Dangerous Exile by K.J. Jackson
{ Chapter 6 }
As much as he wanted to, Talen refused to look over his shoulder at Ness trailing behind him through the halls of the Alabaster.
She was either following or she wasn’t, either action would tell him volumes.
She wanted to be strong.
What woman wanted that? Women wanted safety. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Children. That was what women wanted.
They wanted a champion. They didn’t want to be strong.
Yet here was this sprite of a woman, following in his footsteps, looking for that very thing. To meet life on her own terms, as preposterous a notion as that was. Though his respect for her just increased tenfold.
This, he could work with.
He set the key into the lock of his office and opened the door, ushering her past him before closing the door behind them.
As she moved into the room, Ness’s gaze centered on the long wall of windows, eight of them, that looked down into the main gaming room of the Alabaster. She walked past the long length of his desk to look out the far right one.
The patronage below would be in full debauchery mode by now. With the constant hum of the many voices, the smoke of cheroots hung thick in the air directly in front of the windows and the alcohol flowed freely at this time of night.
Her gaze remained on the gambling several floors below. “What is this room?”
“My office.”
“An office where you spy on people?”
“I watch over my business. I make no apology for it.”
She nodded and turned around to him, shifting the braid of her thick, deep brown hair behind her shoulder, and her right hand smoothed down the front of her simple pale yellow muslin dress. Curious that was what Verity had found for her to wear. Something so…innocent.
“I am ready.”
His eyebrow arched. “Ready for what?”
“For you to start teaching me.”
Right to it, then.
Talen stifled a smile and moved across the room to stand in front of her. “You are positive you want to do this?”
“Positive.”
“On with it, then. I am about to attack you.” His left hand lifted and he motioned about them. “Look around—what weapons do you see?”
A flicker of fear sparked in her eyes and her look shifted off of his face to search past his shoulder. Chairs, desk, chests, fireplace. Her amber eyes snapped back to him. “None.”
He studied the unease in her face. “Look again. There must be something solid to get into your hand. Can you injure me with something on the desk? Something on the floor?”
Her arm flew up, her forefinger pointing toward the fireplace. “The fire poker.”
He nodded, turning sideways from her to look at the heavy black fire iron hanging beside the fireplace. “You think?”
Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth and then she nodded. “Yes.”
He motioned toward it. “Then grab it. Attack me. Hit me with it.”
She glanced at him, her brows drawn together. “You want me to do what?”
“Attack me with the poker. People learn best by doing, so do.”
Hesitant for a long moment, she took a deep breath and scampered past him toward the fireplace and took the fire poker from the wall, then turned back to him.
“Now attack me.”
Her cheeks cringing, she lifted the tip of the poker until it was higher than her head and swung it toward his shoulder. Swung it slow.
He easily caught the length of the black iron in the air and yanked it from her hand.
“Oh.” She stumbled a step forward.
He held the handle of the poker out to her. “Do it again. Harder.”
Her lips drawing into a determined line, she snatched the poker from him and swung it down faster.
He caught it mid-swing but didn’t pull it from her grasp. He released it. “Again.”
She took a step to the right, swinging sideways toward him at a lower angle. He caught the iron. “Again.”
She huffed a breath of annoyance, then swung quickly, hard.
He caught it. “Harder.”
Again and again, from all angles, she swung and he caught the poker until she was panting, her face red with frustration.
A screech ripped from her mouth on the last swing. He caught the poker just before it slammed into his shoulder and he yanked it from her hand.
Heaving, she jabbed several steps away from him until her hip ran into the side of his desk. She stopped, her glare pinning him with every heavy breath, her right hand clutching her side as heat flushed her face with a tinge of pink through the fading bruises.
He inclined his head to her. “That didn’t work.”
“So what were you trying to prove?” she spat out. “Just how weak—how slow I am?”
“No—only that your choice of weapons matters.”
She shook her head, looking away from him, fire crackling in her amber eyes as they stared at the door. She was debating. Debating on the wisdom of what she’d just started.
He didn’t want her to give up on herself so easily.
“Look around again, Ness. What else can you attack me with?”
She glanced around, frantic, her right hand flying up, palm to the ceiling. “I—I don’t know.”
