“Again.”

Skaja watched as Calle’s chest rose up and down with each labored breath. Perspiration dotted every inch of his skin and soaked his shirt. Strands of his damp hair clung to his face. His eyes blazed with determination as he jumped forward and struck his sword against her two daggers. Once. Twice. Three times. The power behind each attack took her by surprise, and she braced against it by planting her feet more firmly on the ground. He was certainly much stronger than he’d been in the Pits. 

He’d been right.

Had he been at full strength in the Pits, combined with the element of surprise he’d possessed during their first fight, he would have won the battle.

She ducked his swing, rolled across the grass, and kicked him in the back of the knee. He stumbled in the opposite direction, and by the time he faced her again, she was already back on her feet. 

“You are relying too much on strength,” she said, both her daggers poised to attack. “Anticipate where I’ll be before I get there. Move quicker when on the offensive and widen your stance when on the defensive.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She raised an eyebrow high. He was holding back? Exactly what would the enemy be dealing with if he had no reservations at all?

“You have no idea what I endured during training as a valkyrie. Fighting you is nothing in comparison.”

Not giving him a chance to respond, she charged forward with both daggers. He managed to block her swing but moved too slowly and gave her the opportunity to stab him with her other dagger. The tip of the blade hovered above his belly button. He jumped backward and knocked it away with his weapon.

“Your left side was open again,” she commented.

He ran a hand over his face and groaned. “I don’t know how to cater to my weakness.”

Several feet separated them as she met his eye, and then glanced toward the left side of his body. She tapped her lips with her fingers. “That’s what shields are for. But I know for a fact you can’t hold a shield. You’d be too busy dropping it all the time. Someone would kill you in your distraction.”

He frowned, but otherwise said nothing.

“Hypothetically...” She met his gaze again, and a sliver of warmth snaked down her spine. The fae prince was handsome. Even more so since he’d first walked out of the barber shop in Oddwaran. “If you still had your magic, what could you do with it? Could you create a shield you could hold?”

Slowly, he nodded as if contemplating the feat. “It doesn’t have to weigh much, but as long as my magic held, so would the shield.”

“And you could summon it at will.”

“Except I don’t have my magic. And I’m not sure if I ever will.” The feat to restore his magic seemed hopeless.

She attacked again. Right side, shoulder, throat.

Block. Block. Block.

Left side. 

Stumble. Pause. 

She tapped her lips again. “You would benefit from wearing armor on the left side of your body. But then again, you are already slow. The armor would only weigh you down.”

His many weaknesses stared back at her like a bright, billowing torch fire. 

This time, he surged forward and attacked her. She blocked with both daggers, but the strength of the blow caused her weapons to slip.

She cried out and dropped her daggers, clutching her arm as she crumpled to the ground.

Calle swore under his breath and dropped his sword. “Skaja, I am so sorry. Where—”

When he leaned down as if to help her, she hooked her legs around his and knocked him off balance. “Ha!” she shouted triumphantly before flipping him over in one fluid movement, taking him by surprise as he landed hard on his back. His expression turned from initial shock to wonder when the sunlight cast brilliant colors off her feathers. “Another weakness of yours—compassion.”

“Compassion is not a weakness,” he grunted. “It’s a strength.”

“Not in battle, it’s not. I could have already killed you at least a dozen times today already. And I’m only one woman.”

“A valkyrie.”

“Imagine if there were two of me.”

“If there were two of you, there would be twice the beauty to look at.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“What?”

Heat spread across her face as she noticed their position. Her hands pinned him to the grass by his arms. She sat atop him, straddling him in a rather intimate manner. Their faces were too close. Only inches apart. 

Panic clawed at her, and she reacted instinctively as she raised her hand and slapped him across the face. The sound echoed in the small clearing and off the stones of the cottage, almost louder than Calle’s shock. Her eyes widened just as quickly. “Sorry.”

She rolled off him and tucked her wings shyly against her person, only to find him climbing to his feet while cradling his hand to his red cheek. “Stop slapping me.” 

“Then stop...” She gestured to all of him, not knowing how, exactly, to express her thoughts or feelings.

He rubbed his cheek, and then his back as if it were also sore. “If you slap me for a simple compliment, I shudder to think what you’d do to me if I actually tried to kiss you.”

Kiss... 

The rhythm of her heart picked up speed as her gaze darted to his lips. Did he want to kiss her? Or was he simply teasing her? 

She pushed her curiosity of what it might feel like to kiss him behind her shy wings.

He leaned his sword against the nearby tree and stalked away. “I’m exhausted and sweaty. I’m going to bathe.”

She set her own weapons aside and followed in the direction he’d disappeared. A brief splash echoed over the cottage rooftop, and when she rounded the corner, she took in the sight of a murky, yet beautiful pond. Lily pads dotted the edges of the water while cattails stretched over the glassy surface. A copse of tall, leafy trees shaded the pond in a cloud of privacy and cast a shadow across Calle’s surprised face.

The water appeared cool and refreshing, a waiting relief after a long morning of training. She reached behind her neck to unclasp the top part of her dress, and as she started to slip it off, Calle averted his gaze. 

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” she asked as she stripped to her undergarments and waded into the frigid pond until her feet almost couldn’t reach the bottom. “We weren’t done with our conversation, so I’m joining you.” By the way he still maintained eye contact with the clouds, she felt like she’d done something wrong.

“No,” he said finally in a raspy voice. “You should leave. Otherwise, you might slap me again. Times ten. Or a hundred.” He splashed the cold water over his face.

