I dashed sweat out of my eyes and squared off with Atticus yet again. We'd spent days sparring and working out until I hovered on the verge of collapse, and then he would try to make me shift. Sometimes it worked and I woke up thirty or forty minutes later, naked and back in the cage or one of the other safe rooms they'd identified throughout the mansion. Sometimes it didn't work, and instead we stared at each other until someone made a face and we had to start over.
He fought well, if inelegantly, but relied more on superior strength and reach than on finesse and technique. Which meant the decade I'd spent studying and drilling in kung fu gave me an advantage at least half the time. I dodged a kick and slipped under his guard to punch him in the solar plexus, then moved out of reach before he could react. Atticus grunted and rubbed his chest. "Good."
I bit back a smile; he always said that when I managed to really hurt him. The first time I swept his feet out from under him, he'd stared up at me as if I'd flown a circle around the gym, then he laughed and said, "Fucking awesome."
He still didn't like hitting me. He still pulled his punches, and though I'd started to use all the strength I possessed, he remained gentle with me. Treated me like fine china, even as he flipped me over his shoulder and slammed me — gently — into the floor mats.
Atticus shook the hair out of his eyes and sweat spattered the mat next to me. I wrinkled my nose but accepted the sweaty hand up. "That wasn't fair."
"You being faster than a fucking hummingbird isn't fair," he said under his breath. "I use the tools at my disposal, darlin'."
I shook my head and went to retrieve a water bottle. "You would be much more efficient if you studied something. Jiu Jitsu or kung fu or tae kwon do or something. A system would help you."
"I do okay." His expression closed off.
"Sure." I handed him a bottle and then perched on a bench near the wall. They had an amazing gym in the mansion — an enormous hall with weight machines and treadmills at one end, and a padded sparring area with heavy bags and torsos for punching, a moveable boxing ring, and crates of targets and gloves. The first day in the gym, I asked if they had a wooden dummy for training punching and blocking. The rhythm and pattern of blocking against the wooden form was more useful than meditation, and I ached for the peace it brought. They didn't have one, but the morning of the second day, I walked in to find three different types of dummies standing near the boxing ring, along with racks of practice weapons.
When I thanked him, Atticus got all bashful and waved it away. "Whatever helps."
So I was looking at the wooden dummy as I drained my water. "You'd do better with some training, though."
He grunted. "Maybe."
I bounced to my feet and dragged the dummy over as Atticus collapsed on the bench where I'd sat. He watched warily as I took a ready stance and began to run through a form against the dummy, blocking against the wooden arms and body with a steady thock-thock-thock. When I felt centered, connected to the world and ch'i from my toes through my head to the universe beyond, I closed my eyes and breathed out every stress and anxiety that clamored for attention. And still I kept up the pattern against the wooden arms.
Reality shifted and everything fell into place. I exhaled and sped up. "You know, monks practice physical activity as a form of meditation."
"Is that so." His voice reached me from very far away.
"That's how kung fu started." I pushed away uncertainty and thoughts of escape, and tried to live in the immediate moment. That was the only moment we had. "Meditation. It was only when warlords attacked the temples that the monks fought to defend their sanctuaries."
I stopped, straightened, and stepped back from the dummy. I looked at him, struck by the flashes of gold in his dark eyes, and gestured for him to get up. "Your turn."
"I can't do that." He laughed, wiping his face with a towel.
"Of course you can't." I rearranged some of the arms, simplified it for him. "But everyone starts somewhere, right?"
He opened his mouth to argue and I gave him a pointed look, eyebrows raised. He'd said the same thing to me when I complained that shifting was too hard. I had no control over it, remembered nothing during it. And he'd just said that everyone began somewhere. Atticus held his hands up in surrender and lurched to his feet. "Okay, okay. Show me what to do, shifu."
I blinked, mouth open to ask, and he made an elaborate bow. "When you mentioned kung fu, I did some reading. O mighty kung fu master."
Maintaining a stern expression took a year off my life as he looked up with that half-grin, and I put my hands on my hips. I wanted to knock him down and kiss that smile off his face. "You want to know the first lesson of kung fu?"
The smile spread and he bowed again. "Yes, lotus blossom."
I leaned close and tweaked his nose. "Never, ever tease your shifu."
