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“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, meet Jennifer Jones.”
Simon, Beth, and Tristan stared in shock at the girl standing in front of them. She was lovely and slender, quite similar to Beth, actually, with waves of dark hair. But there was a confidence in the way she was holding herself that seemed years beyond her age. An almost aggressive need to prove herself by displacing those around her. Rather than shifting uncomfortably under the stares of three complete strangers, she rose to the challenge.
“So this is them, huh?” She cocked her head teasingly to the side. “The dream team?”
Simon thought it was a rather bold way to address Jason, considering it had to be one of her first days there, but Jason merely smiled.
“This is them. As promised.”
The girl stepped forward as she sized them up. Her eyes lingered for a long while on Simon, before finally coming to rest on Beth. Then, instead of narrowing competitively as girls were sometimes prone to do, they brightened with a welcoming smile.
“I guess you and I are going to be sparring partners.”
“Sparring partners?” Simon blurted. He couldn’t help but be stunned at the speed with which things were moving. Having one girl set to train at Guilder was strange enough. Introducing another one the very next day? Was there some kind of precedent for this?
“Why yes, Kerrigan,” there was a hint of warning in Jason’s voice, “sparring partners.” He looked Simon up and down. “Unless you’d like to be partnered with her yourself.”
Simon turned beet red and muttered something about that ‘not being what he meant,’ while Tristan turned to the new girl, Jennifer, with interest.
“So what’s your ink?” he asked with no preamble. Conversations were shorter in the Oratory. Things moved fast and you learned to be blunt.
Jennifer’s eyes lit up, as if she had been dying to be asked that question. With an equal lack of hesitation, she turned around.
There was an audible gasp. But whether it had to do with the ink or with the girl herself, Simon didn’t know.
Most girls would have to roll up their shirts to show off their tatù. Not Jennifer. While her tight athletic gear looked normal enough in the front, it dissolved to nothing in the back—held together only by two very strategic strings that stretched across her tan skin.
Several of the boys training at the far end of the Oratory cocked their heads to the side in the same instant to get a better look. Even Tristan raised his eyebrows appreciatively, before Simon nudged him pointedly in the side. He, for one, was more interested in the ink.
“It’s a leopard,” she said, as if everyone couldn’t already see. “Gives me super-strength, agility, speed.”
Beth’s face brightened as well as she stepped closer for a better look. Standing together, it was easy to see the similarities between the two girls. But also the differences.
Her obvious beauty and grace aside, Beth shone with an inherent goodness. The kind that radiated from the inside out, making a person look all lit up inside, dancing behind their eyes. It was one of the first things Simon had noticed about her. One of the first things he grew to love. Yes, he could draw her petite frame by memory. Yes, he had lost himself for hours, playing with her raven locks or staring into her luminous blue eyes. But it was this inner radiance he admired most. This unquenchable light that lingered in her smile.
Jennifer lit up, too...only in a slightly different way.
Her choice of clothing was no accident. This was a girl who obviously didn’t mind showing a little skin. Or...a lot of skin. She moved like she knew the eyes of the room were upon her, and in her defense, no matter what room she was standing in they probably usually were.
She was gorgeous, like Beth. But while some might call Beth beautiful—the kind of beauty that burned a hole in your memory just as surely as her tatù—Jennifer was hot. Sexy. Badass. The leather lacing up her pants was enough to prove it.
Yet, despite their obvious differences, the girls seemed to warm to each other with unnatural speed. Probably the result of being the only two females on a campus full of men.
“We’ve got one like that here, too,” Beth grinned, gesturing behind her to Tristan. Tristan straightened up in a hurry; his mind had obviously been on other things. “Speed, strength...you two should go at it sometime.”
Jennifer cocked her head appraisingly to the side, while a faint blush colored the top of Tristan’s high cheekbones. “Oh, yeah?” She grinned mischievously. “Maybe we will.”
At this remark, Tristan seemed to decide it was best that he take his leave. Before he got himself into the kind of trouble he couldn’t get out of. With a parting nod, he bid everyone a hasty farewell and disappeared to the other side of the room to begin his training partnering up with Isaac, who was still staring open-mouthed at both Jennifer and Beth.
“Seems he wasn’t interested,” Jennifer whispered loudly, making Beth giggle and Tristan blush even brighter from across the room. Then she turned her eyes to Simon. “But what about you?” she quipped, cocking her head curiously to the side. “Got any good ink? Think you could go up against mine?”
The giggling stopped immediately as Simon automatically stiffened with a sneer.
“Hate to break it to you, Jen, but Simon’s ink will always be exactly as good as yours,” Jason interrupted, ignoring all the thinly-veiled propositions and choosing that awkward moment to intervene. “Good thing for you, he’s not ready for something like that. He’d have to see it first.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” An impish grin spread across Jennifer’s face as she danced a few steps back onto the mats. “Let’s show him.”
