A Promise of Fire (Kingmaker Chronicles, #1)(50)

Rubbing my backside, I demand, “Do all men have a thing for spanking?”

Carver wiggles his eyebrows. “Most women, too.”

I huff, although I have heard…

“Ever been spanked before?” he asks.

“Don’t be cheeky.” For some reason, a conjured up image of Beta Sinta trying to smack my naked bottom while I halfheartedly scramble away flits through my much too active imagination. Warmth billows up inside me, singeing my face.

“You have!” Carver grins.

“Not. Answering.” Nope. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Beta Sinta look up.

“There are different kinds of spanking,” Carver goes on, his tone getting friskier by the second.

I press my lips together to keep from smiling. “Enlighten me.”

He shakes his head, looking as if I’ve just confessed to a colossal tragedy. “That must mean you haven’t been spanked enough.”

I’m pretty sure spanking is a metaphor now. “No,” I agree sadly, playing along. “Not nearly enough.”

Before I know it, he’s on my other side, slapping my ass with his sword again. I let out a screech that would make a Harpy proud, swing, and slice air.

Laughing, Carver dances to my right and feints, tricking me into stepping the wrong way, and then hits me again. “I could help you with that. Just say the word.”

He’s flirting again. What a pest. My rear end is a strange mix of numbness and heat. I refuse to be smacked again, so I drop my guard, lower my eyelashes enough to distract, and turn my voice a shade breathy, stepping right into Carver. “With an offer like that, how can I refuse?”

He gapes at me. Clearly, my reciprocating was the last thing he expected. I whip a dagger from my belt and plant it at his groin, pricking just enough to make him yelp. Carver freezes.

I cant my head, saying coolly, “I haven’t been spanked much because I do the spanking.”

Beta Sinta laughs, startling the birds in the branches above. “Carver,” he says. “She just handed you your balls.”

Carver grins. “That’s all right, as long as I get to keep them.”

I can’t help it. I laugh. Carver takes advantage of my distraction and sweeps my feet out from under me. I land on my side, a rock digging into my hip. He leans over, maybe to help me up, but I twist and kick him in the jaw. Not too hard, but hard enough. He reels back, and I jump to my feet, raising my sword. We spar again until he disarms me, sending my weapon spiraling across the clearing. In a blink, his blade is at my heart. I leap away with a series of backflips and then pick up my sword again, ready.

Carver’s eyebrows fly up. “Where’d you learn that?”

“The circus. When Alyssa was pregnant, I used to fill in for her on the tumbling routines.”

Instead of trying to engage me again, Carver sheathes his blade, signaling an end to our practice. He approaches, giving me a bold once-over. “I like a woman of many talents.”

“I think you just like women.”

He gets an odd look on his face, a flash of vulnerability, gone so fast I might have imagined it. “All shapes and sizes,” he magnanimously admits.

I roll my eyes, and he throws a sinewy arm across my shoulders, hauling me against his sweaty side. “You use a sword well enough, but that’ll only get you so far, especially because you’re tiny and weak.”

Frowning, I pinch him really hard.

“Stick to knives,” he says, twisting out of my grip. “Do some magic. Only engage in one-on-one combat if you’re sure you can win.”

In other words, my sword is for show. Sheathing it, I throw his arm off me. “I want to get better with a blade.”

He shrugs. “You have other skills.”

“Men don’t understand discretion. My goal is to survive on my weakest abilities. That saves other talents for when I really need them and doesn’t reveal important skills to any idiot who might be watching.”

Carver laughs. “You and ‘discreet’ don’t belong in the same sentence.”

I pinch him again. His response is to grab me and wrestle me to the ground. I’m pinned in five seconds flat. I know because he counts.

A shadow looms over us. “Go for your swim, Cat.” Beta Sinta doesn’t look amused anymore now that Carver is lying on top of me. “Then I have questions.”

I scowl. He gave me three days, which is actually more than I expected. My mood souring, I toss him a dirty look, wiggle out from under an extremely uncooperative Carver, and then head for the stream. At least I get to bathe alone.

Dry and dressed, I amble back to the clearing, in no hurry to answer Beta Sinta’s questions. Kato came back with two rabbits, and I caught a fish. It kept bumping into my legs, so I snagged it, thinking it must be a gift from Poseidon.

Kato guts the fish and skins the rabbits and then whittles something with his knife while Flynn does the cooking. Carver patrols the perimeter, staying relatively close. I look through my satchel, taking inventory of my possessions and trying to hit Carver with kalaberries from the bush next to me every time he comes near. Beta Sinta must get tired of waiting because he finally pins me with an impatient look and motions for me to join him near the fire.

“It’s time,” he says when I reluctantly plop down next to him. “I want to know about the Fisan royals.”