athletic.
He had watched her bouts at the Games. Hell, of course he had. Like most of the contestants, he DVRed the bouts so that he could go through them again, analyzing each fighter’s strengths and weakness. He had pored over Aryal’s fights time and time again. It was only smart to study his enemy in an effort to discover any weakness.
During the Games, the contestants had their own box. Once they had gotten far enough through the rounds that the contestants’ numbers were limited, the new contenders mingled with the five sentinels, exchanging sharp, assessing glances and friendly smiles. When he wasn’t competing, Quentin had lived in that box.
Aryal fought with power and confidence. When she struck, she was fast as a snake, and the one time she chose to change into her Wyr form, she rioted across the sands of the arena like a joyous minitornado.
The sight was so magnificent, Quentin was on his feet before he realized it, along with the rest of the stadium. She laughed as she fought, her face vivid and wild, talons out and flashing in the white-hot lights, and everything about her
aligned.
She never once lost command of the placement of those huge, gray-to-black wings, and once when her opponent, a massive, thousand-plus-pound polar bear, lunged to strike at her, she leaped into an aerial cartwheel that carried her soaring over his head. As she had flown over him, she reached down in an almost leisurely movement, the talon of one finger extended, and raked a thin, teasing cut along his muscled back.
It was a blatantly gratuitous maneuver, but it was so precisely executed, and the smile on her face was filled with such feral gaiety, Quentin found himself shouting along with all the others. In that moment all thoughts of resentment were temporarily suspended for sheer love of the artistry she displayed with such abandon. She owned that fight from beginning to end.
When she put her opponent on the ground for the last time, Grym, who had been leaning against the box railingbeside Quentin, straightened and threw a fist pump into the air, roaring,
“ MY GIRL! ”
The sentinel’s ferocious glee had broken Quentin out of the moment. Remembering it now, he scowled, shifting position carefully in his tiny space in an effort to get more comfortable. He sensed Aryal’s body tense. When he looked at her, he saw that her gaze had cut sideways. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he tried to get comfortable.
Unbidden and unwanted, Alex’s words echoed in his thoughts.
You’re both sentinels for a reason, you know, and we need you.
Damn that pegasus.
Quentin was born a killer. He had the instincts of a predator. Despite that, he had never killed indiscriminately. His impulse to throttle Aryal was one thing, but the quiet intention to murder her was an entirely different thing. It was too far off even his screwed-up moral compass.
You can have all the right reasons in the world. They don’t mean shit, my friend, if what you do causes harm.
He shifted again as his admittedly dysfunctional conscience nagged him. He had thought he had the right reasons last year, and then he’d ended up causing so much harm. This time, hell, he didn’t even have any right reasons. She just drove him crazy.
So quietly that only he could hear her, she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “Stop moving.”
In a quick, neat move, he took the magazine from her lap before she had a chance to react. Her whole body twitched as she made an aborted move as if she would snatch it back before she could stop herself. He flipped through the pages without really looking at them while she glared at him. On his other side, Mom tucked away her Sudoku book, slipped a circular foam airplane pillow out of a canvas bag and anchored it around her neck, then settled back in her seat for a snooze.
He was saturated with Aryal’s scent, drowning in her presence, and there wasn’t any escape for eight and a halfmore hours. Thank God her
He had watched her bouts at the Games. Hell, of course he had. Like most of the contestants, he DVRed the bouts so that he could go through them again, analyzing each fighter’s strengths and weakness. He had pored over Aryal’s fights time and time again. It was only smart to study his enemy in an effort to discover any weakness.
During the Games, the contestants had their own box. Once they had gotten far enough through the rounds that the contestants’ numbers were limited, the new contenders mingled with the five sentinels, exchanging sharp, assessing glances and friendly smiles. When he wasn’t competing, Quentin had lived in that box.
Aryal fought with power and confidence. When she struck, she was fast as a snake, and the one time she chose to change into her Wyr form, she rioted across the sands of the arena like a joyous minitornado.
The sight was so magnificent, Quentin was on his feet before he realized it, along with the rest of the stadium. She laughed as she fought, her face vivid and wild, talons out and flashing in the white-hot lights, and everything about her
aligned.
She never once lost command of the placement of those huge, gray-to-black wings, and once when her opponent, a massive, thousand-plus-pound polar bear, lunged to strike at her, she leaped into an aerial cartwheel that carried her soaring over his head. As she had flown over him, she reached down in an almost leisurely movement, the talon of one finger extended, and raked a thin, teasing cut along his muscled back.
It was a blatantly gratuitous maneuver, but it was so precisely executed, and the smile on her face was filled with such feral gaiety, Quentin found himself shouting along with all the others. In that moment all thoughts of resentment were temporarily suspended for sheer love of the artistry she displayed with such abandon. She owned that fight from beginning to end.
When she put her opponent on the ground for the last time, Grym, who had been leaning against the box railingbeside Quentin, straightened and threw a fist pump into the air, roaring,
“ MY GIRL! ”
The sentinel’s ferocious glee had broken Quentin out of the moment. Remembering it now, he scowled, shifting position carefully in his tiny space in an effort to get more comfortable. He sensed Aryal’s body tense. When he looked at her, he saw that her gaze had cut sideways. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he tried to get comfortable.
Unbidden and unwanted, Alex’s words echoed in his thoughts.
You’re both sentinels for a reason, you know, and we need you.
Damn that pegasus.
Quentin was born a killer. He had the instincts of a predator. Despite that, he had never killed indiscriminately. His impulse to throttle Aryal was one thing, but the quiet intention to murder her was an entirely different thing. It was too far off even his screwed-up moral compass.
You can have all the right reasons in the world. They don’t mean shit, my friend, if what you do causes harm.
He shifted again as his admittedly dysfunctional conscience nagged him. He had thought he had the right reasons last year, and then he’d ended up causing so much harm. This time, hell, he didn’t even have any right reasons. She just drove him crazy.
So quietly that only he could hear her, she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “Stop moving.”
In a quick, neat move, he took the magazine from her lap before she had a chance to react. Her whole body twitched as she made an aborted move as if she would snatch it back before she could stop herself. He flipped through the pages without really looking at them while she glared at him. On his other side, Mom tucked away her Sudoku book, slipped a circular foam airplane pillow out of a canvas bag and anchored it around her neck, then settled back in her seat for a snooze.
He was saturated with Aryal’s scent, drowning in her presence, and there wasn’t any escape for eight and a halfmore hours. Thank God her
Similar Books