Talen moved across the room to her, stopped, then leaned past her to set the fire iron onto his desk, his chest brushing her shoulder.
Damn. He was too close to her. Too close with her chest heaving, her eyes blazing and the smell of apricots drifting up from her hair. The swelling had abated on her face and he’d realized days ago that she was pretty—beautiful, even. That was when he’d started locking her door. The Alabaster was no place for a beautiful woman.
But why in the hell did she smell like apricots?
Verity. Verity would have found and brought up some odd mish-mash of soap from the kitchens for her. For as silent as she was, Verity was far too good to any guest they had here at the Alabaster.
He took a step backward. Out of Ness’s air.
It took him a full second to refocus on the task at hand. “Here’s the truth. You’re small, Ness. Wielding something big like a fire poker isn’t your best option. Someone is attacking you? Your goal isn’t to fight back and win. Your goal is to get away. Injure your attacker enough to run. Injure him enough to make sure that even if you are chased, he’ll never catch up to you. No matter what, stay alive. You’re small so you need to be fast.”
His chin tilted down as his look pinned her. “You’re small so you need small weapons that you can wield efficiently. Ones that don’t tire you out. Ones that aren’t going to be turned against you. I would have crushed your skull in with that poker after ripping it from you.”
Her jaw dropped.
“Now is not the moment for delicacy. This is reality and that’s what you wanted.” He shook his head and walked around his desk, picking up his silver letter opener with a dragon relief in the gold, coin-sized round at the top of the handle. The first thing he’d won off a peer years ago—a win that had opened his eyes to the lucrative possibilities in London.
He flipped it into the air and caught it by the tip, then held it out to her. “Here’s your weapon.”
“But it has no blade.”
“The tip can impale just as easily as a dagger.” He wiggled it and she took it from his hand. “You impale, you draw blood, and then you escape. You won’t slit a throat with it, but it will damage. Damage equals escape.”
He walked back around the desk to stand in front of her. “Attack me again. See how fast you can be.”
Before his words even finished, she’d jumped to her left and jabbed the tip at his upper arm. A rip of fabric and the point of the opener hit skin and nicked him.
Blast, she could be quick.
He spun to the side just as she went for another swing at his shoulder and he caught her wrist. Wedging her arm up, he grabbed her opposite shoulder and shoved her backward until she ran into the wall. He slammed her right hand against the wall, making the opener fall from her grasp.
Her eyes flew wide, instant panic in them as her body curled against his hold, her eyes closing as she tried to make herself small.
“You’re cowering. Stop.” His words barked, harsh, into her face.
She shook her head, refusing to open her eyes to him.
He notched his voice down. “I’m not going to hurt you, Ness. But you need to feel the panic—this panic—know exactly what it is so you can identify it, overcome it. Stay alive.”
Slowly, her eyes opened, though the cringe about her eyes stayed determinedly in place. She nodded.
“Good. Now I have you pinned—what do you do now?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice came out in a squeak.
A squeak he didn’t like. He liked it when her voice was strong. Determined.
“What weapons do you have?
“None, you have my arm pinned against the wall.” She lifted her left forearm. “And I can’t move my other arm.”
“You have two knees, Ness. You have heels. All of those work just fine.” He leaned down, his face directly in front of hers, his look intense. “Your first move is to slam a knee up into my ballocks. Your next move is to crash your heel down on my instep. Hobble me. I will drop your arm.”
“But that—that’s underhanded.”
“Underhanded saves lives. There’s no politeness when it comes to your life, you understand? Stay alive.”
“I—I—”
Without another word, she rammed her knee up into his groin and then slammed her heel down onto his boot. Silent and vicious and just what he wanted from her.
He doubled over, spinning away, his hands dropping from her as instant pain swept his body.
He looked up to find her face horrified, her hand over her mouth as she watched him. He shook his head. “Shit, that hurt. But I’m still coming for you—look around, what else do you have?”
She glanced around for less than a second and then shook her head.
“Open your eyes, Ness. The decanter to your right—smash it over my head, hold onto the neck of the glass and then cut me with the raw edge that’s left. Or grab a book, throw it into my face, slam it into my temple. You use anything you can get a hand on.”
