“That’s right.” Bakos nodded. “Your enemy won’t give a shit you didn’t sleep well the night before or have a tummy ache.” He stepped back off the mat, speaking to the seven of us still left in this year’s class. “They will kill you in seconds. Attack without warning. Slaughter you without thought or remorse in a blink of an eye.”
“Like The Wolf,” Hanna said in a spooky voice, her playfulness dropping the moment Bakos glared back at her. “What? We’ve all heard the tales. He will kill you without blinking…and he’s so unbearably hot, you go willingly.”
“Hanna.” Bakos sighed in annoyance. “I’m here to train you guys for real enemies, not make-believe ones.”
“My sister’s boyfriend’s father said he was very real,” Hanna countered. “Saw him fight a dozen men at once in the Fae War.”
“Did he tell you Santa Claus was real too?” Bakos clipped. “The Wolf is nothing but an exaggerated and glorified tale, inflated every time he is mentioned.”
We all had grown up hearing about the legend of Warwick Farkas. Not fae or human, but a living ghost. His last name meant Wolf, which is how he got the moniker, not because he turned into one. His tale was told to candidates to make them wet the bed at night. The stories about him left you in awe and horror at how easily, and how many, he killed. Barehanded. Gutted, burned, tortured, skinned alive.
“Back to reality.” Bakos clapped his hands. “The threat of another war is on our doorstep, and our enemy is stronger, faster, harder to kill, and can shift or disappear in front of our eyes. We must be faster, fight even harder, and become smarter than them.” He pointed at me to get back into position. “You will not get a do-over out there, so I never want to see anyone giving me less than one hundred percent. You got it?”
“Yes, sir,” we replied in unison.
I dropped down into a defense position, my eyes settling on Aron. A smirk spread over his mouth. Aron could have been good-looking enough, and at one time, I even thought so, but his jealous nature and constant need to be better than everyone made him ugly to me now. He was average in everything, including fighting, with deep insecurity issues that made him overcompensate and fluff his ego to the point I looked forward to sparring with him in class.
Here I could punch the crap out of him and not get in trouble.
“If you wanted to be under me again so bad, Kovacs, all you had to do was ask. Clearly, Markos is not satisfying you…though I’ve heard he’s giving it to Lilla really good.”
I gritted my teeth, moving around him. Don’t let him get to you, I chided myself. Aron loved finding people’s Achilles heel and biting down on it.
“Unlike you, she’s a real screamer.”
Rage boiled through my chest, spreading up my esophagus.
Bakos allowed shit-talk and taunting. Nothing was off the table because what we’d face out there would be much worse. He wanted us prepared to handle it all.
“Does Markos know I was there first, popped your cherry?” He nodded down to my crotch. “How do you think he’d feel about that?”
I gritted my teeth in disgust and fury, my body vibrating with the need to pummel him, shut him up. At least I forgot my sore muscles and fatigue.
I had tried to pretend Caden and I were just friends, and I didn’t like him any more than that. I didn’t care if he was hooking up with Lilla or any of the girls before her. I tried to make it the truth so much that I did the stupidest thing ever.
I let this asshole in front of me take my virginity one night.
I was drunk, heartbroken, mad, and lonely, and Aron was the only one who had guts to pursue me. The rest of the guys were too scared of Caden’s reaction. It was like he controlled who I dated, while he freely got to screw every girl who walked by.
It was the first anniversary of my father’s death. Aron was there, showing me the attention I so desperately craved. Losing my father had left me grasping for something, anything, to anchor me and make me feel good. I’d sunk into the sludge of desperation, watching Caden hook up with girls right in front of me.
Regret started even before Aron was done—which, let me say—wasn’t long.