Refuge(107)

He ran a hand through his dark hair. “We both know what this is about.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We have to talk about it sometime,” he said in an infuriatingly calm voice. How could he be so composed when I was a nervous wreck?

“But not now.” My eyes pleaded with him as I fought to hide my panic. “Please.”

He exhaled slowly. “Let’s train then.”

“Okay.” If I had to train with him, I would, but I couldn’t deal with more than that. Not yet.

“What do you want to work on?” he asked, and I was surprised he was going to let me choose.

“I want you to teach me how to fight. I can have all the demon strength I want, but it’s totally useless if I don’t even know how to throw a punch correctly.”

He started to shake his head, but I cut him off before he could argue. “Listen, I have to learn to protect myself. I’m supposed to train to be a warrior, right? If you’re going to get mad every time I mention it, this is not going to work. I’d rather not waste my time.”

“You need to condition your body and spend more time getting used to working with your demon before you learn fighting techniques.”

I shrugged. “Can’t I do both? The bad guys aren’t going to wait for me to catch up with everyone else. Couldn’t I learn some moves and do that other stuff at the same time?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and I groaned, “See, there you go again. Callum wouldn’t think twice about teaching me to fight. He’d have no problem giving me a few bruises and throwing me across a room.”

“He throws you around?”

“Gah!” I threw up my hands and headed for the door.

“I’ll teach you a few strikes and blocks, and then we will put you through a workout to see how much work we have to do. We’ll spend time on your fighting technique and your workouts every day. Once you have mastered the basics, we’ll move on to more difficult moves.” He walked to the center of the room and motioned for me to join him.

I hesitated for a moment before I went to stand before him. Being this close to him made me more than a little jittery, not out of fear but out of a deeper awareness of him. I took a steadying breath and tried to focus on what he was saying and not our complicated relationship. It was the only way I was going to get through this.

“The only rule you need to understand about combat is that there are no rules. We fight to neutralize a threat and to survive, and we do whatever is necessary to win. We use techniques from almost every martial art, and combined with our strength and speed, we can turn our bodies into weapons.”

“It sounds like Krav Maga,” I said, intrigued and nervous at the same time. “My friend, Greg, used to talk about wanting to learn it.”

He gave a small smile for the first time since entering the room. “Where do you think the principles of Krav Maga originated?”

“Oh.”

“In a fight, you have to be on the offensive at all times. You never stop moving and every movement counts. You never give your opponent an opening. To do this, you must master every possible strike, every hold and block, until you can do them as naturally as breathing. There is no room for hesitation when you are facing an opponent who is faster and stronger than you. You fight dirty because they will. And remember, a vampire is strong but the body still has human weaknesses. A well-aimed punch or kick to the groin hurts them, too.”

I nodded, thinking about how fast he had moved when he fought and killed three vampires at once. His movements had looked so effortless, almost like a dance. “Where do we start?”

“The first strike we’re going to work on is the straight punch. There are two types of straight punches.” He demonstrated punching with his fist and then with the heel of his hand, and his movements were so fast I could barely make them out. He repeated the strikes several times, but much slower, each time explaining how to stand, how to hold my shoulders, my head, and my arms. Then he stepped back. “Show me what I did.”

I positioned my body like he had instructed and punched the air with my fist. Then I repeated the action with my open hand. My movements were slow and sloppy compared to his, but that didn’t bother me because I knew that, starting from this moment, everything I learned would make me a better fighter.

Nikolas’s face was impassive, his words matter-of-fact as he explained what I had done wrong. When he came to stand beside me and show me how to stand correctly, I was able to concentrate on his instructions despite the slight tremble in my body. If he felt it when he used his hands to position my shoulders and arms, he did not show it. His candid, almost detached manner made it easier for me to put aside everything else between us, at least for the moment, and focus on training.