Simon expected Jason to refuse. For him to put this little upstart in her place. For him to focus his attention on Beth the way he was supposed to.
But his incorrigible mentor did none of those things. Instead...he chased after her.
It was a beautiful thing to watch. Once you got past the blinding speed and the hair-raising danger of it all, it was hard not to see the beauty.
Whoever this girl was, she had obviously had training in the past. She moved without hesitation or doubt, hurling her body effortlessly through the air as Jason followed behind, running up walls, swinging from the rafters, blurring their way gracefully across the room.
It was strength versus speed. Then speed versus speed. Then a whole mess of other subtle nuances Simon had yet to decipher. Whatever it was... it was intense.
Never before had he seen Jason move so fast. Blinding wasn’t even the right word. It was something quicker than that. Something more dazzling. He streaked past the girl several times, looping around behind her, before falling out of the sky right in front.
There was no way she could have possibly been ready for him. No way she could have possibly predicted such a move. And yet...she did.
Simon gasped aloud as she crouched down into a low kick, sweeping her legs across the mat to knock his feet out from under him. He dodged it, of course, and a burst of sparkling laughter echoed across the mats as the two of them tumbled to the ground. Fighting and twisting. Kicking and flipping, until finally it was Jason who came out on top.
“A leopard?” he teased as he offered down a hand. “More like a house cat.”
She grinned ruefully and pushed to her feet on her own. “Better than a freaking bird.”
“Apparently not.”
For a second, the two of them stared each other down. Their smiles sharpened with chilling intensity, balancing constantly on the edge of breaking into a snarl. Then both took a step back at the same time, laughing light-heartedly once more.
“Yes. Jennifer and Beth will be sparring partners,” Jason announced again, saying it like it was for the first time. “I think they’ll be well-suited.”
Well-suited? After the display they had just seen it was impossible not to take it as a huge compliment. Beth swelled with pride as she took a tentative step forward to her new partner. But as she did so, Jason caught her by the shoulder and lowered his voice so only they could hear.
“I’m still going to be working with you one-on-one, teach you to master the fire. But in the meantime, you don’t need to worry about control with Jennifer. She can outrun anything you can throw her way, and if it gets away from you a bit there are five different water manipulators training here today. You’re not going to hurt anybody.”
It wasn’t until Jason said the words that Simon realized how heavily the worry had been weighing on Beth’s mind. He didn’t think she’d even realized it herself. Her shoulders dropped a good two inches as she let out a silent sigh of relief. This time, when she smiled back at Jason it wasn’t with the same coating of nerves it usually had. It was sincere.
“Thank you.”
He nodded briskly before gesturing her over to Jennifer. She was halfway there when he called out one final thing.
“And Beth?”
She turned around.
“When we’re finished today, you and I are going to call your parents.”
For a second, her skin turned pale. She started to turn automatically towards Simon, before she caught herself and forced her attention straight. Instead, she set her jaw and nodded firmly. A second later, she was trotting off across the mats towards her new sparring partner. Entering fearlessly into a whole new world, not a single emotion inside her except courage.
Simon watched with a distinct feeling of pride. A feeling he hurried to mask as Jason came and stood by his side, watching as the two girls started going through the basics.
“She’s going to be alright,” Jason murmured thoughtfully.
Simon glanced over in surprise, before following his gaze. The sound of her laughter ricocheted off the high rafters, echoed soon by Jennifer’s. His heart warmed at the sound.
Yes. She was. And he knew who he had to thank for it. Then again...it wasn’t like he could admit this was a personal favor.
Instead, he shifted the conversation to topics of a more curious nature.
“So...Jennifer, huh? Where did you find her?”
Jason never broke eye-contact, watching as the two girls started circling each other, but his lips twitched up into a hint of a smile. “A colleague of mine down south. Got my attention a couple weeks ago, said I had to come down there to see a girl. After you left my apartment last night, I sent for her. She got in early this morning.”
Simon looked between the two of them, images of their whirlwind fight still flashing before his eyes. Finally, when he couldn’t take it any longer, he asked the inevitable question.
“Have you and she...ever...?”
“Jen?” Jason slipped into a nickname, yet looked surprised in spite of himself. “No, Simon. I don’t sleep with my students.” The conversation lapsed for a moment, before his face twisted into a sly smile. “That should be one less worry off your mind.”
Simon’s face flushed a million shades of red as he fought to control it. Shit. Here it was. Not even a full day’s work, and Jason was already on to his and Beth’s little scheme.
“I don’t...what is that even supposed to mean—”
“Everybody—change it up!” Jason shouted, clapping his hands as the students shifted automatically to the right. “You too, Simon.”
