“Well, come on then, Zoey,” I say, flicking my hand out. “Come and show me exactly what you think should be done to me then. I'll even let you get the first shot in. A freebie, for old times’ sake.”
She smirks at me and steps forward, crossing the last few feet before she's standing in front of the single row of benches, her eyes flashing to white in front of us. My bond doesn't bother tensing or seeming concerned at all. I know why, as her power washes over me without causing so much as the slightest of yawns.
This is when I really feel like a god.
Her brow furrows just a little before she aims it at Sage and Aro. To my delight, it washes over the two of them as well.
“I’m fully Bonded now,” I say as I let my Gift out to play. “Sage and Aro too, you know. You probably should have taken that into consideration before you decided to follow me in here. But like I said, I'll let you take the first swing.”
I step forward, planting my feet shoulder width apart and letting my body relax the way that Gryphon had drummed into me a thousand times.
Relax and let your opponent show you what they're capable of first. Watch them and be ready, but don't show them your hand until you're ready to crush them with it.
She might have been taught sparring at Draven, but she hasn’t had the personal lessons that I have, and when she takes a swing at me, it's easy enough to deflect. I dart out of the way and at the same time, take a swing at her, my fist connecting with her cheek hard enough to send her stumbling back, and a red mark blooms against her skin instantly.
Beyond the dull ache in my fist, there's no sign on me that she even attempted anything, and a cocky smirk stretches across my lips, one I don't intend on losing anytime soon.
“Seriously, that's all you've got? That’s pathetic! No wonder Gryphon was so ready to throw you out.”
She pushes up onto her feet again and darts at me faster than I want to give her credit for but, still, I'm quicker. And I'm ready for it.
I sweep her legs out from underneath her and take her to the ground, enjoying the screeching sound that bursts out of her. As I grapple with her on the cold, concrete floor, Atlas’ voice floods into my mind.
Do I need to come in there? Gabe told me to leave it to you, but now I'm hearing things that make me very sure that I should be in there with you right now.
I grunt a little as her knee connects with my side, but I get a forearm across her throat and press down to restrict her airway, sending back to him, I’m kind of busy at the moment, Atlas, but I'll be two more minutes. No need for a rescue team.
I'm true to my word, and in two minutes Sage and Aro hold the doors open for me as I drag Zoey out of the girls’ changing room by her feet, her unconscious body a dead weight as I move her across the training center.
The conversations around us die out as I get her all the way to where the General and Vivian are having a heated argument. They both stop to turn and stare at me as I drop her in a heap at the General’s feet.
“You should really vet your recruits a little better,” I say with a bite in my tone. “She has shitty technique and thinks that her Gift is enough to get her out of any situation, but anybody with a brain knows that you can't rely on that in hand-to-hand. I just wiped the floor with her. If your teams are just going to be a dead weight, then I'm not going to allow you to come on missions with us.”
The room goes from quiet to deafeningly silent, the tension of everyone around us amping up. I feel the heat of my Bonded’s bodies at my back as they stand behind me, ready to pounce on the General as his eyebrows draw down at such a public spectacle.
“You can't tell me who goes on missions, little girl,” he snaps at me, and that same cocky grin appears back on my face, the one that helped me fake my way through TT and every other obstacle I’ve come across.
“I think you'll find that I can, and I will. It’s a hard lesson to learn for a man like you, I'm sure, but you're not in charge here.”
The General glances at Vivian, whose face is very carefully blank, before he turns on his heel and stalks down the hallway.
Vivian waits until the door swings shut behind him before he crosses his arms at me. “What did you do to that girl?”
I shrug innocently. “She took the first swing. She started the fight. All I did was end it.”
His eyes narrow at me before he nods, his eyes slowly glancing around at the room until everybody gets back to what they were doing, normalcy easing back into place around us.
He waits until we’re not the center of attention before he says, “Good job, kid. I'm sure that felt good. I've only been waiting months for you to finally put someone on their ass. I already know Gryphon will be furious that he missed it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Oli
We spend the next five hours sparring with the rest of the Tac personnel, both our own and those recruits that the General had brought with him. Not all of them are as useless as Zoey had been. When she had eventually come to, Vivian had called down somebody from the medical center to take a look at her, but she was fine, except for the bruised ego.
I go up against three other women, one of them easily twice the size of me, but manage to win against them all, which leaves me feeling pretty damn smug and thankful that all of my time working out and getting my ass handed to me by Gryphon has paid off.
The best part of the day is that I get to watch my Bonded.
None of them fight each other, at my request, which means I get to actually enjoy the sight of each of them working their way through most of the male population of the TacTeams. Exactly one woman tries to enter the sparring ring with Gabe. She is immediately yanked out by Vivian, who gives her such a stern talking to that I'm fairly certain she wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole. I think that this is incredibly considerate of him, until Sage points out to me that Azrael is growling at my feet and my eyes have shifted black in response.
Oops.
In my defense, Gabe is wearing a standard issue TacTeam tank top, but the arm holes have been cut open wider, and there’s an obscene amount of his skin on show right now. He's hotter than any man has any right to be. The idea of him rolling around on these mats with anyone who isn't me is upsetting. The idea that it could be a woman, one who might enjoy it just a little too much? Absolutely intolerable.
I don’t need my bond to chime in to tell me that it’s out of the question.
Sure enough, watching them gets me amped up, but the thing that really gets me going is watching Nox.
Even Atlas, who is sitting at my side with a bottle of water while he takes a breather after his own conquests, can't help but be impressed at my Death Dealer, my most damaged Bond, as he obliterates any man brave, or stupid, enough to go up against him.
He is fucking brutal.
There's no arguing that. Vivian, who trained Gryphon and both the Draven brothers and is fully aware of their abilities, insists that Nox spars against three men at once. I'd like to say that he does this because of the nightmare creatures joining in, but they don't. There isn't the slightest sign of any of his creatures except for Azrael who sits at my feet with August, both of them watching over the room with sightless void eyes.
I didn’t intend on having them out, but after Zoey's attempt at an ambush, they'd refused to be put away, both of them acting like a small barrier between my family and anyone who might approach us.