing our species any justice. I am an elf, after all. It's one of our few joys in life. Lighten up. One day, you might grow up to be just like me."
I stared at Samantha in horror. Kennedy laughed, adding to my dismay. "Kennedy!"
"What? It's funny. You look like she just kicked your kitten."
"If she even thinks about kicking my kitten, I'll make it my life mission to kill her."
"If I did that, I'd start a cataclysm," Samantha chirped in her sweetest voice. "Tempting, though."
"Reed, if you don't fight her like you mean it, it might be another six months until we get to finally do something together in a bed other than pass out from general exhaustion."
I twitched. "I don't suppose you'll be willing to go into the cabin with our pets while I have a talk with Samantha?"
"Will it be a violent talk?"
"If it means I might get a chance to do something other than pass out from general exhaustion whenever I get near a bed, quite possibly."
"Shout for me when you're done beating a new set of bruises into him, Sammy. I'm going to get these fixed and take a nap. I think I've earned it. You think I've earned it, too, haven't you, Sammy?" Kennedy looked the elf in the eyes and growled, "Haven't you, Sammy?"
Holy hell, I had no idea what had gotten into Kennedy, but I'd never seen anything more glorious in my life. I watched her, holding my breath so I wouldn't interrupt the moment.
The damned elf would probably find some way to quench Kennedy's fire.
"Eat dinner before you sleep or you'll be useless to me after. If I don't disembowel him tonight, I'll even let you two duke it out with the wooden swords. If you both survive tonight, I'll be pleased. A month isn't enough to bring you both up to par, but you'll be close. Playtime's over, children. Off you go, and make sure you do your regular stretches before you sleep. You'll regret it if you don't."
Kennedy huffed, pivoted on a heel, and marched to Kitten and Puppy, scooping both animals up and carrying them into the house. Hooking the door with her foot, she slammed it behind her.
"In case you were unable to translate that, that woman needs to get some action, wants that action with you, and was ready to start making a run at me last month but waited because you're less inclined to indulge in violence than she is. Okay, to be fair, I specifically requested she restrain her bloodthirsty ways until you snapped and attempted to fight me like you mean it."
"I'll cut you a deal," I muttered under my breath, eyeing the cabin in case Kennedy was lurking at one of the windows. To make sure she couldn't read my lips, I turne
d my back and glared at the elf. "I'll fight you on a single condition."
"This is going to be so good. What do you think you're going to win from me, little boy?"
"An engagement ring. You have to pick it so I won't humiliate myself if I happen to survive attacking an elf. Because honestly, I fully expect to be killed and eaten for attacking an elf."
"A wager it is, then. If you land a single blow on me, I will acquire the engagement ring on your behalf and deliver it to you within the next forty-eight hours."
"And if I don't?"
"You will take off the next two weeks of work to be brutally educated on your failings. I will be merciful and acquire the ring, as you simply won't have time to yourself, but you will pay for it in chopping wood when you otherwise would've been doing your human work."
I feared that while Samantha made no mention of killing and eating me, she'd find a way to put me six feet under within two weeks. "And you won't humiliate me with the ring?"
"The better you fight, the better the ring. You draw blood, and that ring will be a jewel even among elves."
I hated being torn between striving to get in a few hits on my damned instructor for hurting Kennedy and wanting to draw blood so I could make a fool out of myself repeating history.
I didn't even know if Kennedy wanted to give marriage a second shot.
"If you kill me, you're responsible for my funeral expenses and will be required to protect Kennedy for the rest of your lifespan. And you're not allowed to kill her to get out of it, either."
Samantha tossed her head back and cackled. "You're the strangest man I've met in my life, and I've been alive a long time. Very well. I agree to your terms. Do your best, little human. No, do better than your best, because that's what it's going to take to face me in battle."
I needed to ask Kennedy to beat sense into me the next time I invited myself to a trouncing. The wooden swords we used would likely keep my injuries to broken bones and bruises rather than dismemberment, but Samantha wasted no time launching the offensive. Her first hit caught me across the ribs, and had she wanted to kill me, she would’ve. The blow knocked my breath out, and to make sure I understood she’d win our fight, she knocked my feet out from under me and sat on my chest.
“This is what your ultimate goal is, Mr. Matthews.” The elf polished her nails on her shirt. “You’re going to have to last longer than a few seconds if you don’t want to have your ass handed to you by an angel.”
“Why do you think I’m going to get into a fight with an angel?”
“Angels only want fair fights. Why else buy you a sword and lessons? She’d violate their conceptions of fairness if she killed you when you couldn’t try to defend yourself. Angels are among the crueler beings. They’re honest. If they aren’t, they fall. But nothing in their twisted code of ethics state they can’t build someone up for the ultimate purpose of tearing them down.”
“Then why would she look into the future to keep me from a premature death?”
“It’s that whole fair fight bullshit. Or maybe she just hates you so much she wants to kill you herself. But you spared that angel from falling. No. Frankly, I believe she hired someone to inconvenience you. Kidnapping you and dumping you in the state you fear and hate the most would count. As long as she didn’t tell them people she hired how to get rid of you, she wasn’t technically lying. She’s meddling, though. I’ve been thinking about it. If she’s falling, some of the odder events in your life could be a consequence of it. An angel could spawn a tornado in hopes of terrorizing—or killing—a couple of annoying mortals. A flock of pigeons would be nothing to her and inconvenience you, as it did. I’ll think about other possibilities later. Anyway, most angels hate our ilk. Consider this: she promised you only the best. I am the best, and angels do not ask me for help. Never forget that.”
