Mari rolled her eyes, and I commented, “Typical guy.”
He grinned. “Yup.”
A few minutes later, Ryan hovered behind me. “I’ll count you off,” the Sabre said.
I stood with the crossbow resting on my thigh, facing the target.
“3…2…1…Go!”
I raised the crossbow, sighted the target, and fired. Cranked, fired, and repeated five times.
My first two shots wobbled off target, but then I got the feel for keeping the crossbow’s limbs level and using the sighting mechanism. The forward handle helped keep the crossbow steady, my third shot hit the edge of the target, and the last two “thunked” firmly into it.
“Not bad,” Ryan said. “You got the hang of it, I think?”
“That went better than I thought.” I was impressed I’d managed to hit the target at all.
Mari looked uncomfortable as Ryan loaded a new magazine onto the crossbow and handed it to her.
“Just pretend you are shooting a big fish,” I told her.
She considered the crossbow. “We do use something similar when harvesting Triteks,” she mused. “They had tough scales, and you need a projectile to penetrate them.”
With that, the ogress settled to her training. I listened as Ryan ran her through the process, but I watched the next team over—Maddy’s Dire, Logan, as Cody coached him through.
Logan was at least as good as me. And suddenly, I wasn’t seeing the blond Dire. Instead, I saw images of an indoor area with a sand floor.
I rubbed my eyes, and there was Logan. But as I glanced back at Mari, it happened again. Something wrapped around my legs and pulled me down. I was flooded with rage and humiliation.
My heart thundered as I blinked—and saw Mari lift the crossbow. As the ogress fired her bolts, images continued to crash through my brain. Of a battle, finally lost.
And then they were gone.
It had to be Sebastian.
Crikey, Angel. What are they doing to the bloke?
Until then, I hadn’t realized Matt was in on it.I don’t know. Someone is trying to break him. And they may have just done it.
Or he yielded. Sebastian’s tough as they come. He won’t break easily.His tone was meant to be reassuring, but I sensed the angst beneath it.
My heart twisted.How long can he hold on? While we’re shooting at targets, he’s fighting for his life.
Until we have his location, the best thing we can do is train,my Dire pointed out.
He was right, but it didn’t make it any easier. Ryan moved on down to the team beyond Maddy’s, and Mari handed the crossbow back to me. I squinted enviously at the target—she’d planted every bolt into it.
“You sure you haven’t used one of these before?” I asked.
“Not exactly like this. But as I said, we use something similar for fishing.”
“You sure don’t fish like I fish.” Matt laughed.
She grinned. “I am very good at it.”
I changed the automatic magazine and lined up to the target. Managed to land all five inside it, this time.
Matt took it from me. His bolts all hit the target, although only two were in the circles.With a bit more practice, I might actually be able to hit what I’m aimin’ at.