Slowly, her attention drifted from his bare chest to her undergarments revealing plenty of her skin. “Oh...” A flush crept up her body until it flared hot in her cheeks. Her wings quickly curled around herself to hide from his view. “Valkyries bathe together. I’m getting the impression that men and women don’t.”

“Well, not usually.” His wicked, roguish grin gave him away, though he still averted his gaze as he chuckled and released a long breath. “But you are certainly welcome to stay.”

She rolled her eyes and splashed water at him, which earned her amused laughter. She refused to let him win, so she curled her wing further around herself to give her a bubble of privacy to wash.

Cold water rushed over her skin, refreshing her aching muscles after hours of fighting. She tipped her head back to immerse her hair completely in the water. “I’ve been thinking...” Splashing ceased momentarily as if he paused to listen. “You can’t wear armor. You can’t hold a shield. You can’t hold two swords. What if you used a sword in your good hand, and in your other, you wielded a small dagger? One small enough to fit in your boot.”

“Won’t it cut me?”

She lowered her wing to peer over it. “Not if you...”

The words got lost on her tongue as her gaze raked over him. His back faced her, but until now, she hadn’t noticed the beautiful golden tattoos across his back. The whipping scars from earlier were no longer visible beneath shimmering gold ink. 

And when the sunlight broke through the clouds above, both his hair and the tattoos glimmered in a dazzling array of color.

“Not if you...” he urged, but when she didn’t answer immediately, he glanced over his shoulder to catch her staring.

The tip of her wing snapped back up to hide the heat growing quickly across her face. Her focus dissolved immediately like a sugar cube immersed in hot water. Scalding hot water. The pond didn’t cool her down in the slightest. 

A curious, foreign desire fizzled up inside her. To look. To touch. To feel. She lowered her wing again, and as if hearing her do it, he glanced over his shoulder once more. This time, she didn’t hide her curiosity.

“Those tattoos are new,” she murmured, their previous conversation forgotten. Her heart skipped in surprise when she realized she’d taken several steps toward him. But it was as if a rope tethered them together, and it cinched tighter...tighter...tighter... 

Until she stood only a heartbeat away.

The look he gave her scalded her from the inside out, intense and devouring.

“They might have been there before,” he said through strained words.

“They weren’t. Your shirt was practically ripped to shreds when we met.”  

Curiosity and unfamiliar desire led her actions as she slowly reached out. Her fingers hovered over a tattoo closest to his shoulder. “What does this mean?”

“Which one?”

He turned slightly to give her a better view. She trailed her fingers from his left shoulder to the lower right side of his back. His skin warmed her hand, her arm, her face, until fire smoldered in her belly. She had never touched a man like this.

“Endurance,” he answered.

One by one, she drew a line across each tattoo with her finger, and he replied consecutively, “Honor. Courage. Bravery. Strength. Love.”

Then she took his left hand and tugged until he rotated to face her. Her heart beat rapidly at his proximity, and his intense focus turned to her. 

She traced the twelve-pointed star on his wrist. “And sacrifice,” she finished for him. “Where are your black tattoos?”

“Excuse me?” His mouth twitched in amusement.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t done anything awful in your life. You couldn’t have been all good.”

A deep, musical laugh escaped him and sent a delightful shiver down her spine. “Black is reserved for the worst of the worst. I don’t have any of those, but I do admit I have a couple of gray ones. I’m not proud of them, but it is what it is.”

“Where are they?”

She glanced toward his legs, but she couldn’t see through the murky water.

His previous amusement turned into a devilish smirk. “Do you want to find out?”

She blinked several times before his meaning finally clicked in her mind. She splashed water into his face and stalked away from him and toward the grassy shore, all while his laughter trailed after her. Her wings provided her modesty, blocking most of her body from his view. But the moment she stepped onto the grass his laughter stopped.

“What happened to your legs?” The amusement disappeared, replaced by a serious expression that could cut glass. 

A frown formed on her face as her gaze traveled to her legs and to the ribbons of scars climbing her ankles and calves. “Training to be a valkyrie is...vigorous.” She swished words in her mouth as she considered what to tell him and what to keep to herself. She was embarrassed to admit her shortcomings. “I’m an incredible flyer. But I’m a terrible jumper. You have your weaknesses, fae prince, and I have mine.” 

Without another word, she strode away and dressed behind the corner of the cottage, out of view. A splash followed as if Calle waded through the water after her. Moments later, she found him dripping wet and wearing only his trousers. Sure enough, a gray and white tattooed design of snowy mountains stood out on his ankle. 

She found one. Where was the other?

He still stared at her bare legs with furrowed brows. There was a reason she wore long boots.

“What happened?” 

Not wanting to be the object of his scrutiny, she pulled her boots on. “In the training arena, there are spinning blades that pop out of the ground. The object is to get from one side of the arena to the other without getting cut. I couldn’t help but use my wings. Paula tied them down to prevent me from flying.” 

She paused, her gaze far away as she relived the horrible memories. Stinging pain. Ribbons of blood. Shrill threats. Tears of determination. “I failed over and over again.”

“How awful...”

Jokingly, she said, “I should get them tattooed. I think a black design might look nice on my legs.”

“Black?” He leaned away as if she’d struck him. “I can’t imagine you ever receiving black ink.”

“No?” She stood as tall as possible, but there was still quite a height gap between them. “Do you have any idea how many people I have killed? How much blood is on my hands? All the horrible things I’ve done?”

Horrible things she now wasn’t sure were in the name of goodness. Her whole life was a lie. Were her motives a lie as well?

Her wings drooped. “I’m starting to think I deserve the blackest of black.” She turned, and instead of allowing him to see her troubled expression, she spread her disconsolate wings. “I’ll hunt for dinner tonight. I need time to think.”