Me and my big mouth. I sprawled across the dojo floor, sure going a couple more rounds with Big Mad Martha would be a piece of cake compared to sparring with M.T. Stone.
“You think MT means Mighty Tough?” a shifter from Rhode Island gasped beside me.
I snorted. This guy passed Mighty Tough before six fifteen this morning.
“How many of us you think are left?” A whip-thin black woman from Queens asked on my other side. I figured she might be an Agathodemon. They were rare, or had been for centuries, but there was something about the lilt to her voice and a slight red cast to her eyes that might make her one of the good-hearted creatures from ancient Egypt.
“Eighteen dropped,” Kelly huffed, surprising me. Not that she was huffing, we all were, but that she was still here and had kept tabs on the falling flies. Might be more to Cheerleader than I thought.
“Back in position,” came the barked order as we sprawled across the dojo floor. I had to figure out what Stone was because it was sure as heck not human. No human could keep up his brutal pace and smile while doing it.
Right then he was standing in the middle of the dojo floor, hands fisted on his hips, barely breaking a sweat. Then the door opened.
All gazes shifted left, including Stone’s whose eyes narrowed.
Stone spoke first, “Princess, the beauty pageant is over for the day. Come back later.”
Damn, sweat and sarcasm rolled together in a way that made what my brothers dished out seem benign.
Who was this woman who looked like she walked fashion runways in her spare time? Either that or she really was some kind of royalty as she stared down her nose at M.T. Stone as if barely aware of his existence.
I sat up straighter. Not that I liked blood drawn, but a small bout of fireworks would give all us recruits a chance to catch our breath. Something M.T. Stone frowned upon.
“Vaughn Monroe,” announced the woman in tones that promised hot, sweaty sex and lots of it to anyone who could keep up. I could have sworn Stone swallowed.
“Bet you a twenty she wraps him around her finger before end of day,” Amazon woman from last night whispered, leaning close to me as she moved from stretched out to sitting straight up. The first words she’d spoken to me all day.
“You think it’ll take her that long?” I countered, wondering if I should push for fifty.
“Nah, but Stone’s no lightweight.”
I took another glance at the newcomer and the cut of her clothes, not that Mud Lake, Idaho had ever seen such a suit. The cost of her hair highlights alone gave her away. This woman was born to wealth and pampering. The high life with a capital H.
Could she take Stone? Yeah, eventually. But Stone had more riding on the outcome of the sparks flying between him and this Vaughn Monroe. Fighter with the most to lose always fought with more heart.
“I’ll take your twenty and raise you twenty.”
Amazon arched her brows. “You a gambler?”
I shook my head.
“Your gift telling you something?” she air-quoted the word gift. So far no one had admitted to any uniqueness, though I could scent a few shifters and one Cambion, a half-human offspring of an incubus and a succubus who always smelt strongly of musk, in the group.
Let Amazon guess or play it straight? I caught Kelly glancing at me out of the corner of my eye. I shook my head again. “Just experience.”
Amazon shot Stone and the newcomer, both still frozen in place, a good once over before she turned back to me. “Done. Forty says Stone caves first.”
“And he caves today,” I clarified. “You’re on.”
Amazon scooted away, allying with Chiquita who’d done nothing but give me the stink-eye all morning.
But now I had something more interesting to distract me from burning muscles and squeezed lungs.
“Don’t let me down, big guy,” I said under my breath as I staggered to my feet.
“You say something Noziak?” Stone pounced on me, ignoring the bigger threat right in front of him. “Why don’t you and Princess here go a few rounds? Show us prep school versus . . .”
He didn’t say it. Prep school versus prison but he and I both knew what he was thinking.
Fine M.T. Must-be Terminal Stone. Going up against a Prom Queen wasn’t my style, but kept me away from Amazon and Chiquita gal, both who’d go for blood.
I glanced at the newcomer. “You want to suit up or fight in those heels?”
She actually smiled. Not a smarmy get-real one like I expected but the unholy gleam of someone who was looking forward to a challenge.
“I’ll be back in a nanosecond,” she said in Brahmin tones.
I almost grinned. What pampered princess could change out of posh clothes in a second? Taking her down was going to be a piece of cake. I only hoped I didn’t hurt her too badly in the process.
But damn if the woman wasn’t true to her word, returning to the dojo before I could catch my breath. She wore a fresh gi which looked tailor-made for her. My own gi was so soaked with sweat it was more wet then dry, but if Princess was ready, so was I.
“Go, Alex,” Kelly cheered as the rest of the group backed away, giving Monroe and I a circle around us. Stone didn’t wave anyone back to their own sparring partners so I guessed there was more going on here then I first suspected.
