an opening to hit back. On her other side, Ronin watched, but with her marker thrumming steadily just behind her right shoulder, all she had to do was keep them in front of her to avoid giving them the point.
Ksenia darted her gaze around, sizing up all her options while trying to refrain from any solid decision they might pick up on.
She could dodge and perhaps trip Ronin, run past him and reunite with Astra. She could leap up onto the ledge behind her, which would be tricky but doable. If she chose to go hand-to-hand with them right here, she could beat them—she was pretty sure—but at the expense of giving them another point and not likely to get one of her own.
The one big drawback of the rules of these fights was that you couldn’t win simply by incapacitating your opponent. While physical blows that might knock the other player out weren’t against the rules, they wouldn’t earn you points. Winning required much more finesse and tactical ability.
You had to be aware of what part of their body would earn you a point, constantly aware of where the light appeared on your opponent’s suit. And you had to go for that spot on them while guarding your own marker to ensure they didn’t score on you.
Silver Fangs boasted the added challenge of trying to outwit a pair of wolf shifters with the power of foresight. She just hoped running through all of those decisions was enough to muddle their talent as long as she remained undecided. She had no idea where Astra had gone, but her bond with the other woman told her she wasn’t far. She was watching, waiting for the opportunity to catch them mid-action, because they couldn’t react to two things at once.
“You two assholes think this is going to be easy, don’t you?” Ksenia taunted. “You’ll be crying big old wolf tears after you get beaten by a pair of girls.”
Ryker sneered. “Who says you’re going to beat us? We’ve already scored on you once. And if you think your partner’s going to get you out of this bind, you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” she asked.
Her back hit the wall behind her, but she remembered it being a short wall. She wasn’t sure what was behind it—a broken column, she thought—but she readied herself nonetheless. She also had to remember that if she used her wings, she could only go so high, according to the rules. Wings were allowed for breaking her fall and for leveraging herself out of tight situations, but not for escaping attacks by moving too high for her attackers to reach.
In her mind she felt Astra readying herself and knew it was time to move. She chose a combo attack; she crouched and swept her leg out, but Ronin leaped over the attack meant to trip him. She came out of the crouch as if launching toward Ryker, punching straight at his shoulder where his marker glowed bright red. But rather than follow through, she feinted and did a backward flip up onto the wall behind her.
Ryker and Ronin were both still recovering from dodging her attacks when Astra charged in with a double-whammy—a punch to Ryker’s shoulder which hit clean, his red marker turning green to give her the point. Then she spun to Ronin, whose marker disappeared and reappeared in a new location, thanks to her previous score. But before Astra could register the new location on his left hip, he managed to turn that side away from her.
It was almost as if he already knew where the next marker would show up.
Ksenia growled, then leaped back down to distract the two men. She went toe to toe with Ryker, easily parrying and dodging, then managed a hard blow to his shoulder which threw him off-balance. At her back Astra still grappled with Ronin, letting out a frustrated yell followed by his laughter when she failed to land any solid punches. They managed to extract themselves without any more points being scored, but were back at it only a few seconds later, determined not to let the pair get the best of them.
They went on like that for a couple rounds, barely avoiding attacks until one or the other of the brothers would be in just the wrong place, cornering them and scoring a point before they could even defend themselves. They still managed to keep up, but with considerably more effort and coordination.
Ryker had just scored on Ksenia, putting