And then I showed him why. He wasn't the only one who found control in physical exertion, and I'd perfected muscle-melting workouts over years at different martial arts schools. It wasn't long before he panted, "You must be part sadist."
"Thought you said I was a leopard?" I studied his side stance with a critical eye as his legs shook and sweat ran off his forehead. I jumped to stand on his thigh and he growled in irritation.
"You can be both," he gritted out through clenched teeth. "Sadistic leopard. Is that your kung fu name?"
I hummed under my breath as I stepped from one thigh to the other, just to test him a little more, then hopped down to face him. His gold eyes flashed at me and for a moment, I saw the lion, not the man. My head tilted and I took a step back out of instinct.
Atticus abruptly stood and walked away, waving at me over his shoulder. "Go take a break. Meet me back here in fifteen."
"What's wrong?" I refused to leave and followed after him.
"Nothing." Atticus wouldn't face me, shaking his head as he kept walking. "Don't worry about it. Just take a break."
I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "Atticus, what the hell?"
His eyes blazed fiery gold when he faced me and the breath caught in my throat. The muscles in his face twitched and his nose looked larger, broader. His voice dropped an octave as he held me at arm's length. "I'm serious, Sophia. I need a second."
I watched the struggle play across his face and waited. I didn't move for what felt like eternity until his breathing calmed and his eyes were more brown than gold. Only after he took a deep breath and sighed, rubbing his face, did I dare speak. "So I'm not the only one with control issues."
"No. I mean, yes." He made an irritated sound and stalked over to the fridge to get more water. He drank half and dumped the rest over his head. "Most shifters are in total control of their animal side."
"Most," I repeated, following him. "But not all. Not you?"
"My lion is — headstrong." Atticus stared past me, searching for something. "He gets agitated. Only fighting keeps him quiet. Well, fighting and —" He cut off and turned away again. "Never mind."
"Fighting and what?" When he said nothing, I repeated myself louder. "Fighting and what else, Atticus?"
He held out a hand to keep me back. "Nothing. Just fighting."
"If it might help me, damn it, tell me!" My hands clenched into fists. "I can't fight everything all the time, Atticus. I can't just fight to keep this shit under control, and even fighting isn't working."
He faced me, his expression betraying nothing of what he thought. "Fighting and you."
"Me." My heart stuttered. The room started to spin around me and my feet stuck to the mats even though I wanted to back up. He took up all the space, all the air, around me. "You mean —"
Atticus took a deep breath and scrubbed at his hair again. "I didn't want to freak you out. My lion likes you. A lot. He feels calm when you're nearby, when we know that you're safe. The last few days have been the easiest days I've had in a year. Two years. At least."
My jaw went slack. The gentleness of his voice, the reverence with which he spoke of knowing I was safe — it didn't really register. I only heard one thing. "You really can't control your lion. You can't control your own shit, so how do you expect me to learn to control anything?"
"It's different." His expression grew guarded. "No one knows that —"
"That you're just as bad as me?" I shook my head and turned away. Just freaking wonderful. "That's great. So you can hide whatever the hell you want, and as long as no one guesses you're on the verge of falling apart, it's okay. But me — I get in trouble for something I didn't even know I was doing? Right. That's fair."
"Sophia. Stop. Listen."
Something in his tone drew me back. I hardened my heart but when I dared glance at him, he looked so defeated, so exhausted, that my heart sank. He looked how I felt. Maybe he understood more about what I went through than he let on. I waited.
Atticus remained out of reach, but his shoulders slumped and his eyes radiated fatigue. "It's gotten worse over the last couple of years. I don't know why, and I don't know how to stop it. I'm holding on because I have to. There isn't any other choice."
I opened my mouth to accuse him of hypocrisy, to point out the ridiculous unfairness of everything he demanded from me without ever revealing his own struggles, but the door at the far end of the gym banged open. His brother Edgar strode in, frowning. "You guys at a stopping point?"
He spoke to Atticus — he always spoke to Atticus, he'd never said more than a few words to me since our conversation in the library — but I didn't care. I turned on my heel and walked away. "Yeah. We're finished."
Atticus said, "I'll meet you in your room in an hour, Sophia," then went to speak to his brother.
I threw a towel against the wall and stormed to beat the shit out of that wooden dummy.