“I haven’t. My grandparents loathe my existence. Ever since I was a little, they would leave whenever I came around.”
Samantha patted my cheek. “Don’t be so quick to judge them. They probably didn’t want to know what they’d see in your eyes. That’s the same problem you have, is it not? You haven’t actually looked me in the eyes once since we’ve met. You won’t look into your love’s eyes, either.”
“Habit,” I admitted. “I try not to use my sight.”
“That won’t allow you to ever control it, you know. It’s a part of you. Until you accept everything that it is, you’ll never be able to control it rather than it controlling you. That’s much like what it is to be an elf. Will you control your hunger, or will your hunger control you? Your breed? They never learned control. They embraced their hunger, and they never went beyond embracing it and doing their best to devour the world. Who do you want to be?”
“I thought we were supposed to be fighting.”
“Oh, we will. I’m merely giving you something to consider in the days leading up to your conflict with a devil and an angel, neither of which want the best for you. While angels and devils may fall in love with an individual human, they do not love all humans. Humans are just the pawns of their eternal struggle between law and chaos, good and evil, or whatever you wish to call the forces dividing them.”
“You must hate knowing you’ve wasted months on someone who will probably die within the next month and a half,” I muttered, and tired of her using me as a chair, I rolled and dumped her off. “And I meant what I said. If I get my sorry ass killed, you get to take care of Kennedy and my cat.”
“I see we’ve moved straight to the acceptance of inevitable death phase of things. Do at least try to provide me with some sport.” Samantha scooped up her practice sword, kicked mine to me, and set her stance. “This time, you come at me, and come at me like you mean it.”
The only way I’d hit her was if I swung at her, so I obeyed. I recognized the move she used to block me as one she’d beaten into me. I hopped out of her reach, my eyes narrowing while I watched her move. When she didn’t retaliate, I tried again, swiping my sword at her knee.
She stepped away, light on her feet, moving only enough to evade my blow. Once again, with one of the moves she’d forced into me through repetition, she deflected my weapon.
I tilted my head to the side. “If you swung at me like that, what would happen?”
She chuckled and swiped at me, and while her motion shocked me, my arm moved, my body remembering what she’d taught me. “That,” she replied. “It’s clicking. I’m only using what I’ve taught you, Reed. Every move I used to take you down like you were a rabbit with three legs? I’ve already taught it to you. None of the time I spent on you was wasted. You just don’t know how to use what I’ve taught you. I prefer to teach through experience. Well, now is your time to experience it. And remember, your goal is to hit me. Again, and do it like you mean it.”
After two hours of trying to hit Samantha only to be blocked by the moves she’d taught me over and over again, I wanted to take my sword and shove it so far up her ass she could retrieve it through her nose. Worse, I bored her. I bored her so much she stifled yawns, paid no attention to me, and beat off my advances with one hand while checking beneath her nails for dirt.
I could deal with failure. Honestly, I hadn’t understood what failure truly was until meeting Samantha.
A gentle breeze had nothing on her, I suspected tornadoes feared her and made way, and I wondered if a force on Earth existed capable of tearing her down from her mountain of superiority. She’d tried to teach me a shadow of how she could move.
Compared to her, I flailed. The few times I’d gotten close, she’d graced me with her attention, not that her attention meant anything in the grand scheme of things. Unless I hit her, I’d be her slave for two weeks, and I was certain Kennedy would somehow join forces with the elf to make my life as miserable as possible until I met the elf’s ever-lowering standards.
Kennedy would be doing it out of general frustration, frustration I shared. By the time I made it to the gala, I figured the only people happ
y with life would be my cat and her dog, who lived like royalty as the damned elf refused to accept anything other than the best for our furry charges.
I was convinced they ate better than we did.
I caught my breath. “I don’t know what is more frustrating: that you’re not putting any effort into dodging me or that I have no hope in hell of hitting you.”
“It’s because you have a foundation without anything built on it. Do your best to block me,” she ordered. Samantha slowed her motions, striking at my ribs. I lifted my sword to deflect her, and the wooden blades met with a clack. “You didn’t think about that. At all. You moved because that’s how I taught your body to move. Now it’s time for me to teach you to be more than a braindead male who waves his sword around expecting it to do something.”
I twitched. “Do elves even know how to count past one?”
“Your smart mouth just earned you extra bruises.”
“But where will you put them? I don’t think I have any space available for new bruises, and we have a no face rule. We do not bruise the face.”
“I’m sure I can find a spot or two I haven’t yet bruised.” Samantha lunged for me, aiming her sword at my ribs again. Mid-swing, she redirected her strike towards my wrist. I twisted out of her way, slashing at her upper legs in retaliation. As always, she hopped out of my range. “Your neck isn’t your face, and I haven’t bruised there yet.”
“If you hit me in the neck, I’ll probably die.”
“Damned, fragile humans. Grow another set of arms or something. I need more places to bruise.” To make it clear she’d find some way to beat me, she feinted at me before unleashing one of her harder hits to the back of my calf. I went down with a yelp.
