The Rumored Half

A Killer and A Lover

  CHAPTER 13

The first thing that I was taught was how to hide a dagger. There are a surprising number of places where you can hide the little thing. It’s only a few inches longer than my hand and quite thin so it’s easy to hide and handle.

 Alec gave me two wrist sheaths along with a pair of my upper arms then one for my thigh. He showed me how to hide bigger blades along my spinal cord, one at the small of my back and even one in my hair. There are tons of places to hide it, but most of them chafe –meaning it can get very uncomfortable very easily. But if I had to chose between feeling uncomfortable and going anywhere unarmed, I’d take uncomfortable any day.

After the burning incident, I’m not taking any chances.

But weapons were useless if you didn’t know how to use them.

I was taught how to hold them as well. Alec arranged for a row of dummies to be prepared in less than five minutes. He showed me how to attack the heart and leave as much damage as possible on anything – be it human or animal.

 After that, he taught me how to defend myself. He came at me or threw dummies at me and I had to dodge, not attack. When 200 pound dummies are thrown at you from almost all sides, it’s a little hard to dodge. But I kept at it and very slowly got better.

By the end of the first hour, I was sweating and panting. It was getting harder and harder to keep up and Alec was a freaking slave-driver. He never stopped or reduced his pace.

 He just changed it.

First, dummies coming at me and then he decided to start throwing things at me from all directions. They were black, as big as my fist and round – and they hurt like hell.

I don’t know how he managed to move that fast but they started coming so fast that that I could barely see them. They were hitting me harder and I was finding it more and more difficult to avoid them. They were healing amazingly fast but even vampire powers have limits. He was hitting me too quickly for me to heal – my hips, stomach, head, chest and shoulders were the most injured. I started swearing profusely at one point but I have no idea what I said.

“Don’t try to see where they’re coming from; sight is not the focus here. Sense them before they can hit you and dodge accordingly.” Alec said as he picked up the pace once more – which I didn’t even, think was possible.

Finally, I was too tired to even stand up. I was panting and sweating on the floor but at least Alec stopped. My body felt like one big bruise, again. It was getting to be a habit with me.

Alec leaned down and gave me a hand but I was too tired to even walk. He seemed to realize that and picked me up like Gabe had done before. My hands automatically went around his neck and I rested my head on his shoulder. He started walking to my room. His skin was cool to the touch and it felt good to my sore muscles but I desperately wanted to rest.

“You’re fast, but we need to work on your stamina and control. I’ll be teaching that for the next few days and after that we’ll move on to more weapons.” He said with a faint trace of a smile – as if he had some kind of inside joke that I couldn’t understand.

 I was feeling tired and sore but that was it. I was healing already so the pain should probably be completely gone in a few hours. I just needed to get some sleep.

I closed my eyes thinking I would rest just for a few minutes but when I opened them, I was looking up at Gabe and Nash. I got up abruptly but I was too fast and felt a bit light-headed. Gentle hands tried to get me to lie down again and I let them. I looked at them both and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I’m sorry about before.” My voice was gravelly – like it hadn’t been used in a while. I cleared my throat and really wanted some water.