Nix. (Den of Mercenaries Book 3)(38)

He shrugged, as if to say still wrong.

Before she could question him, he plucked one of he knives free, and faster than she could keep up with, he launched it across the room. But his didn’t fly end over end, rather straight like an arrow until he hit his mark.

No tricks, he wrote, just precision.

“I’m not trying to do any tricks,” she grumbled as she glared at the paper—easier than glaring at him—picking up another blade. “This may be easy for you, but it’s hard for me.”

Luna wasn’t understanding what she was missing.

T?cut did make it look easy, but so did Kit, and she was sure the others could do the same thing should they need to.

He scribbled another word.

Watch.

Taking his advice, she studied his every move, silently appreciating the slowness in which he moved, allowing her to study exactly what he did.

He didn’t hold it by the handle for one, but rather held it blade first, with little care that he would cut himself despite how sharp she knew they were. And when he threw it, as the blade left his hand, his arm was straight.

Easy enough.

At least until she tried again, only managing to nick her hand, and hers landed on her growing pile on the floor.

T?cut tapped his fingers against the table, seeming at a loss for words as he tried to understand what wasn’t working. After a moment, he tore off the written on sheet, crumbling it into a ball as he tossed it over his shoulder. On the new sheet, he wrote something else.

Who do you hate?

She thought he would know that answer, but then thought better of it because how would he know? It wasn’t as though she spoke to him beyond casual greetings. Of course, Kit could have told him, but Luna didn’t have a chance to think on the possibility before he was tapping the page again.

“A man named Lawrence.”

Nodding once, he started around the table, traveling to the other end of the room where the targets were. Still holding that black marker, he scrawled something on the paper, but his body blocked her view.

It wasn’t until he took a step away did she finally see what he wrote.

There was now a speech bubble to the right of the target’s mouth, and inside were three words.

I am Lawrence.

He had even gone as far as to include little horns sprouting from its head.

Had T?cut not looked so serious, she might have laughed.

Once he was next to her again, he wrote, kill him.

She looked from him to the target, palming another knife. This time when she threw, she put as much strength behind it as she could.

It didn’t hit the target, or even close to any of the circles, but it did stick, and when it didn’t immediately drop, she smiled.

Progress.

Luna looked over at T?cut. She didn’t know what she was expecting—a smile, maybe, or even a nod of acknowledgment, but he offered neither.

Instead, he handed her another knife with a nod of his head back to the target.

Practice wasn’t over.





Chapter Eleven





Luna wasn’t sure when it happened, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she was now very much aware of Kit. Not because he was constantly around—rather she started to notice more about him other than the fact that he was the brother of the man that bought her freedom.

She noticed the way his smile started in one corner of his mouth until spreading across his face—or even how his eyes crinkled when he did.

And as days and weeks passed her by, she thought less and less of where she had been, and more about the man she was currently under the care of.

Luna was careful not to change her behavior around him, though she sometimes realized too late that she was staring.

Worse, he always caught her.

But, thankfully, he had never called her on it—though she was sure there were a few times that she saw a hint of a smile on his face.

“What are thinking about?” Fang asked, interrupting her thoughts.

Though he was usually off with Aidra or doing something for Kit, today he was with her for training.

Luna had long since stopped questioning who would be training her on what day. For the most part, it was Kit who spent more hours than he didn’t with her whether in the gym, target practice, or whatever else he could think of.

Maybe that was another reason why she couldn’t stop thinking about him—he was always there.

“Nothing,” she answered, pushing herself up to a sitting position, wiping sweat off her forehead.

Though he was the friendliest, he seemed determined to work her to death inside the gym. Physical exercise seemed to be his favorite as he moved her from a treadmill, to pushups, just before he had her propped on her side, keeping her body parallel to the ground.

“Don’t worry,” Fang said popping to his feet. “Boss will be back tonight.”

“I wasn’t—” Luna was quick to deny, but Fang raised a hand at her.

“Aidra gets that look on her face when she thinks of me.”

“And what look is that, exactly?”

He cleared his throat, the corner of his lips tugging as though he were fighting a smile. “Usually when we’re about to f*ck.”

“No!” Luna said a little too loudly. “That wasn’t what I was thinking about at all.”

Even if she had, she wouldn’t be thinking about that around Fang. Especially around Fang—of the four, he seemed to be the most blunt when he spoke.