To Love a Vampire - A.K. Koonce Page 0,8

wild hair, reveling in the successful attack he clearly planned.

Anger pushes through my veins with every labored breath I take. He just ruined my morning and I intend to repay him.

Without saying a word, I fling my head back hard and crack him in the nose. The noise is a sickening sound that lingers in my mind as pain soars through my skull but my anger doesn’t allow the hurt to surface on my face.

With swift movements I leap to my feet, my dark boots breaking twigs under foot. I’m above him in a matter of seconds while he lies on his back, resting against one arm, holding his bloody nose in his other hand. My sword is drawn and rests at his neck, right where Asher slashed his own throat such a long, long time ago. My hand is steady as my scowl settles down on him.

“Clearly, Raske hasn’t seen your best work yet.” He wipes the blood from his already healing nose, leaning up fearlessly into the blade.

Perfect. His broken nose is flawlessly healed while the back of my head still throbs in pain. I’ll probably have a headache for the rest of the day, while he had a broken nose for less than a minute. Blood smears across his smug face, tarnishing his unusual beauty. Overall it was worth it.

Lowering the blade, I sheath it at my side before extending my hand to help him stand. He’s taller than I am and I force myself to look up at him with something mirroring respect. My stomach sinks with the familiarity of his features, like a glimpse of a memory in walking form, and I have to look away before the feeling consumes me and drags me under.

I wait for him to lead the training. I try not to waste his time. But we’re just standing in silence as he works his jaw back and forth in thought. The silence is tingling through my nervous system and setting me on edge. I have to be at the clinic for work when it opens in less than two hours. When Luca and I train, I’m usually sweating and complaining by now. Waste his time. What a joke.

“Why did you volunteer to train me?” I ask to fill the active silence.

I want to ask what he intends to train. Why hasn't the training started yet? Maybe his little ambush approach was all he had mapped out for the day and he thought I would have already thrown in the towel. But here we stand. Me with a pressing headache and him with a perfectly healed, unbroken nose.

“I…” He pauses looking into the orange sky. The colors reflect and make his eyes appear as burning flames. “I didn’t want to,” he says with a half-smile, his head shaking slightly.

His honesty catches me off guard and I can’t help the way my brows dip in irritation and confusion.

“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just – Just that I’ve watched Kaino prance around you for a year. A year. That’s an extraordinarily long time to waste with someone you have no intention of helping,” he says quietly without looking at me. His words sink into my mind as I try to follow his meaning. “You’ve addressed your training with Lord Raske several times and every time Kaino just sits there, like a rock waiting to be thrown, waiting to be used in some way. Waiting for your rejection so we can all move on with our day.”

I can’t think of a thing to say in reply and Declan doesn’t allow me to as he continues on.

“I’m not saying Kaino is a bad guy. He’s not. But he shows interest in you because he wants to join with you to better our society,” He stares me dead in the eyes now, “yet he doesn’t even have the courage to help the person who intends to help him.”

His words are spoken softly, bracingly. But they hit me hard. My heart hurts and my stomach sinks as I repeat his words in my mind. Kaino isn’t in love with me, maybe we’re not even friends. Declan is right. How many times has Raske told me I needed a male’s training perspective and Kaino couldn’t even look me in the face when his father dismisses my requests to help the militia?

“So I volunteered, not because I wanted to train you, but because I wanted to help you when no one else would. Because we’re friends and