But Adiron doesn’t notice Helen’s change in mood. He turns and gives me an excited look. “Matty! You’re not gonna believe this!”
“Believe what?” I ask, stepping casually into the gym. A dozen sly retorts to zing my brother spring to mind, but I keep thinking about Helen’s change in demeanor. I don’t want her to misunderstand or get hurt feelings. I want her to keffing enjoy herself, damn it. So I keep my expression mild and wait for my brother to answer.
Adi grins, rubbing his hands together as he takes a few steps back. “Maybe I should let her show you. Go on, Helen.”
She bites her full lower lip and gives me a shy shrug, averting her gaze. “I’ve been practicing with my rolling pin.”
Ah, sparring. And this is what Adiron wants to show me. Maybe she has natural talent for a young female. I remember how terrible Zoey was when we started training her, and how she had to build up muscle to even stand a chance at sparring with us. Helen’s slender, and I suspect she’ll have even less muscle tone than Zoey. “You want to spar with me?”
“Oh, no,” Helen breathes, her eyes going wide.
“She does,” Adiron presses, putting his hands on my back and shoving me toward the center of the room. “Go on, Helen. It’s fine. You can’t hurt him permanently.”
Despite Adiron’s teasing, Helen still looks uncertain. She follows me out to the center of the room, into a marked-off sparring area, and picks up the long, cylindrical rolling pin she’s so fond of. “I don’t want to hurt Mathiras.”
That’s keffing adorable. Sweet, tempting, lithe Helen thinks she’ll hurt me? I should be offended except I know she doesn’t mean it as an insult to my masculinity. I take a defensive stance on the mat, spreading my legs and my tail swishing slowly behind me. I lift my hands for blocking as she moves across from me, her stance far more awkward than mine. “It’s all right, Helen.” I gesture for her to approach, a quick flick of my fingers. “Give me what you’ve got. Hard as you can.”
She looks over at Adiron.
“Go easy on him,” Adi calls out.
I ignore my brother and make the “come on” gesture to Helen again, bouncing on my heels. “Don’t listen to him. Give me everything. Hard as—”
Helen’s hand whips out, faster than I’ve ever seen a mesakkah (or a human) move, and her wrist snaps, lighting-fast. She cracks the rolling pin straight across my face—
—red pain explodes through my nose and the room goes dark.
CHAPTER 23
HELEN
I wring my hands over Mathiras’s sleeping body in the med bay. His beautiful nose is swollen, and Adiron assures me that the machines healed the bridge of his nose and he should wake up soon. “You’re sure he’s all right?”
“He’s a tough mesakkah, Helen. He’ll be fine.” Adiron taps a few notes into his data-pad, probably writing to Jade. “You don’t have to fuss over him.”
“But I want to fuss over him.” I tug the crinkly thermal blanket a little higher over him and smooth his hair back from his brow. “I feel so guilty. He said I should hit him as hard as I could. That was wrong?”
Adi chuckles. “It was hilarious.”
“No it wasn’t!” I frown at him. “I hurt him. I never want to hurt Mathiras.” I grab his limp hand in mine and clutch it to my chest, petting his knuckles. “You should have warned him.”
“To be fair, I thought you were gonna go for the balls.” He shrugs. “And he’s had worse. He’ll wake up soon. I should probably go check the bridge, though.” He hops out of his seat as if this is normal, as if his brother isn’t passed out in med-bay because of my rolling pin. “You want anything from the mess hall?”
I shake my head, hovering over Mathiras, waiting for his eyes to open again. I won’t be able to rest until he looks at me and takes my apology. Until he realizes just how sorry I am.
Adiron heads off, whistling, and I’m left alone with his sleeping brother. I continue to fuss over him, clenching his hand in mine as I brush his hair back and straighten his blanket over and over again. I want to cry, but the only thing that stops me is that Mathiras doesn’t like my tears, and I don’t want him to wake up and see me weeping. It’ll only make him more upset at me. So I try to smile, even though it feels as if my face hurts from the effort.
Eventually, Mathiras’s eyes flutter open and he groans. The hand pressed to my breasts twitches, and his gaze flicks over to me. “Helen?”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
He pulls his hand from my grasp, brushing over my breasts as he does, and I suck in a breath at the sensation, because I should be focusing on Mathiras and his pain, not on how it felt when his hand rubbed against my front. But he groans again and my attention is fully on him once more. His hand carefully feels the bridge of his nose. “Broken?”