“Someone you know?” Cian asked from the doorway.
She barely spared him a glance. She was using her feet now as well as her hands. Side kicks, back kicks, double jumps. She’d worked up enough of a sweat that her breath was short and choppy. “Tenth-grade algebra teacher.”
“I’m sure she deserves a good hiding. Ever found a use for that? The algebra business.”
“Not a one.”
He watched her get a running start, and hit the bag with a flying kick that nearly snapped it off its chain. “Nice form. Oddly, I see Larkin’s face on that bag.” He smiled a little when she stopped to catch her breath and gulp down water. “I just passed him going down. He looked annoyed—a rarity for him, as he’s an affable sort, isn’t he?”
“I bring annoyance out in people.”
“True enough. He’s a likable boy.”
“I like him okay.”
“Hmm.” Cian crossed over to pick up several knives, then began to throw them at the target across the room. “When you’ve been around humans as long as I have you recognize traits and signals. And, if you’re me, you have a curiosity about their choices. So I wonder why the two of you don’t just have at each other. Dangerous times, possible end of days, and so on.”
Her back went up, she could literally feel the shift in her spine. “I don’t just roll with any guy who’s handy—if it’s any of your business.”
“Your choice, of course.” He walked over, tugged out the knives. When he came back, he handed them to her in an easy, almost companionable gesture. “But I think it’s a bit more than him being in the vicinity and available.”
She gave the knife a testing toss in the air, then hurled it at the target. Hit dead center. “Why this sudden interest in my sex life?”
“Just a study of human reactions. My brother walked out of his world and into this one. The goddess pointed the direction, and he followed.”
“He didn’t just follow the goddess.”
“No,” Cian said after a moment. “He came to find me. We’re twins, after all, and the attachment runs deep. Added to it, he’s by nature dutiful and loyal.”
This time she walked over to retrieve the knives. “He’s also powerful and courageous.”
“He is, yes.” Cian took them, threw them. “The odds are I’ll watch him die. That’s not something I’d choose. Even if he survives this, he’ll grow old, his body will shut down, and he’ll die.”
“Cheery, aren’t you? It could be peacefully in his sleep, after a long full life. Maybe after a last bout of really great sex.”
Cian smiled a little, but it didn’t reach those cool blue eyes. “Whether it’s by violence or nature, the result is the same. I’ve seen more death than you, more than you ever will. But still, you’ve seen more than most humans have or will. And that separates us, you and me, from the rest.”
“We don’t have any choice about that.”
“Of course we do. I know a bit about loneliness, and what can chase it back, even for the short run.”
“So I should jump Larkin because I’m lonely?”
“That would be one answer.” Cian retrieved the knives again, and this time replaced them. “The other might be to take a closer look at him, and at what he sees when he looks at you. Meanwhile, the tension and repression gives you a nice edge. Want to go a round or two?”
“Wouldn’t say no.”
She felt better. Bruised but better. Nothing like a good grapple with a vampire—even one who didn’t want to kill you—to clear the head. She’d just go down and grab something to eat before the evening training session.
But first she was going to stop by her room and rub some of Glenna’s magic cream into the bruises.
She walked into her room, and onto the rise above the Valley of Silence.
“Oh crap. Crap, crap. I don’t need to see this again.”
“You do.” Morrigan stood beside her, pale blue robes fluttering in the wind. “You need to know it, every rock, every drop, every blade of grass. This is your battleground. This will be the stand of humankind. Not the caves in Kerry.”
“So we just wait?”