A test? Winner take all, or Stone giving the loser an opportunity to be booted?
Opening my senses a little I tried to guess what this Vaughn Monroe might be. Succubus? Fae? Part-demon? But I didn’t get any sense of her being a non-human, only a scowl from Stone, as if he guessed what I was doing.
But only a fool waltzed into an uneven match, training session or not.
Stone had been teaching us elements of Krav Maga, the noncompetitive martial art self-defense system that came out of Israel. So far from what I’d seen it included everything and anything, a little karate, some kickboxing, wrestling, crap, even some grappling techniques. My kind of hand-to-hand, down and dirty fighting. Sort of an Idaho free-for-all.
“Come on, Princess,” I murmured, loud enough for her to hear my taunt. “Show me what you’ve got.”
But evidently royalty were no more fools than Noziaks, or this one wasn’t about to be prodded into making a stupid first move.
So we knelt on the mats, bowed to each other, guessing at the other’s potential strengths and weaknesses. She was about my height, almost five-ten, and her leanness looked stronger than gym-created muscles. But I doubted she’d ever sparred with a partner like me, trained by four shifter brothers.
Not taking our eyes off one another we rose to our feet, the people around us disappearing into the background, our focus one hundred percent on the other.
We stepped toward one another and she lunged first, so fast her leg cut beneath mine as she twisted, slamming me down on the mat before I knew what had smacked me.
Lord love a duck, she was fast. Wicked fast and not afraid to show it.
I flipped to my knees, rising slowly as if hurt and waited for her to make her first mistake. She did, extending her hand as one equal to another.
This time I struck. My right hand grabbing her right hand to immobilize it, I used her kindness to pull myself up and toward her, twisting to the left, my left elbow cracking into her jaw in a pivoting movement that earned groans and catcalls from the sidelines. Yeah, it was sneaky and cheap but this wasn’t beauty pageant practice. On second thought, from what I’d heard about many of those competitions they were pretty brutal.
Vaughn Monroe must have learned from the best as she barely hit the mat before she flipped her legs up with a scissor kick motion that wrapped them around my neck, twirled me, and we were both on the mat.
Now I was pissed. No princess beat a Noziak.
She scrambled to her knees at about the same time I did so I rolled backwards, thrusting upward with my leg to her chin as she leaned forward. Smack.
But no way was she out as she pivoted away and came back with her leg sweeping my knees out from under me then pounced with an arm thrust to my neck.
Wolf-calls whistled around us as I lay there panting, pinned and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do unless she moved. Not unless I wanted a broken neck.
“So they taught you a few things in charm school,” Stone growled, sounding as P.O’d as I was. “Get to your feet.”
Even as she released her hold, allowing me a much-needed breath, she kept her eyes glued to mine. Smart cookie never, ever trust an opponent until they were knocked out or dead.
My opinion of her improved and I noticed she didn’t extend her hand to me this time as we rose and backed away from one another. Stone hadn’t ended the session. Not by a long shot.
But as I was dancing on my feet to keep my momentum up I felt a jolt ricochet up my right arm like a lightening singe just as Monroe grabbed for my raised left arm, pulled me toward her, and used an upper cut of her knee to my chest to collapse me.
This time as I curled to my knees I wasn’t half as agile or fast to respond, my right arm vibrating like a funny bone on crack. Damn. Had she hit a nerve?
She must have sensed I’d pulled away mentally so she zeroed in for the kill strike. Very smart cookie. Take every opportunity you could in a fight.
Cradling my right arm with my left I didn’t give her anything to grab onto so she came in low, using the power of her shoulder bone coming up against my chin to send me flying backwards.
Thank heavens I smashed into the nearest cheering section who broke my fall, though I doubted they meant to be live sandbags. By the time I scrambled to my feet one leg wasn’t working. Not numb from the fall but tingling, as if electricity streamed through it. A high jolt of juice.
What the . . ? I glanced around. A blur of faces. Monroe across from me, hands braced on her legs, chugging air. Stone acting as referee, his face blank, his eyes shifting to high-alert wariness. Something was happening, but I was too focused on not getting the stuffing beaten out of me to realize what it was at first.
Then as hard as Monroe’s last kick, it hit me. Magic. I could almost sniff it in the air. Someone was hamstringing me by weakening my limbs.
A quick heated glance at Monroe only earned a frown. Not her. But who?
By this time Stone figured something was up. He raised an arm, calling. “Play is over ladies, back to work.”
The circle broke up with a few groans, but I wasn’t paying them any mind. Not with the twisting starting low in my belly and tightening.
By this time a wary Monroe and a focused Stone sidled up to me asking in a low voice, “What’s up?”
I barely bit out the words, “Black magic.”
Then the room spiraled into darkness.