"And my two older brothers, Jack and Michael."

"I had no idea you even had brothers."

The corner of her mouth inched up in a lopsided smile. "I don't talk about family much. I sort of dig you, though, so maybe it's okay just this once."

"You are a hard ass. I guess you have to be with two brothers to contend with. How much older are they?"

"Jack has five years on me and Michael is seven years older."

"Are you close?"

"Oh yes," she said with a distant look to her eyes.

"So they're in college?"

"Jack is. Michael works for Dad."

"What kind of business?"

"The family business."

I shrunk away with a feigned expression of fear. "You're in the mob?"

She chuckled, but it almost seemed that she didn't find that to be far from the truth. "We're in the security business."

"Ah," I said, as if that explained everything. Maybe her dad had her work late for his company sometimes, although it was hard to picture Elyssa dressed as a rent-a-cop. That would explain the fatigue I often saw in her face.

"If you really think you're up to it, I have to warn you that my dad is a very serious person. He's a special kind of asshole, especially when it comes to boyfriends."

"What did he do to your other boyfriends?"

A wistful smile cast sadness into her eyes. "You're really the first guy I would call a boyfriend. The last guy I was going to go on a date with didn't last the five minutes it took for me to come downstairs to meet him."

"Are you kidding me? What did your dad do to him?"

"He mostly stared at him."

"Your dad sounds scary."

She nodded, face serious as a heart attack. "He is."

Chapter 15

I didn't sleep well that night. Maybe it had to do with nervousness about my new K&C squad. Maybe it had to do with Elyssa's dad. I dreamt of a man with military buzz-cut and glowing eyes. He stared at me until I ran screaming.

I woke up in a panic with my fist embedded in the bed's headboard. Nobody with glowing eyes was waiting, so I extricated my fist and got ready for the tournament.

Elyssa waited for me in the parking lot. I froze in my tracks and stared. She'd braided her long black hair into pigtails that hung to her shoulders. She wore knee-high platform boots. Fishnet stockings and a black skirt showed off her fair legs, long and muscular. She obviously worked out. She looked so amazingly hot I wanted to run away with her and forget everything else.

"You like?" she said, grinning at my stunned silence.

I nodded. "Me likey so much." I almost drooled.

Ash and Nyte showed up moments later. They wore variants of their Goth attire. We looked like the army of darkness rather than elves. I didn't care. They had also used white and black face paint as a sort of camouflage. Yes, it was definitely a departure from green-cloaked elves.

"Did Kiss join the army?" said a familiar voice.

I turned to find Harry smirking at our group. Mark and two other girls flanked him. I offered a cold look in return then turned back to my squad without a word. Elyssa cocked an eyebrow and gave me a lopsided smile. She took my arm and we walked to join the milling mass of the elven army.

Harry and his gang trailed behind us. "I wonder who's going to be the cannon fodder today," he said.

"I think the girly boys will go first," Mark said.

Harry laughed. "If Justin doesn't get distracted by the prostitute they hired to join them."

Red exploded in my eyes. I raised my fist and whirled. Something dead-stopped my arm. Harry backed away and tripped over Mark's sword, landing heavily on his back. He looked like he'd about crapped himself. Elyssa's warm hand held firmly to my bicep, preventing my arm from completing the punch I really wanted to connect to Harry's stupid face.

"What did I tell you about being heroic?" she said in an angry voice.

I took deep breaths and calmed myself. How was I supposed to protect a girl who got ticked at me whenever I tried to protect her honor? This was going to take some serious getting used to.

"Yeah, that's right. Keep walking," Harry shouted as we left them behind.

"Are we allowed to kill teammates?" Nyte asked.

"There's no rule against it," I said. "But let's hit the enemy first and get to those assholes later."

We lined up with the rest of our allies. The Dungeon Masters, dressed in their long flowing robes and fake Methuselah beards stood atop a tall tower in the middle of the battlefield.

"Ten minutes until battle commences," one said in a well-practiced announcer's voice.

We produced our weapons for inspection by the brightly clad faerie referees.

One of them held up Elyssa's dual swords. He balanced them in his hands then twirled them. "Wow, these have great balance. They're just like Ninja Sai short swords."

She beamed. "Thanks. If the balance isn't right, what good are they?"

"Totally," he said, looking lost in her eyes, the poor nerd.

