AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t sound so scared,” Cain replies with a smile that has a distinctive edge to it that makes me even more wary.
I raise my eyebrow and give him a challenging look, “Oh, so I shouldn’t be worried about what you’re about to throw at me?”
He chuckles, “No, you should definitely be worried.”
I throw my hands up in the air dramatically, “I knew it, alright old man, what exactly are we doing today.”
“Well, you’re going to be in the air, where you thought that you would be, but instead of fighting against me, you’re going to be dodging, shielding, and fighting back with magic. I’m going to fire some energy balls at you, and at first all I want you to do is dodge them. Once you’ve got the hang of that, I want you to send them back to me, and then we’ll work on you firing your own, and then we’ll put it all together.”
“Well, er, that doesn’t sound terrifying at all,” I comment and then take a deep breath as excitement rushes through me, “Right, let's do this.”
Cain smiles proudly at me, “Well done, up in the air then.”
I do as he says, finding my balance quickly, and then when his grin widens, I ask, “What?”
“Once you’ve got a good handle on it, I’m going to get you to practice fighting against several opponents at once and see how you do,” Cain throws yet another curveball at me.
“I assume that you’re going to use the others to do this?”
“Yep, although I’m not sure how your Bonded will take that,” Cain replies and then shrugs, “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Without any more notice, he throws a fireball at me and I feel the heat of it on my cheek as I barely manage to move out of the way in time; I’m almost sure that I can smell burnt hair, but before I can even yell at him for it or think about what supe he could be since he has the gift of fire, another ball of magic is shot at me, this time made of water.
I didn’t have time to right myself completely after the last attack and my distraction that I could smell hair, so this blast of water shoots me straight in the stomach with enough force that it has me tumbling through the air, but fortunately not enough force to really hurt me or do any serious damage. I’ve learned my lesson and I move out of the way before I’ve even fully orientated myself and just hope that I’m not in the way of the next blast because, knowing my luck, I would move directly in the path of it instead of away from it.
Thankfully, I do miss the blast of air, which is yet another gift that he shouldn’t have since two is supposed to be the maximum. I’m starting to think that there is so much more to Cain than I ever imagined even after I found out that he was actually a supernatural when I thought that he was a human for all of my life.
For the next couple of hours, that’s my existence, having blasts of magic shot at me, as I try to move out of the way. My movements are clumsy and honestly if I were against a real opponent I would’ve been dead by now. It's frustrating me, but at the same time, I can acknowledge that it is the first time that I’m training by having magic thrown at me while in the air and that I’m not going to be perfect at it straight away no matter how much I want to be.
“Alright, that’s enough. It's getting late, and you kids need some sleep,” Cain shouts up to me, and not a moment too soon, because I’m honestly starting to shake with the effort of keeping myself up here.
It’s damn hard work.
“I’m exhausted,” I say as I land heavily on the floor.
Cain looks at me worriedly, “You should have said that you were getting this exhausted; we would’ve stopped.”
I smile, “Thanks, Cain, but they wouldn’t stop because I’m tired in battle so I don’t want to stop when I’m tired now. Besides, I could do with upping my stamina for this anyway.”
Cain nods, “Yes, you're right. I suggest that you go and get as much rest as possible, you are going to be sore tomorrow.”
I groan. “Oh shit yeah, I forgot about tomorrow.”
“You did really well,” Cain adds.
“You looked really good up there,” Jax says as they all gather around us, all of them sweating and out of breath. I’m not the only one who is pushing myself hard.
I burst out laughing at Jax’s compliment, “Thanks, but no, I didn’t. I looked like a flailing mess who had no idea what I was doing, mostly because I didn’t.”
My words make everyone smile or laugh, and Jax pulls me under his arm and kisses my forehead.
“You’ll get there. Today was only the first day, and you picked up hand-to-hand combat in mid air really quickly. I have no doubt that you’ll do the same with this, you just need a bit more practice, that’s all.” Cain adds, making me feel so much better because honestly, I did feel like I failed at it, and I don’t particularly appreciate feeling like I failed, although I don’t think anyone does really.
“Thanks, Cain,” I reply.
“No problem. Before you all head up to bed, I wanted to ask how you were getting on with that book about Warrior Marks that I gave you and if you had any questions. I thought you would have asked me something by now.”
I wince, and so do Erin and Cole.
