The Evolution of Fae and Gods (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 3)

Carrick doesn’t try to step back or turn his body to evade me. His arm merely flashes so fast I can’t see it, but all I know is he has my ankle in his hand, and he shoves me backward. It’s not hard enough to throw me straight to the ground, but it’s forceful enough that I stumble back several feet before the momentum takes me down to my ass in a humiliating conclusion to that attack.

“Get up,” Carrick says, palms up and flapping his fingers toward himself in a taunt.

I growl and push myself up, now engaging my brain a bit more. If this is how Carrick wants to play at hand-to-hand, I’m going to have to be more wily than him because I’ll never be as fast.

It takes only a moment to consider my options, and I rush him to attack. There’s a brief flash of surprise on his face and his hands come up, suspecting I’ll go with a flurry of punches. Instead, a mere two feet from him, I go into a baseball slide across the floor, made possible only by the fact I’m wearing full-length leggings because, otherwise, I’d be leaving strips of skin on the floor, and glide right by Carrick’s left leg.

As he’s turning to see where I went, I pop up, make a mad dash to my duffel bag, and have my whip out in mere seconds. I don’t know where Carrick is—if he’s just watching or rushing to attack me—but I don’t take any chances.

I whirl counterclockwise, fluidly bringing my whip, which has the thong coming across the front of my legs in a gentle whoosh. I then lift my hand above my head, the rest of the whip following almost gracefully. I helicopter it once over my head, finally catching Carrick’s eyes on mine, and slash it down to give a warning crack that comes merely inches from slicing across his chest.

My heart is racing, wondering if this is going to be a fight of whip versus demi-god, but Carrick’s face splits into a wide smile, and there’s pride in his eyes.

“Well done,” he praises.

“I figured I’d never match up to you in hand-to-hand,” I say, explaining myself.

“That was your smartest choice, and it shows me you’re using your best weapon… your brain.”

I have to force myself not to preen because I’m not sure Carrick has ever praised me before.

He nods at the whip. “Go ahead and put it down. You do need to practice hand-to-hand, and I’m going to put myself on human super slo-mo for you so that you can get some repetitive strikes and blocks in.”

I nod, turning to drop the whip in my duffel. This will be helpful because even though we’ll be going at regular human speed, practicing my moves over and over helps to build muscle memory and will quicken my response times.

We go at it for almost half an hour, working in four-minute fast rounds with one-minute breathers in between. Of course, that’s for my benefit, not Carrick’s, who doesn’t get out of breath at all. In fact, he hasn’t even broken a sweat while I’m covered in it.

“Last round,” Carrick says as he presses the button on his watch to reset the timer. I’m still a little wheezy, bent over with my hands on my knees, but I give a resolute nod.

We start again, my arms and legs feeling heavy and weighed down from the prior rounds we’d completed. I spend a little too much time putting space between us, walking in a circle to keep him at my front.

He doesn’t like me taking this extra breather when I just had one, and he comes at me. He volleys several punches, which I’m able to parry only because he’s slowed them down even more in deference to my frail human body being nearly depleted of energy.

An inside-out parry misses his punch and would have connected with my nose had Carrick not pulled it at the last minute.

“Come on, Finley,” he growls. “If you’re fighting a daemon or fae, they’re not going to go easy on you like this. Give me more.”

I go on the offensive, hit him with a one-two, and manage to block a roundhouse punch from him. But I don’t merely block it, I wrap my arm around his, pin it hard to my side, and step into him to give three hard uppercuts to his stomach that’s seemingly made of steel, and I can feel my knuckles bruising.

Carrick easily pulls free, puts his hand on top of my head, and pushes me backward like I’m an annoying kid throwing a tantrum.

It’s humiliating—even more so when he lectures me. “That was pretty pathetic. Come on now. Pull deep.”

Christ, I’m tired, but anger fires my blood up and I get a burst of energy I didn’t expect. I take advantage of it while he’s standing complacently and attack. Except this time, I feign high and then take a page from Titus’ book and crouch low. One foot planted hard on the floor, the other leg extended, I make a twirl like a top and sweep Carrick’s leg out from under him.