“But—but I don’t want to wreck your things.”
His hands on his knees, he grunted as he pushed himself upright enough to look her in the eye. “You’re learning survival, stop worrying about my damn possessions.”
A breath and he charged forward ready to pin her to the wall again. Her leg instantly flew up into his ballocks. Fine reward. A lamp smashed across the side of his head in the next second.
Bent over, he staggered three steps to the left, his brain stunned, not able to catch his balance.
She rushed forward, her right hand grabbing onto his shoulder, trying to steady him. “Oh, Talen—no—I’m sorry, so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
His hand flew up to her. “Don’t be sorry. Good—that was good.” He paused, tilting his head to the left and then to the right as he tried to still his brain in his skull. His left eye squinted closed and he glanced up at her with his right eye. “That would have given you enough time to run. Remember, you’re never going to beat someone my size one-on-one. You fight like hell and then you run. Run and hide or run until you can get help. You understand? You understand now?”
Her hand tightened on his shoulder as though she wasn’t sure if he would fall if she let him go. “I do. I wish I were bigger, stronger than I am, but I’m not. You’re telling me what reality is, and how I can bend it to serve me if only I accept it.”
With a deep heave of air into his lungs, he pushed himself upright. There would be shards of pain in his groin area for a stretch of time, but he’d hobbled through worse. He looked down at her, pleased she’d grasped what he was telling her so quickly. “Exactly.”
Her eyes lifted to him, the gold streaks of her irises sparking, so vivid with pulsing fire that it nearly reached out, consuming him.
No. Eyes like that were dangerous. No good could come of it.
He tore his stare off her, looking at the windows at the end of the room. “You can’t be bigger than you are, but you can be stronger.”
“I can?”
“We can all be stronger.” He stepped gingerly toward the bookcase filling the wall to the left of the fireplace. His eyes searching the shelves, he took his time in plucking an assortment of tomes from the bookcase. “To that end, I’m bringing you back to your room with a nice stack of books.”
She moved next to him and neatly set the books on top of each other in a straight pile. “You’re taking pity on me in that room with nothing to do?”
He gave her a sideways glance. “No, the books are for lifting. You need to get stronger. You’re to balance these along your right arm and lift them, up and down, as many as you can do at a time. Then add another one. Then do the same thing with your legs. Lie down and balance them on your shins, lower and lift them. All of that will strengthen your muscles. If you were one of my men I would have you swinging an ax to chop wood, or pulling a stubborn ox along the road, or hauling carts of coal. But you’re stuck in a room with little to stress your muscles.”
She looked at the stack, her fingers running along several of the titles embossed along the sides of the leather jackets. “And they might just entertain me as well?”
“Will they?” His brows lifted. “If that is the case, then it is merely a fortunate happenstance.”
He piled the rest of the books atop her stack and picked up the tower of them, then moved toward the door. She scooted in front of him and opened the door for him.
They walked through the corridors alongside each other, her a half step behind for she didn’t know her way. Which was good. He didn’t intend for her to ever be outside of her room or his office.
He stopped in front of her door and nudged it open with the toe of his boot.
She went into the chamber, quickly going to the small rosewood desk by the window and brushing aside the hairbrush and hair pins that sat scattered atop it.
He set the stack of books down and turned to her. “We’re not done. We’ll do this again, tomorrow if I’ve recovered by then. We’ll see if you can best me once more.”
She chuckled, the gentlest chime of laughter that struck a pang deep within him he couldn’t identify.
“Thank you for letting me best you. You didn’t have to do so.” Her face grew serious. “And thank you for not dismissing me. For listening to me and not thinking me silly. I don’t know that anyone has ever done that for me, save for Juliet.”
The inexplicable but visceral need to protect this woman reared deep in his gut again and he forced his mouth closed for fear of what would come out of it. With a quick nod, he turned away from her and stepped out of the room into the hallway.
It wasn’t until he’d closed her door and locked it that he exhaled the breath held in his lungs.
The best way to protect Ness was to teach her to protect herself. That was truth.
For he knew full well he couldn’t be trusted to protect anyone.