No, I corrected myself. A wolf. I strove to visualize him as Matt had instructed, but try as I might, I couldn’t see any weak spots. Even when I changed direction and he mirrored me.
His head lifted again, and his eyes flared a brilliant sapphire. “Did the big Dire teach you that yesterday?”
I eyed him in surprise. Did everyone know about the fight? “Yes. But that is about all I know. And I’m not very good at it.”
He simply nodded, and stopped moving. “That is a good start. Now, I am going to coach you through something, one step at a time. Don’t worry about being perfect. I am looking for balance and coordination, notexelencia. Okay?”
I nodded nervously. He moved closer and began to coach me through a series of self-defense maneuvers. Fifteen minutes later, I was sweating and embarrassed. I moved like a newborn foal, all elbows and stumbling feet.
Alex was also sweating, and he seemed a bit uncomfortable. His beast eyes kept flaring through the human blue. The black sweats didn’t hide much, and I wondered if I was imagining what I glimpsed...
When he spoke, I wrenched my attention back to where it needed to be. “Mi amiga,you must disengage your brain,” he diagnosed.
Disengage my brain? “How do I do that?”
The words were barely out of my mouth when he came at me. Just a blur of motion, and a hand shot toward my face. I don’t know how I did it, but I dodged the blow, spinning on one foot to end up well away from him, bouncing on the balls of my feet.
“By not thinking,” he said with a wide grin. “That’ll do for today. Trust me, you’ll do fine.”
That was it? He strode away from me rather stiffly, as though forcing his feet forward.
Relieved that it was over, I moved to where Matt was waiting in the stands. As I sat beside him, I saw Ryan coaching Darius to shoot the crossbow at a well-padded target against the wall. Why hadn’t he done that with me? Maybe Darius knew something about crossbows...
“Alex went way easier on you than he did Aaron,” Matt noted. “He really put that dodgy bastard through his paces.”
“Well, Aaron knows how to fight,” I pointed out.
“Only kinda.” Matt’s grin became a rather fierce thing.
My curls had escaped my ponytail to form tiny ringlets over my ears. I yanked out my elastic and attempted to finger comb them into submission.
Matt watched the process as though mesmerized. I glanced across the room. All our other team members were working hard. Mari had reappeared and stood across from Tyrez as he explained something to her.
“How did you do?” Matt asked me.
I pulled the curls tight with the rest of my vagrant strands and wound the elastic around. Hair, I could tame. But the rest?
“I really have no idea,” I confessed.
27
Anna
I blinked awake and turned on the tiny light on my dresser, aiming it well away from my roommate.
Mari snored on. By the way my nose hairs were curling, she’d been doing far more than just exhaling. The covers were tangled around me, and my unsuccessful attempts at restful sleep had forced my dog to choose the floor over my bed. I’m sure if Mari was less gaseous, she’d have squeezed in beside her.
Oh, for a window.
My dreams had chaotically jumped from racing through forests to, oddly, sailing through clouds. And then they had degenerated to flashing lights and the screech of tires. Followed by a terrified scream terminated by the tremendous crunch of metal.
The latter images—a confusing and random collection—were old adversaries. But they weren’t part of a nightmare.
They were memories.
My former therapist had even tried hypnosis in an attempt to clear them. To give me something solid from the accident so that I could finally put it away, like socks in a drawer.
But it refused to be quantified and addressed. Eventually, I stopped going to the appointments. Decided to build a new life for myself by moving away.
