even paying attention. Please. I let Jason wrap his arms around mine, squeezing tight around my ribs, as I balanced on my toes, pushing back as he tried to tackle me to the ground and found me immoveable. He grunted, snarled in my ear, and pushed and pushed and strained against me.
Azariah laughed. “She’s going to give him a hernia.”
I jumped, pressed my feet to Jason’s knees to unbalance him and then used the momentum to slam him down onto his back. He released me with the smack of his flesh against the rubber and I rolled away, bouncing back up onto my feet in an easy beat.
“One,” I said.
Jason snarled from the floor, twisting and grabbing for my ankles, but I only stepped lightly out of the way and then down onto his back, pinning him to the mat again.
“You wasted that chance. Two. Don’t attack again until you know what your plan is,” I snapped, leaping away and rolling my eyes as he growled on his way up to standing. “Quit thinking of me as a woman you want to teach a lesson to and look at me as your enemy. I could break your neck in a heartbeat. You need to focus.”
For a moment, it looked like my advice was wasted. Jason tensed, ready to spring mindlessly into action. Then he blinked, released a slow breath, relaxed, and took a longer and more studious look at me. Better, good. I even got a nice whiff of Kais’ appreciation from the wall.
Jason jumped forward and I dodged out of his way, pleased when he didn’t look annoyed, just cautious and considering. His heartbeat was hammering loudly enough that I could hear it and the lust was mostly gone from the air, replaced with his determination and also a wary understanding.
He lunged, aiming lower than before, diving and wrapping his arms around my hips, twisting quickly and trying to take me down in his own fall. I pulled free mid-landing, shoving him away with a gentled kick and rolling back to my feet. He huffed and smacked the mat with frustration as I righted myself.
“That was good, actually. I’m smarter and I have better balance than your average hellion. If you had a knife, you could’ve taken the opportunity during the fall to land a blow,” I said.
Jason’s sneer mellowed as he sat up, my praise unexpected. His jaw tightened up at me, ego unavoidably bruised, but he nodded once in acknowledgement.
“You knew from your first attack that she was stronger and faster than you, and you tried something too similar, but she’s right. You got close enough to land a blow,” Kais said, moving to join us, eyeing the rest of the room until bodies returned to their practice positions.
“If I was up against a hellion, they would’ve been armed too,” Jason muttered, standing up from the mat still scowling.
“Some would, others would count on their abilities or their natural defenses,” I offered. I opened my mouth to say more until I felt the slight touch on my back, Kais’ hand resting briefly at the base of my spine as he stepped to my side.
“I saw Deyva take down a demon general while he stood there snarling, totally unprepared,” Kais said.
“A lesser general,” I corrected until Kais gave me one of his perfectly expressive looks. This one said please shut up, Daisy. So I did, sliding back off the mat to join Azariah at the wall.
“Why do I feel like I did something wrong?” I whispered to Azariah.
“I think you just reminded the humans what they’re up against,” Az whispered back. “That even the strongest of them is no match for someone like you.”
“Oh,” I said, frowning.
“But you also reminded them that they have you on their team,” Azariah added with a shrug.
I bit my lip, aware of the stares drifting back in my direction, of the changed flavor in the air. It wasn’t quite pleasant or sweet, but it wasn’t so bitter either, and that was a nice change.
Kais was still with Jason, the two of them talking out some moves, until Kais shifted into place opposite the younger man, the two of them getting ready to spar. For the first time I noticed the bruise on the back of Kais’ shoulder, and the slight tremor in his left leg.
“He’s tired,” I whispered, more to myself.
“Mmm, he patrols more than the others. Works on more projects. Now this.”
Jason was more measured in his movements with Kais, and