Chapter 41.
908 Words
The training ring was a circle of packed earth and frost, a stark arena where the air tasted of iron and exertion. Fenris didn't bring the silver dagger today. Instead, he carried two wooden trainers- blunt, weighted pieces of ash carved into the shape of the blades they were meant to mimic.
"The silver is for killing," Fenris said, his voice dropping into that low, instructional register that made the hair on Rhiannon's neck stand up. "This is for learning how to live long enough to draw it."
He tossed her the wooden knife. She caught it, the weight unfamiliar and clumsy compared to the elegant balance of the silver garter.
"In a real fight, the men from the south will not wait for you to find your center," Fenris continued. He began to pace, his movements fluid and predatory, his eyes locked on hers with a focused, blue intensity. "They will crowd you. They will use their weight to smother your magic. You have to find 'the gap'- the half-second where they overextend, where their balance shifts, or where they think they’ve already won."
He didn't give her a warning. He lunged.
Rhiannon’s fight-or-flight response spiked, the static in her head screaming as his massive frame blotted out the sun. She reached for the wooden hilt at her thigh, but Fenris was already there. He didn't strike her, but his body slammed into hers, his shoulder pinning her arm against her side before her fingers could even graze the wood.
The friction was total. She was trapped between the cold stone wall of the arena and the furnace-heat of his chest. The smell of cedar and fresh rain overwhelmed her, and for a heartbeat, the city shadows flickered in her vision.
"Dead," Fenris whispered, his face inches from hers. "You waited for the draw. You didn't watch the gap."
He stepped back, releasing the pressure. Rhiannon gasped for air, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm.
"You’re too fast," she hissed, her frustration bubbling over. "How am I supposed to draw a weapon when you’re already on top of me?"
"By moving with me, not away from me," Fenris countered. "Again."
The next hour was a blur of physical frustration. Every time Rhiannon tried to reach for the trainer, Fenris intercepted her. He blocked her path with his hips, caught her wrists with his massive, calloused hands, or simply leaned his weight into her until she was forced to focus on staying upright rather than fighting back.
It was an intimate, grueling dance. She felt the rasp of his vest against her knuckles, the hardness of his thighs against hers as they struggled for position, and the rhythmic heat of his breath. The proximity was a test of her resolve, forcing her to realize that being close to him didn't mean she was being broken.
"You’re thinking about the knife," Fenris growled after he successfully pinned her wrists for the tenth time. He was breathing hard now, the wolf close to the surface, his eyes rimmed with that dangerous gold. "Stop thinking about the knife. Think about the space between us. Find the moment I commit to the strike."
Rhiannon wiped the sweat from her brow, her jaw set. The static in her head began to change- it wasn't a scream of panic anymore; it was a hum of calculation. She watched him. She stopped looking at his face and started looking at the tension in his lead foot, the slight dip of his shoulder.
Fenris moved again. It was a high strike, designed to make her flinch and cover her head.
This time, Rhiannon didn't pull away. She stepped into the strike, ducking low and pivoting her hips just as Fenris’s momentum carried him forward. For a split second, his side was exposed- the gap.
Her hand blurred. The wooden hilt slid into her palm with a satisfying thwack.
In one fluid motion, she rose, her body pressing back against his as she drove the wooden tip upward. She didn't go for his side or his gut. She aimed for the center of his strength.
The wooden blade hit his chest with a dull thud, right over his heart.
They both froze. The momentum of the hit forced Fenris to take a half-step back, his lungs hitching as the blunt wood made contact. Rhiannon was breathing in jagged bursts, her hand still white-knuckled on the hilt, her body vibrating with the sheer audacity of the tag.
Fenris looked down at the wooden tip pressed against the crimson wool of his tunic. He looked back up at her, and the gold in his eyes flared- not with hunger this time, but with a fierce, unadulterated pride.
"There it is," he murmured, his voice thick with a strange emotion. "The gap."
He didn't move away. He stayed right there, the wooden knife still marking his heart, acknowledging that for the first time, she had found the way through his armor.
Rhiannon didn't pull back. She stood her ground, the weight of the trainer in her hand feeling like the most natural thing in the world. She had tagged the Alpha. She had found the rhythm.
"Again," she said, her voice a low, steady challenge.
Fenris laughed- a short, dark sound of approval. "Again."
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