“Leaving the fire so soon?” he calls, his rough voice somehow teasing.
“I’m hot enough.”
He laughs. I blush harder.
As I scurry away through the snow, inwardly kicking myself, he says, “When you’re ready for another mistake, you know where my tent is. Right next to yours.”
Stupid lout of a man.
Stupid me.
When I rush back to my tent, when I topple onto my own pallet and press my hands to my cheeks, my lips are still tingling. My heart still racing. My core still throbbing.
That was a stupid, horrible, ridiculous mistake.
And yet, all I can think is, we should do it again sometime.
CHAPTER 20
AUREN
The Grotto’s cave holds more secret crevices than I first realized.
Because here we are, inside of one, in what Judd fondly calls the Teeth. Judd and I squeezed through a serrated fissure from the main cave’s walls, and after a short, albeit very claustrophobic passage, it opened up into a new room—the place where the Wrath come to train.
It’s not overly large, but it has plenty of space, and the veins of fluorescence that run through the walls and ceiling are so abundant in here that the entire area glows. The ground has been covered with thick layers of half-frozen hay that crunches beneath my shoes, and there are three wooden chests stacked off to the side that Judd told me hold practice weapons.
I’m not allowed to use those yet.
When we first got here, he’d grinned, turning in a circle with his arms up, his normally yellow hair turned luminous blue, right along with his tanned skin and the army leathers hugging his lean body. “Welcome to the Teeth—the mouth of the mountain where you’re going to get chewed up and spat out.”
He sounded excited about it.
On the ceiling above, the stalactites hang in a perfect row—just like razor-sharp teeth ready to do exactly as he claimed.
I was hoping he was exaggerating.
He wasn’t.
I really do feel like I’m getting chewed up in here, though it’s not his fault.
For the first half hour, he simply showed me some stances. Explaining how to hold my weight, how to secure my posture, how to stand, and why.
Simple stuff.
Easy, basic, bare bones knowledge so that I can learn from the ground up.
I first noticed there was a problem when he kept pointing out that I was tilting one way or the other and having to correct my stance. I dismissed it in the beginning. I thought I was still a bit weak and out of shape for all the days spent in bed. I just needed to warm up.
But now, as I pitch to the left again and again, reality lands hard and heavy, like bricks sinking into my gut. I stare at Judd, eyes gone wide, and it feels like my internal temperature plummets, ice filling my tightening veins.
“Gildy?”
His lips move, but I can’t focus enough on his words. Couldn’t hear them anyway with how loudly my heart is pounding.
Judd takes a step forward, blond brows pulling in.
“Water,” I croak out before I totter toward the crates. I pick up one of the skins he brought, lifting the nozzle to my lips and taking a hefty drink as if the ice-cold liquid will help to wash away my realization.
It doesn’t.
I swallow it down, feeling it land in my stomach like I’ve plunged into a lake and too much of it rushed into my mouth.
Judd comes up and takes a sip from his own. “I know this stuff seems rudimentary, but it really is important. Strong, stable footing is the foundation for everything else.”
I glance at him from the corner of my eyes. Does he think all of my struggling and stumbling is due to distraction because I don’t think this is important?
“I trust you,” I tell him honestly. “I know everything you and the others will teach me is what I need to know.”
He nods, but then cocks his head as if he’s reconsidering. “Except maybe Ryatt. He might teach you something just to fuck with you.”
I catch my lips curving. “Good to know.”
“So, why do you want to do this?”
“Train?” I ask with a frown.
“Yep. Rip told me that you wanted to train, but I want you to tell me why.”
Why.
The why has been driving me since the moment I woke. Before that, even. Maybe the why first started solidifying when I met Judd and the others, when I was in that fighting circle with them and realized the possibility of being capable of more.
My eyes flick up to his, meeting his gaze steadily. “My whole life, I have been a thing for other people. A thing for them to have, a thing for them to use.” Stark honesty makes my tone flatter, without any divot or protrusion to hide the plain truth. “But I’m not a thing.”