Chosen One (Forever Evermore #6)(62)
He didn’t have the grace to wince. “I never said I play fair,” he drawled, but his gaze narrowed. “Stay out of that individual’s bed, too, please.” Nicely put, if he didn’t have a merciless gleam in his gaze.
Lord. Elder Merrick had two threats on him. Sin and Leric. If I were him, I would be fucking running. Yanking on my hair, I only grunted, pivoting to move back through the Elders, staying far away from Elder Merrick on the right hand side. “No worries there.”
“Let’s hope not,” Leric purred.
“Whatever,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead.
“And, Caro, remember…separate bedrooms.”
Elder Farrar held his hands up in front of me, blocking the doorway, smile broad on his face. “Happy mating…or connecting…or whatever it is!” My teeth bared, but he only leaned down whispering merrily as I passed him, “And I’ll be happy to be your Lajak.”
Lord…help…me.
Separate bedrooms, my ass.
Inventive thinking, a must.
Especially when Leric came by my room that night, peeking his head inside with barely contained fury, nodded once, let me knock him back—I was sure he let me—outside the room where I firmly locked the door, went back into my bedroom, shut and locked that door from my guards, then opened a window, having Sin sneak inside like a damn teenager, which pissed both Sin and myself off, but neither of us were up for the fight against Leric that evening, so we crawled into bed next to each other, snuggled into our normal places against one another, and fell asleep.
Although, it didn’t help a damn lot when I had bad dreams that night…and woke up the next morning beside Leric…apparently, having called out to him in my dream state. Growling furiously, I had marched out of the bedroom, bared my teeth at King Zeller where he stood in the morning shadows when he had snickered in my ear, giving me a jaunty wave, then slipped back into bed with Sin before he even knew I had been gone. And the ironic part was I was betting my bad dreams were about my damn One in the first place, stressed as I was.
So…it was safe to assume I wasn’t in the best of moods when I had to get up not five minutes later for the pre-dawn-damn-training-bullshit…fuck.
And today, after the matches of yesterday to determine our strengths and weaknesses, we were put in groups to work on those. My jaw almost dropped when they said I needed to work on my hand-to-hand combat skills. “Are you joking?” I was damn deadly with my hands.
King Collins shrugged a shoulder. “Now that you and the One are connected, your power level shouldn’t be an issue. And since we’ve seen you use swords, we know you’re proficient. But every time we’ve seen you fight hand-to-hand,” blue eyebrows wiggled, “it could use some refining.”
My power level was still an issue, and I said as much. “My Core can only handle so much power, even if I can continue to draw from Leric. I knocked myself out yesterday using my own bit of power from inexperience. I need to work on that, not learning how to bash someone’s head in differently.”
Queen Cooper had stared pointedly. “There’s no one here to teach you that. We don’t know your skills. Your powers. So, we’ve set up a time slot after breakfast for you to work with Frost and Farley to hone those spirit powers in private.”
Ah. Dammit. “This sucks.” But they were right. I couldn’t tell them what I could do, so it meant even more time spent training. “Who am I being paired with?” Since all three of my counterparts didn’t have to do this bullshit, even London getting a passing grade on his hand-to-hand combat.
King Collin’s lips pinched. “Our best fighters.” His brows came together as he rubbed his forehead. “Elder Zeller and Elder Merrick.”
I blinked awfully slowly. “No.”
My King sighed heavily, hopefully rethinking the stupidity of this action.
“Yes.” King Zeller quickly placed a hand on my shoulder, shoving me in the direction where Elder Zeller and Elder Merrick stood in the corner speaking quietly. “Don’t worry, Bindi’s on her way.”
I glared over my shoulder. “Not funny.”
Black arched brows lifted. “Not a joke.”
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath and sighed heavily before lifting my hair up into a tiny ponytail when my King didn’t relent, trudging toward two individuals I sure as hell didn’t want to be near. Elder Zeller…was just scary. And Elder Merrick…I had managed to avoid yesterday. One frightened me; the other pissed me the hell off. Even if I wanted to kick Elder Merrick’s ass, I wasn’t quite ready for it yet mentally.
I stood in front of them while they ignored me, still speaking quietly to one another. I crossed my arms over the freaking black sports bra I was wearing, and waited. Waited longer. Then, waited even more as calculating dark orbs and frigid navy blue eyes turned toward me. Not to look me in the eyes, but both scanning my person slowly, professional assessments before they started circling me slowly. One went one way, the other in the opposite direction, making me feel even more self-conscious as they continued to peruse every inch of me with trained eyes.
Elder Zeller still studying me, poked, and then pinched my bicep. “She needs to be eating more.”
Elder Merrick grunted from behind me, and I barely kept from jumping when his hands landed on my flesh on my sides, slowly running his hands down the flare of my hips. “She’s got a good structure, though, for as small as she is.”