Darkblood Prison - G.K. DeRosa Page 0,29

steepled his fingers together as his golden irises bounced back and forth between the two of us. “If it was anyone else, Talon, I’d send them packing. But I trust you and your ability to judge character, not to mention your talent as a trainer. How about this—I give you two weeks to work with the girl. If I’m impressed, she can begin training with the squad. Then if all goes well, we’ll have her ten-year sentence commuted to two years with the agency.”

My brows nearly hit my hairline. I had to resist the urge to jump across the desk and wrap my arms around the gruff beast. Instead, I muttered a thank you and waited on Talon to make a move.

He rose and extended his hand to the director. “I appreciate your trust in me, Maxim, and I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Let’s hope not, Talon. The last thing I need is your girl taking out the rest of your squad.”

“My squad?” He cleared his throat to cover the hitch in his voice.

“Well, you didn’t think I’d let her loose on some other unsuspecting squad, did you?”

Talon shook his head, watching me from the corner of his eye. “No, of course not.” He huffed out a breath. “She’ll fit right in.”

I finally pushed myself out of the chair and forced my eyes to the intimidating man’s. “Thanks for giving me the chance, director. I promise I’ll work hard to prove Talon right.”

Maxim released the hard set of his jaw to mutter a barely audible, “Good.” Then he pointed at the door. I didn’t waste another second to scamper out of there.

Chapter Eleven

A week later and my magic was still in hiding. Talon had pulled some of his scariest moves, but for some reason, my brain no longer believed he’d actually hurt me. This bond was ruining everything.

I’d been so desperate I even begged GG to remove the binding spell. My grandfather flat out refused. Apparently, the chance of outing myself as a female warlock was worse than me spending ten years in Darkblood Prison.

“You’re not focusing, Azara!” Talon’s snarl tore me away from my inner musings as I hurled another dagger at the target on the wall.

“Yes, I am,” I growled back, sending another one flying end over end, the sharp whine cutting the air. It pierced the bullseye with a satisfying thunk. “See?” I whirled on him with a smug grin.

“Luck,” he muttered under his breath.

I traipsed toward the target to collect the strewn weapons and begin the tedious exercise again, but Talon stopped me.

“Maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been trying to scare the magic out of you because that’s what worked in the past, but we never tried the more obvious approach.” He glanced at the daggers. “Why don’t you try something easy, like recalling those blades back to you?”

“Okay…” I popped my hands on my hips and cleared my mind, hoping the words to the spell would magically tumble from my lips. I focused at the shiny weapons and envisioned them flying toward me. My brows knitted together, and beads of sweat formed across my forehead. Nothing.

With an exasperated sigh, Talon stomped over to stand beside me. “Why don’t you try ‘venitem armem’?”

The foreign words sounded oddly familiar. “How do you know that spell?”

“I’m not completely clueless to the ways of your magical brethren. Don’t forget most squads are made up of members from each of the houses of Azar. That includes members of the Coven.”

“Right.” He probably learned that little gem from Ella. My half-Fae half-witch cousin was supposedly pretty powerful. I pushed down the uncalled-for twinge of envy the thought provoked and focused on the daggers once more. “Venitem armem,” I called out.

The stupid blades didn’t even twitch.

“Try again but with more feeling this time.”

Feeling… I’d give him feeling. We’ll see how he feels when I punch him in the throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and inhaled a long, cleansing breath like Melzor had taught me before a yoga session. I visualized the words of the spell, and the daggers rising in the air and floating toward me. “Venitem armem, venitem armem.”

A sharp scrape along the floor made my eyes pop open. One of the daggers inched toward me, the blade grinding along the cement. I screeched and jumped up and down, and it clattered to the floor. “Did you see that? Did you see that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I saw.”

I wrapped my arms around Talon’s neck as giddiness