When vengeance strikes in the form of a bullet out for the princess's blood, Princess Aleia VonAuclair must flee the heart of her country in order to protect the people she loves and take back the pieces of her soul she'd lost to the girl she once l...
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I landed flat on my back with a loud thud, the air whooshing straight out of my lungs like a sharp knife being dragged through my throat. Bryan gazed down at me with a stern frown plastered across his face, barely out of breath and only the lightest sheen of sweat glistening on his skin.
"Again," Bryan said, and I groaned dramatically, throwing my arms up above my head in protest.
"Come on, Bryan! We've been at it for an hour already! I. Am. Dying here."
He rolled his eyes and flicked my forehead.
"Ow!"
"Until you can last in a fight without being thrown around like a rag doll, we're not going to stop."
I pouted like an incompetent child, massaging my fingers over the spot he'd flicked even though there was barely any pain.
"I don't even understand the point of this! You people put a bajillion guards around me and then expect me to know how to fight like I'm in some kind of James Bond movie. Plus, the palace has made me take basic self-defence classes for years now and Aaron's already been training me the last few months. I can hold my own just fine without you throwing me around like a rag doll just to prove a point."
Bryan walked around towards where my arms were splayed out above me and yanked me upright. I huffed, stumped when he picked me up like I was a piece of lint on his shoulder.
"That's the thing," he said, "those classes were basic self-defence lessons. What if your oncoming attacker isn't just some random man trying to feel you up, hmm? What if your attacker is a vengeful man plotting out exactly when and where he'd be able to get his hands on you?"
He casted me a pointed, meaningful glance at that and I couldn't do anything but begrudgingly force my sore limbs back into position.
We circled the mat slowly; Bryan trying to instil the throes of body language and combat into my brain and me, just trying to land a punch.
I tried to read his body language, the rhythm of his movements, I really did, but I'd only been at this for a couple months while he'd been training in combat fighting for years. The man could resemble a statue and still throw me on my ass.
After my birthday ball, Aaron had taken the initiative to teach me how to hold up my own in a fist fight just in case a situation called for it. Such a situation was statistically considered to be very unlikely but then again, the events of the birthday gala were considered unlikely, too and it happened anyway.
Now that I was all the way over here, in another country, while Aaron remained in Asrea, Bryan had taken over his teaching duties.
The only thing was, with Bryan, it actually felt like he wanted to kick my ass. Like it was the only time he could get back at me for all the snide remarks and near heart attacks I gave him without the palace putting a target on his head.
