might break—although they’d probably deny doing any of that in the first place if I asked them—and focus on their studies instead.
Well, all of them except Dmitri.
Speaking of that little shit…
Look, Dmitri and I—we have something. Even if he doesn’t want to talk about it. Even if he’s never brought up the moment we shared when I first woke up in Roman’s house and has gone right back to being hot and cold on me as usual. Even if we never say a word about it, the sexual chemistry between us is palpable and intense.
Besides that, I genuinely care about him, as much as he irritates the shit out of me sometimes.
And he cares about me too; I’m pretty damn sure of it.
But that does not give him an excuse to pull his punches with me in fight class.
I don’t have many classes with the guys. Most of them are separate now, since the third-years are taking all these intense seminars and half my classes are still with the first-years. But fight class is a mix of all three years, and Dmitri and I have always enjoyed sparring with each other.
Okay, maybe “enjoy” isn’t quite the right word. We get a kick out of trying to one-up each other because we’re both stubborn and competitive, and we hate letting the other one win.
I’ve always been Dmitri’s equal. When I started at Griffin Academy, I was scrappy and tough. The combat stuff came pretty naturally to me, and by now, I’ve added some serious fight training to my list of skills. So when I go up against the cranky, dark-haired mage, I know we’re evenly matched; sometimes he’ll win, and sometimes I’ll win. In fact, I beat him in combat for the right to compete in the Trials. But now?
Now, I can tell the fucker is taking it easy on me.
And I’m not going to stand for it.
We’re three weeks into classes. I’m almost totally recovered from my coma. So this crap ends now.
In our Friday afternoon Combat class, I pin Dmitri to the floor. He taps out, but I stay on top of him, not letting him get up. “Flip me off.”
He twists his head around as much as he can to glare at me. “What the fuck do you mean?”
“I mean, asshole, flip me off you! I know you can.” He’s done it before, letting me pin him for just a second so I think I’ve won and then flipping me and turning the tables.
Dmitri rolls his eyes and flips me—but then leaves me sprawled on the mat and stands up, brushing himself off. “That’s it. We’re done. You won, match over.”
I jump to my feet. “No, it’s not.” I’m practically snarling, my teeth bared. “Come at me again.”
He glares at me, dark eyes narrowing. “No.”
“Oh, what, you scared I’ll still beat you even if you throw everything you’ve got at me?” Yeah, I’ll admit it’s a bit of a low blow, but I don’t care. “Scared you’ll be your big, bad self and I’ll still win? I guess if you pull your punches with me, you can always tell yourself that you let me win. That you’re actually still the best. I see how it is.”
Dmitri storms over to me, getting right in my face. “I can and I will kick your ass if you really are that desperate for it, Sinclair.”
“Ooh, using my last name, scary,” I shoot back. “Come on, stop cutting me slack. Would you want me to cut you any? Huh? How come you get to be all angsty and surly, and I have to be the delicate invalid who can’t be pushed too hard or she might break? Fuck that.”
“Fine!” Dmitri takes a few steps back and drops into his fighting stance. All around us, our classmates are staring. They’re used to Dmitri and me being intense, but not like this.
“Good. Now come at me!” I snarl, dropping into my own low stance. “And this time, fight like you actually mean it.”
My heart is pounding hard in my chest, my muscles tense and ready as I focus on his broad-shouldered form and scarily beautiful face, tuning out everything else around us.
Asshole thinks he can give me some weird, twisted form of protection by not fighting me like an equal, then make out with me whenever he feels like it, but he won’t actually open up to me or tell me anything or—
Oookay… so maybe I have some resentment I need to work through