Page 89 of Dark Night of the Soul

I turned to face him, but he was still standing on the porch. I tried to pretend I didn’t notice the way his shirt sleeves were bunched at the elbow showing off muscular forearms dusted with hair. Or the way the collar laid against his neck. Or how the morning light reflected in his eyes making them change from green to gold and back again.

That was the first thing I’d noticed about him when we’d met. The way his eyes could change color based on mood. Flat green when he was furious. Smoldering gold when he—

I cut off that thought. No sense going there.

“It’ll be like the old days,” I said trying to entice him. And trying to convince myself I could recapture those days even though they were long gone. “You know, when Edward made you spar with me.”

“Edward never made me do anything.”

He sounded exasperated which delighted me. With a huff, he stepped off the porch, his boots thumping on the wood.

“For the record, I don’t love this idea,” he said.

“You will, though.” I sounded confident.

He frowned.

“How do you want to do this?” The question came out careful. Like he was trying to decide how not to break me.

“Like we used to.” I thought of all those moments in the workout room back home. The times where he’d insisted on making me learn to defend myself. “You come at me. I defend. Except this time, I’m not going to try to stop it. I’m going to make it happen.”

He gave me a blank stare. He was so good at hiding his thoughts and emotions, I couldn’t tell if he was trying to decide how to get out of this or how to keep me from killing him.

Probably both.

I said, “You told me not to let them win. This is me not letting them win.”

Something shifted in his expression. Understanding. Or resignation.

“Fine.”

He stepped back, putting some space between us. Then held his hands up in a loose guard position. Tension lined his shoulders. He was holding back.

“Not like that,” I said.

“What’s wrong with how I’m doing it?”

“You’re not even trying,” I said.

His jaw flexed in that way that told me I was exhausting him.

“If this is going to work, you have to try,” I added.

“And if you can’t stop it?”

“Then you stop me like you always do. But I don’t think you’ll have to.”

I raised my hands, shifted into a fighter stance. I tapped into that cold place in my brain, letting it flare. Reaching for those violent emotions I’d been trying to suppress.

We circled each other. But he wasn’t into it and he was still holding back.

Then he moved first. Not a full attack. A test. He grabbed my wrist.

The response was immediate. My arm twisted out of his grasp before I consciously decided to do it. My body flowed into a countermove that—

No. Stop.

Pain lanced through my skull—sharp, brutal—as I fought the programming. I stopped the movement. Stepped away. Took a deep breath, blinking against the lingering pressure behind my eyes. My heart hammered.