Dragon Alpha's Special Mate

24. Painful Learning

Sophia

My event planning class is finally over, and I can’t wait to see Ax and start training with him. He agreed to it, and I’m going to hold him to it. I walk out of class and start heading back home when I feel a strange presence behind me.

I quickly turn around, noting nothing out of the ordinary as I look into the sea of faces in the hallway. I pick up my step, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’m being watched until I walk into my house. I sigh when I get in, and go straight to the gym to start warming up.

“Hello beautiful, where are you?” I smile as I hear Ax’s voice in my head.

“In the training room. Waiting for you.”

After about five minutes Ax walks in, and behind him is Rina and Stefani.

“Oh, hello.” I say to them as I stand up and wave.

“I recruited a little bit of help.” He tells me as I walk over and lift up on my toes to give him a kiss. Despite being upset with him this morning, I can’t deny that I’ve missed him throughout the day. Anytime I’m away from him, I miss him.

“And you definitely need it.” Stefani tells me, walking around and taking in my physique.

I’ve always been a little bigger and assumed I’d lose the extra weight as I grew up, but I never did. No amount of dieting has ever helped me shed a pound, and Ax has never made me feel ashamed about it.

However, standing here, under Stefani’s gaze, I’m starting to feel very insecure. My hands instinctively wrap around my stomach, trying to make myself smaller as she continues to study me. Rina and Stefani are built like pro athletes, and so is Ax. I’m definitely the odd one out in this room.

“Hey, what are you kids up to?” I lift my head toward Damari, who’s standing in the doorway with a million-watt smile.

“Teaching her to fight.” Rina says without turning around.

“Right, well. Max, your mother wants you to call her. Sounded important.” Ax turns to look at me, and I nod at him.

“Go, I’ll be fine.” I smile at him, though I really don’t want him to leave. I also don’t want him to keep his mom waiting. It could be important, maybe even something about his Grandma. When he leaves the room Stefani and Rina both start talking about a training program for me, as if I weren’t in here. Finally, Stefani turns toward me with a sigh.

“We’re going to start with defensive moves. I’m sure your magic is strong, but you can’t always rely on it. So, stand here, and hold your hands up.” She stands in front of me, mimicking what I should be doing. I hold my hands like hers when I feel Rina’s hands on me. She adjusts my stance, pulling my elbows higher as Stefani stays in place, watching us.

“Great. Now, I’m going to try to hit you. Use your forearm to absorb, and redirect the hit, ready?”

She models the move, and I mimic it, trying to get my body used to moving in that way.

“I’m ready.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

As soon as she says it her arm moves so fast, and pain explodes in my face. I didn’t even see her hand move! I stumble back, reaching up and grabbing at my face. I pull my hand away, feeling the drip of my blood down my lips as I look at my hand covered in blood.

“Shit.” Stefani says as she rushes over. “You said you were ready!” Rina grabs a rag and holds it up to my nose to help stifle the bleeding as tears spring to my eyes.

“What the f**k did you do?” I hear Ax’s voice roar in the room as he storms over and shoves Rina out of the way. He pulls the rag away to assess my injury before quickly replacing it. He gently takes my hand to put it over the rag to hold it as his expression hardens.

“She was teaching her to block hits! It wasn’t her fault; she said she was ready.” Rina tries to defend Stefani and I nod along.

He takes a step toward Stefani, and I’m sure he’s not really listening to anything they’re saying. All he sees is red, the red coming from my face.

“I did say I was ready.” My voice comes out muffled and congested. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she just broke my damn nose. The pain radiates across my face as Ax glances back at me.

“I’m so sorry.” Stefani’s voice shakes as she tells him, and when he takes another step closer, I grab his arm.

“Please don’t do anything.” I know what’s on his mind. I know what he wants to do to her. But I can’t let him because then she’ll never want to help me train again.

“Everyone out.” He demands, and they don’t waste a second leaving us together. He pulls the rag away, scrunching his face as he takes in my appearance.

He gently touches my nose while I try, and fail, not to wince at the pain. “I’m sorry, sweetie. We’re going to have to go to the medical wing. Your nose is messed up.”

My stomach drops as I run toward my bag and grab my phone, holding up the camera app and seeing it twisted. So not a great start to training.

“She should have moved slower. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, let’s just go.”

I just want to get this embarrassing day over with.

~

It took all night, and we’re finally back home. My nose is patched up; they had to set it back in place and put tape all around me. My eyes are already bruising, and they told me it’s only going to get worse tomorrow. They gave me some painkillers, so I’m at least it doesn’t hurt. In fact, I think I’m a little high from them because everything feels really, really good.

I’m absolutely starving since we missed dinner while waiting, and I go straight to the fridge.

“Sit down, I’ll get us something,” Ax tells me as I make my way to the kitchen table.

“You okay?” I hear Rina say as she walks into the kitchen and sits next to me. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize she was going to hit so hard and fast at first.”

“You’re never going to train her again; I hope you know that.” Ax answers, and I quickly look up at him.

“It wasn’t her fault. I should have blocked the hit or at least tried. I just didn’t expect her to be that fast. I didn’t even see her arm move.”

I don’t want to stop training, despite the medical wing writing me a note out for the next two weeks while I heal. Tage is going to have a field day with this.

As we sit and eat, Rina finally leaves us alone, and it’s the first time all day where I get to truly be alone with Ax. While I’m glad to have this time with him, I can’t stop thinking about not telling him about Hamish knowing about my cold fire. I poke around at my food, and finally set my fork down, looking up at him.

“Everything okay?”

“It’s Hamish, my fire teacher.”

“What about him?” He asks, his demeanor changing as I take in a shaky deep breath.

“I had to work with him for class, and he found out about my cold fire.” Ax stops moving as he looks directly at me, finally taking a drink of his water before leveling me with a look.

“What did he say about it?”

“He thinks it’s cool. He’ll work with me the rest of the semester, so none of the other students will find out.”

“Well, that’s good, right? Maybe he knows more about this than we do. He can help you turn up the heat.” He smiles at me, and I feel a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I don’t know why I thought keeping that from him was a good idea. I can always trust Ax to be on my side.

I pick my fork back up, feeling infinitely lighter as I eat.