Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)

“Very good.”

I knew I was supposed to hop up so he could show me another move, but sitting there with him like that felt . . . truly wonderful. Like it was exactly the thing I was supposed to be doing, and in that moment, it was easy enough to forget that we were out in the middle of nowhere, doing self-defense training because we were in the middle of a potentially dangerous mission to locate shapeshifters. The cold air seemed to crackle between us and we were close enough to kiss. His gaze went to my lips, and my whole body tingled as I could have sworn I saw a flicker of longing in his eyes, but then he shook his head and was pushing me off of him, leaving me to wonder if I had just imagined it.

“All right,” he said gruffly, clearing his throat. “That was pretty good, but let’s try it a little faster now. Real time.”

“Right,” I murmured, jumping up and hoping I wasn’t blushing too badly.

We probably spent close to an hour working on different self-defense skills, and I was winded and a little sore when Navan said we could move on to the weapons. But I felt good, as though I had really learned something new, something that if I had to, I’d be able to remember and put to good use.

“So you seemed drawn to the throwing knives,” Navan said. “Why don’t we start with those.” He cast a gaze around and then pointed at one of the trees that had a swatch of bark missing, exposing the pale, smooth wood underneath. It was about twenty feet away. “Think you can hit that spot on the tree?”

“I’ll try.”

I’d never thrown a knife before, but there was something about it that seemed familiar. I squared my stance and looked at the spot on the tree, then lifted my arm and threw the knife. It rotated once and then stuck into the tree, a few inches above the spot where there was no bark.

Navan whistled. “Okay,” he said, “so clearly you’ve been keeping your identity as a professional knife thrower a secret from me.” He went over to the tree and retrieved the blade. “Your aim was only a little off, but for a first try, that was damn impressive. Try it again.”

I took the knife from him and readjusted my stance, then aimed, a little bit lower this time, and threw the knife. It stuck right in the middle of the spot without the bark.

“All right, then,” Navan said. “I don’t think we’ll have to spend too much time on this part.”

“I swear I’ve never done this before, but it just feels . . . like it’s familiar or something.”

“You have a natural affinity for it. Let’s try a couple of the other weapons.”

He set up a few log targets and had me shoot one of the pistols, from both a standing position and lying down. My aim was not as accurate, though I did manage to hit the target several times. There was power in the gun, but I liked the throwing knives.

“I feel less worried after seeing you with those,” he said.

I smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should. You’ve got some real skill. It’s too bad we don’t have more time to practice.”

We made our way back to the ship. “Now,” Navan said, “my hope is that you’re going to stay in the ship. In fact, I’m almost tempted to forbid you to get out of the ship.”

“Almost being the operative word there,” I said. “Because you know that even if you were to do that, I probably wouldn’t listen; if it looks like you need help, I’m going to be there to help you. What was the point in doing all this training just now if I have to stay in the ship the whole time?”

“The training was more for my peace of mind,” he said. “Like I told you, it’s going to be easier for me to focus on what I have to do if I’m not worrying about you. I mean, I’ll still be worried about you, but a little less so knowing that you’ve got those knives.”

My face flushed and I tried to hide my smile. He seemed to have no qualms expressing how worried he was about me, which I found both endearing and a little irritating. I sure as hell didn’t want to be some damsel in distress, though my actions last night had certainly portrayed me as exactly that. It made my heart beat a little faster thinking that he cared about me, because after all that we had been through, I realized I cared about him, too. Really cared about him. The feelings had shifted in the time since we’d left Texas. It was more than just thinking he was handsome—it was something deeper than that, something I couldn’t easily describe. I hadn’t forgotten that almost gravitational pull I’d felt when I first looked into his eyes, nor that sensation of us being the only two people in the world.

Part of me wanted to say screw subtlety and voice my thoughts to him, but I didn’t, because maybe he didn’t feel the same way. Maybe he was just concerned about me in the same way that he’d be concerned about a little sister or something—and in a way, after everything he’d told me about Naya, that would make sense. If anything, I wanted to show Navan that I could be useful, that I could take care of myself, that I could play an important role in what we were about to do.

When we got back to the ship, he gave me the invisibility suit. “You need to put this on under your clothes,” he said. “I’ll just step outside while you do that.”

After he left, I pulled my shirt off but then stopped. Was I supposed to take my bra and underwear off, too? Probably—they were clothes, after all. I stripped down and quickly slipped the suit on, then put my clothes on over it. The suit fit snugly, and once my clothes were back on, I barely even noticed it—except for the small button on the sleeve.

I opened the door and stuck my head out. Navan glanced at me, raising a brow. “You decent?”

“Yeah.” He hopped back into the ship and looked me up and down. “Okay. To activate the suit, you just press the button on your sleeve.”

I did as he said. “I can still see myself,” I replied, looking down at my legs.

“But I can’t see you.” Navan nodded. “And the shifters won’t be able to see you, even if they’re invisible themselves. The other good thing about a suit like this is that it significantly blunts the ability of something—like a lycan or a shifter—to detect you. Only a very evolved individual will be able to sense you. And I doubt we’ll be encountering many of those.”

“And do I just press the button again to deactivate it?”

“Yes. You’ve got to hold it down for a couple seconds.”

I did as he said, and the air seemed to shimmer around me. Navan looked right at me and smiled. “We’ve got a few more things to do and then I think we’ll be ready to go.”

“What’s that?”

“For starters, I’ve got some darts that I need to coat with this drug called dakhye.”

“What does that do?”

“It’ll incapacitate any shifter we happen to come across. It will also prevent it from being able to change into a different form.”