Simon was quick to melt into the fold, but as he took his place in line he could have sworn that Jason flashed him a wink.
* * *
IT WAS A TRAINING SESSION like Simon had never had before. Not only was the Oratory rejuvenated by the infusion of fresh ink, but the ink in question shifted the playing field.
Dramatically.
It was a match-up for the ages. Shifter versus shifter. The raw primal nature of one animal versus another. Punctuated with lethal arcs of glowing blue fire.
For his part, he stuck with Tristan’s ink for the bulk of the session before shifting at the end to Jason’s. He didn’t want to ask the new girl if he could use hers, and despite being constantly blown away by the sheer force of energy coming off of Beth he hadn’t been able to bring himself to copy her ink. Not since before the apartment, and then he couldn’t even get a fire started. So he never tried or asked.
He wasn’t sure why that was exactly. Maybe it was that he was worried about t losing control, as she had. Maybe it was because he quite simply cared for her more than the rest.
Whatever the reason was, Simon not only avoided her ink but ended up avoiding her for the rest of the session, Jason’s cryptic message weighing heavily on his mind.
But there was still plenty of action to keep him occupied.
Tristan and Jennifer got to spar after all. And while it didn’t end up going as either one of them would have liked, in a way it was rather self-enlightening.
Jennifer found out that not every man was vulnerable to her charms. And Tristan found out that, no matter the circumstances, he couldn’t hit a girl. And he got his nose broken again.
“For the love of—” He broke off sharply, clutching his face. Streams of crimson spilled out over his fingers as both Simon and Jason headed towards him with a laugh.
“I told you to watch out, Tris,” Simon teased. “She’s even faster than you.”
“Impossible.” Tristan winced as he glared at her from across the room.
Jason chuckled and motioned for him to lower his hands. A wave of fresh blood spattered to the floor, but he ignored it as he gently felt for the break. Then his fingers fastened on. Tristan shook his head quickly, realizing at the last second what he was going to do, but by then it was too late. There was a sickening crunch as his nose snapped back into the correct place.
“Shit!” he cried, stumbling backwards while holding a hand in the air between them like a shield. “First her, now you! Enough already!”
Jason smiled calmly. “You’re welcome.”
“...bunch of sadists.”
He stormed out of the room, leaving Simon and Jason still smiling in his wake. A second later, they were joined by Beth. Her skin was flushed with excitement, lightning the creamy alabaster to a delicate shade of rose, and her eyes were dancing with delight.
“Simon, did you see?” she asked breathlessly, bouncing up and down. “I was able to hit one of the targets! Look! It’s still smoking!” She gestured across the room to where one of the bulls-eyes on the wall was sizzling from a molten hole in the center.
Simon swelled with pride, sweeping her up into the air before he could stop himself. “I knew you would.” His eyes closed as he wound his hands into her hair. “You’re a natural. I bet before long you’re going to—”
His voice cut off suddenly as two slender hands pushed discreetly against his chest. His eyes snapped open again to see Beth staring not at him, but over his shoulder with a slightly panicked look in her eye. Sure enough, the entire Oratory was staring at them curiously. It could have been the fact that the notoriously standoffish Simon Kerrigan had finally found someone who could make him smile, but he was worried that wasn’t it. He was worried that there was something entirely too intimate about their little embrace. Something entirely too bold.
He put her down in an instant, ignoring the piercing look he saw from Jason out of the corner of his eye. “Congratulations,” he said stiffly, also refusing to meet her gaze. “Your brother would be really proud of you.”
He didn’t know why he brought Argyle into it. Maybe to bolster the platonic nature of their claim by reminding everyone he was friends with her brother. Maybe simply to diffuse the sudden tension that was radiating off of the room. Either way, just saying the name made everything feel all the more terrible.
For a second, the image of all those unreturned letters piling up beneath his bed flashed through Simon’s eyes. The weight of them settled hard upon his shoulders. The next moment, he nodded and gave an equally stiff farewell, turned sharply on his heel, and walked away.
He didn’t slow down and didn’t return anyone’s shouts or stares until he was safely back in his dorm room. Once there, he collapsed upon his bed and didn’t stop screaming into his pillow until he was entirely out of breath.
When he was finally finished, he rolled slowly onto his back, red-faced and panting.
How was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to pretend like he didn’t love her, every second, with everyone watching? It was impossible! Jason had already made vague hints, like he already knew. The rest of them wouldn’t be long to follow.
He curled into a delicate crunch, lifting his body until he was sitting in the center of his mattress, his face in his hands.
Beth coming to England was supposed to make everything better, not worse. What if things got completely away from them? What if she wasn’t able to get a handle on her ability, and that horrible dream he’d had all those months ago came blazing into life?
How could he stop it all from happening?
How could he keep everything from spinning out of control?