"Ahem," I said and handed him my long sword.

He glanced at it, hefted it, and handed it back without a word. I felt mildly offended. Elyssa chuckled.

"I guess all of us can't be foam sword masters," I said with a huff.

"I'm a perfectionist." She pecked me affectionately on the nose.

I lined up my squad and gave them last-minute pointers, then took them to the left flank. Nyte and Ash were flushed with excitement. Elyssa stared across the makeshift medieval village separating us from the Conanites, the enemy army. Pine trees lined the town perimeter and just beyond that were the yellow ropes that guarded the outer boundaries. To our right was the parking lot and bleachers for those who enjoyed watching nerds beat the crap out of each other.

I pointed to a walled-in fort in the middle of the battleground. "There's the goal," I said. "We make it there, and we're good as gold."

Elyssa pointed to a smaller hut that was lined by a thick hedge. "Why not there?"

"It doesn't have a wall."

"The hedge is thick enough to keep people from running through it and it's a smaller place to defend. We can't be flanked."

I gave her a curious glance. "I've been doing this a while. Any time my squad took and held that center fort, we survived."

She shrugged. "Okay, fearless leader."

A gong sounded and the battle started.

The armies rushed forward to battle with a roar. Nyte and Ash went down in the first skirmish. Elyssa whirled, struck, parried and took down enemy squads whenever they attacked. She made me look like a rank novice. After several small battles, she and I burst through the enemy's last line of defense.

Elyssa became a blur, her swords blocking, thrusting, slashing. The referees looked absolutely as confused as I was but they whistled away as she cut through the enemy like butter. I took out a couple of stragglers. The gong chimed. Elyssa had just finished off the enemy king. Harry and Mark gaped at her. I gaped at her. The faerie refs gaped at her. She looked at us and went red in the face. The rest of our army roared and rushed over to offer congratulations.

After the celebrations died down and seventy percent of the guys present had asked for Elyssa's hand in marriage, I managed to drag her away from the ululating mass.

"Where in the world did you learn to fight like that?" I asked. "You're amazing."

She looked anything but happy, however. In fact, she looked downright embarrassed. "Too many kung-fu movies, I guess."

"Yeah, because watching movies makes a person a ninja." I cocked my head like a curious dog. "You've taken martial arts, haven't you?"

"Yes," she said a trifle too quickly. "My dad made me take lessons and I guess it came in handy today."

I wasn't sure if that was the whole truth, but it felt truthful at least. Besides, I was too much in awe of her to think straight. I wanted her so badly right then that it was all I could do not to push her into one of the huts and ravish her. "I want you," I said.

She grinned. "You're so easy. All a girl has to do is whirl a sword, kill a few enemies, and you're ready to go." Her throaty laugh raced through my nervous system like a sexually charged lightning bolt.

I realized that if I started kissing her there would be no stopping myself. I closed my eyes and thought of baseball. No good. I thought of Stacey's sandpaper tongue. That didn't work. I took deep breaths and thought of Stacey playing baseball. Nothing quenched the unbearable heat of my desire for Elyssa.

"Well?" she asked, a bemused expression in her fiery eyes.

"I—Maybe we should go get cleaned up."

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously? You want me. I want you. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, but—"

"That's right. Nothing is wrong with sex. You and I are both eighteen. Barely legal but adults." She bit my earlobe.

"I'm not eighteen yet."

"Funny, I thought today was your birthday." She produced her smartphone from some secret place and held the screen to my face. Her calendar had Justin's Birthday! in big bold letters surrounded by little hearts.

"I'm eighteen?" I had forgotten all about my "special" day.

"Answer my question big boy. Why can't you let nature take its course? Are you afraid?"

"No, of course not." I was petrified. Partly due to my nearly uncontrollable psychic effect on girls and partly because Elyssa was a force to be reckoned with. She really was going to think something was wrong with me if I didn't act like any other testosterone-fueled teenager. "I just want it to be special. Not rushed because of spur-of-the-moment feelings."

She sighed. "I think someone's been watching one too many after-school specials."

My sexual energy plummeted and the little sex-obsessed demon perched on my shoulder poofed back to his hot little abode underground where he could sulk about my idiocy. Now that I could safely kiss her, it felt awkward. We walked back to the cars in silence, though Ash and Nyte more than made up for it by jabbering incessantly about how cool their ten minutes of battle had been.