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He is already stripped down to a heather-gray compression shirt and dark sweatpants tucked into heavy leather combat boots. There’s a broadsword driven two inches deep into the dirt between two stones, vibrating with a faint hum.

“A broadsword?” I ask, intrigued. “Don’t you have claws? What’s the point of that?”

He looks up as the iron door creaks shut. His eyes sweep from the fleece hoodie to the blanket, down to my fuzzy slippers, and his brows draw together in profound disbelief.

"What in the name of the old gods are you wearing?" he asks, his Scottish burr thick with exasperation.

"Comfort," I say, picking my way across the damp stones. "It's called activewear, Lachlan. For people who intend to remain actively stationary."

"You're wearing bedroom slippers to martial training."

"These slippers have orthopedic arch support and memory foam. These are the crowning achievement of all footwear engineering." I march over to a rusted wrought-iron bench set beneath a dead weeping willow, sweep the dry leaves off the slats with the edge of my blanket, and spread it out. “Think we could hire like a gardener or something? I’m not big into plants.”

He sputters, and I try to hide my grin.

I sit down, pull the sides of the blanket around my shoulders, set my coffee carefully on the stone rim of the dead fountain within arm's reach, then crack open the heavy leather spine of the grimoire on my knees.

Kirk immediately hops up onto the bench, circling twice before curling into a tight wooden knot against my thigh, purring sounding just like a coffee grinder.

Lachlan stares at me from ten feet away, hands on his hips, his jaw working as if he's mentally cycling through several centuries of Gaelic profanity.

"Get up off the bench, Vivienne."

"No, thank you," I say politely, turning a vellum page. "I'm good right here."

"We are here to train."

"You are here to train," I correct, waving a finger at his broadsword. "You are the six-foot-eight muscle-bound gun show. I am the academic researcher. I will sit here, drink my caffeinated calories, and observe your technique. Perhaps I will absorb hand-to-eye coordination through osmosis."

"Through osmosis," he repeats, deadpan.

"It's a biological phenomenon. Look it up."

He stares at me.

I smile at him and sip my coffee.

Kirk purrs like he’s making woodchips.

"You have a trial in twelve days at House Sanguine. Julian St. George has been drinking the blood of political dissidents since the French Revolution, and you think you're going to survive by reading a book in your slippers?"

He steps closer, and I feel my cheeks get hot from the sheer magnitude of his presence, which frankly, is annoying and more than a little distracting.

“The Eternal Society respects only one thing, Vivienne, and it’s not fucking scholars.” His voice is a low rumble, his eyes narrowed at me. “They’ll smell fear on you. They’ll try to break you. If you want to walk out of the Sanguine House alive, you can’t play the victim. You need to become the monster.”

"Lachlan, look at me." I lower the grimoire an inch, peering over the top of the cracked binding. "If an elder vampire gets close enough to me that footwork matters, you have already failed at your literal only job, and I am dead. My only practical survival skill is unmaking things with my brain and screaming. If I do cardio, I will simply die tired. And frankly, I would prefer to look devastating when I croak. Under-eye bags do not fit the formal attire, I fear."

A muscle in his cheek ticks. For several moments, he looks like he wants to march over, throw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and toss me into the fountain.

I’ll bite him if he tries.

Instead, he lets out a long sigh.

"Fine," he grinds out, reaching down and ripping the broadsword from the earth. "Sit there, then. Stay soft. But when the time comes to pull the magic, you don't complain about the burn."

"I never complain," I lie smoothly. “Not once in my life have I ever complained. Zero complaining. Nada. Zilch.”

"You're a menace, woman."