“Then I’d suggest everyone get some sleep.” Doyle stood up. “We start combat training at dawn. It may take him a few days to select his own team, to get here and set up, to come at us. We’ll bloody well be ready.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Annika didn’t like the new training. It held a meanness, like the guns. Striking each other, throwing each other to the ground. How to slash or stab someone with a knife.

She wanted to say no, as she had with the gun, no, she would not. But she knew she must. Bran couldn’t make her a magick weapon for this.

She didn’t like seeing Doyle sweep Sasha’s legs out from under her so she fell, or Riley kicking so hard toward Bran’s belly. Her friends slashed at each other with knives, and though Bran had charmed them so they couldn’t harm flesh, it made her hurt inside.

To avoid most of it, she danced, tumbled, flipped out of the way rather than on the attack. When she couldn’t avoid, she held back, afraid to hurt those she loved.

“Come on, Annika. You’re faster than that.” Feet planted, Doyle tapped a fist on his hard chest. “Come at me, come hard.”

Hoping to satisfy him, she started forward, did a handspring, started a flip, but he caught her foot, used momentum to push her up and back. She barely had time to adjust and land on her feet.

“Hey, take it easy.” Sawyer broke off sparring with Riley, took a punch in the belly for his trouble. “Hey, you, too.”

“Love tap,” she claimed.

“Good thing we’re not in love.” He started toward Doyle. “Ease up a little.”

“Easing up gets you hurt. She’s easing up, and that’s the problem. You’re holding back, Gorgeous. Truth.”

On a pleading look, she lifted her hands. “I don’t want to hurt my friends.”

“Holding back’s what’s going to hurt your friends. Go with me,” he murmured to Sawyer. Fast, smooth, he had Sawyer in a grip, and a knife to his throat. “How do you keep me from cutting his throat?”

“The knife can’t hurt him.” Though she didn’t like it there. “Bran fixed it.”

“Got you there, friend.”

Unamused, Doyle grunted, flipped the knife point-first into the grass. In an instant he had Sawyer in a choke hold.

“Hey!”

“Play along.”

“Play my— Fuck,” he managed as his windpipe seemed to narrow.

“What if I just snap his neck?” The muscles in Doyle’s arms rippled as he applied pressure. “The right grip, the right pressure, it’s done. Quick and quiet. What do you do?”

“You won’t hurt him.”

“Just a little more pressure.”

When Sawyer began to wheeze and struggle, Annika’s eyes widened. “Stop.”

“Make me. Stop me. He could be dead any second.”

“I said stop!” Lifting a fist, Annika shot out light, struck Doyle’s choking arm, his throat. She sprang forward an instant before Doyle released Sawyer.

Sawyer coughed out a couple breaths, bent over to rest his hands on his thighs.

“It didn’t hurt you because you’re not evil.”

“Gave me a buzz,” Doyle told her. “And if I’d have been a bad guy, I’d be down for the count. That’s how it’s done. You okay, kid?”

Sawyer gulped in another breath, nodded. Then straightening, came back hard with an elbow into Doyle’s gut.

Now Doyle coughed out a breath. “Good one.”

“You earned it, old man.”

“We’re hurting each other.” When tears trembled in Annika’s eyes, Doyle stepped back.

“All yours.”

“Okay, listen.” Sawyer swung an arm around Annika’s shoulders, turned her around. “Let’s walk a little.”

“Doyle hurt you. You hurt Doyle. Sasha said Riley broke her butt.”

Not the time to laugh, Sawyer warned himself. “It’s an expression. But yeah, we’re going to hurt each other a little. Some bumps and bruises, and some bruises on the pride, too. But, Anni, what comes at us won’t have knives that won’t cut, won’t pull punches. They could be worse than what she sent before because they’re human. They can think and plan instead of just act. They’ll kill me—I’m expendable. I don’t have value.”

“No, no, you—”

“To them, I am. Probably Sasha, too. Bran if they can manage it. And they’ll take you and Doyle and Riley. That’s worse, what they’ll do to you is worse.”

She stopped, turned to face him, to read his eyes. “They’ll kill you?”

“They’ll try.”

“And Sasha?”

“Odds are—kill or capture. And for us, one’s the same as the other. We have to survive.”

“It’s our duty.”

“That’s right, and we have to protect each other. That’s more than duty. I’ll take the bumps and bruises now. Doyle’s tough, but he’s right.”

“Do you want to kill people? To take their lives?”

“Absolutely not. But to save you, us, myself, the stars? I won’t hesitate.”

“Then I’ll hurt you.”

On a laugh, he cupped her face in his hands, pressed his lips to her forehead.

She simply flowed toward him, all but melted against him, surrounding him with her scent—both sweet and mysterious at once. He had only to shift, only to change the angle of his head for his mouth to meet hers.