Pretty sure that meant I looked ghastly. Two nights of restless sleep must be showing. I rubbed my temple and decided not to take issue with it. “Does that mean I look like I feel?”
He frowned. “Frustrated.”
Oh.“Yeah. It didn’t go very well. I couldn’t do anything.”
“Blimey, you’re just starting out,” he protested.
I flung my hands in the air and, to my shock, babbled. “I couldn’t doanything, Matt. What if what I did was a complete fluke? If I can’t ever do it again? Maybe it wasn’t even me that shredded that guy’s heart. What if I don’t have a talent? They won’t keep me on the team if I’m useless.”
I snapped my mouth shut, horrified that I’d spouted all that, as his eyes widened. “You’ll never be a layabout, Angel. You healed me, remember?”
Ihadhealed him. A healer would be a useful person on a team. But this talent thing added an entirely new dynamic to my future—these teams relied upon all of us bringing something unique to the table. Would only healing be enough?
Mari stomped up to us. Her square face was contorted as though she contemplated a world’s worth of troubles.
“How did your session go?” I asked. “Mine was a complete bust.”
She swayed from one foot to the other, a rather dizzying vision for someone so huge. “Our instructor took us through the gate to an island. We practiced crumbling more cliffs into the sea.”
“That sounds—cool.”
The Dorinthian nodded her craggy head, but she didn’t look especially pleased, and her prominent forehead developed another wrinkle. “How is this talent going to help people, when all it does is destroy?”
The ogress obviously had no issue tapping into her ability. Her only question revolved around whether she should do so. I took a deep breath and went into team-building mode. “The training will teach you how to control it, Mari. And that is the most important thing.”
Mari considered, and then nodded her head. “You are right.” A few of her brow wrinkles smoothed, and she stopped swaying. For which I was thankful.
Sebastian appeared in the doorway.
“Another day, another run,” Matt said.
At least running was something I knew I could do...
28
Matt
Runnin’ with Anna was pure bliss. When we were out there, the rest of the world fell away, and we moved in perfect sync. Even if she did spend time looking ahead to the bleedin’ Bellati, or behind to where Talakai trailed after our team.
Maybe I could get her out running with just the two of us. But if I got her alone in those woods, I wasn’t sure my beast would leave it at running...
I was worried enough about the fighting class. If I was teamed up with her, there might be trouble. If she was teamed with someone else, that might be worse.
I debated the issue as we assembled with the other students at the coliseum.
Cody waited for us to settle, then said, “We have done your initial assessments. Today, we will push you a little harder. You will be paired up, but the instructors will be one-on-one with you part of the time to get you started on the right foot. So to speak, anyway.”
He called off the pairings.
As I watched Anna head off with her assigned Sabre partner, I stifled my beast. Jealousy wasn’t a strong enough word for what surged through me. I seriously needed to get a bloody grip.
If I was on the money about what I’d felt from Anna, I had no right to it. If she was truly alpha, it wasn’t my choice to make. She would decide to claim me.
Or not.
I didn’t want to contemplate the “not.”
How could she be alpha? She wasn’t even Dire. I had to be wrong.
