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Gregory held his bruised flank whilst limping toward a large rock embedded in the earth. The clash of battle could be heard rising up throughout the clearing in which the rock sat. His left eye stung mightily, and his left knee didn’t seem to be able to carry his full weight. Slumping himself down on that cold stone, he released a deep breath he’d been holding in for a while. Fresh pain tore through his ribs, but the humid air felt good in his lungs. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t deal with a little pain after what he’d been through recently.
Looking out across the glade, he couldn’t help but smile to himself at the sight of The Runts training. They’d been at it for almost a month, and their progress was in plain view. Nullik and Frelki always sparred together because they moved so damned fast these days that no one else could keep up with them. Wrut and Frun also faced off, and their devastating blows were the cause of most of the noise rising up in the glade. Ulf had been Gregory’s sparring partner, and had been the one who gifted him his injuries that day. Now he sparred with Algra Strongblood, who had offered her assistance in training the pack with her own brutal methods. It seemed like she was going easy on Ulf, since Gregory had managed to dish out almost as much punishment as he’d been given.
“Watcha doin’?” A familiar voice called out from behind him; almost making him fall off the rock with surprise given that he didn’t think there was anyone else around.
“Jan, you nearly gave me a fucking heart attack.” He clutched his hand to his chest, not over his heart but instead over his ribs which felt like they’d knifed his inner organs when he’d tensed up.
She seemed to take that as a mission accomplished. An impish smile crossed her gorgeous features before she gracefully climbed up onto the rock beside him. In an instant she made her painful surprise all better by kissing the side of his face that wasn’t swelling up and then turning to regard the training session in progress. She’d brought several flasks of water from a nearby fresh stream, dumping most of them for the pack before she’d crept up on her quarry. Keeping one for him, she immediately un-slung it from her shoulder to offer it over as soon as she was comfortable.
“And also, I love you.” He gratefully took the offered flask and popped the cap before taking a few glugs of the very welcome cool liquid.
“Well I just want you for your body,” she retorted with another playful smirk whilst he drank. “How’s it going out here?”
“Good.” His lips finally parted with the flask to take another deep breath that made his side burn afresh. “Great even. I was hoping that the new weapons might help a little, but the guys have adapted to them like I’d never dreamed. Look at that!”
She followed the direction of his arm as he gestured across the way and saw what he meant almost immediately. Frelki and Nullik had sensed the session coming to an end and had apparently decided to go all-out to try and get a victory over the other. The result was like watching two miniature tornados going into battle. Janette marvelled at the blinding speed at which they attacked, but Gregory was amazed at the reaction times and instincts that allowed them to parry and dodge at that velocity.
“Wowza,” Janette watched with genuine appreciation. “So, when are you going to teach me to do that?”
Gregory let out a little laugh at the question, but stopped when his ribs once again reminded him that laughing was a bad idea.
“I’ll let you know after I figure it out.” He was pretty fast himself, but trying to fight Nullik and Frelki these days made him feel like he was sparring with a blender.
“I’m serious, Greg!” she turned back to look at him.
He returned the favour and shifted his gaze to her before taking another drink of water to buy himself some time. Meeting her gaze had been a mistake. It was way too easy to get lost in those bright blue eyes of hers. This experience was usually followed by the word ‘no’ leaving his vocabulary altogether. It also didn’t exactly help that she was wearing only a couple of very skimpy garments. They could generously have been described as a sort of bikini, and more accurately described as dental floss with delusions of grandeur. For all intents and purposes, the stunning redhead might as well have been sitting there naked with her plentiful assets on display. In an effort to control his steadily growing libido, he closed his eyes tightly and shook his head before refocusing his attention on the sparring.
“I know you’re serious, and if truth be told I don’t think that you learning some self defence is a bad idea. I just don’t have the time right now, or the energy for that matter.” He took another drink from the flask.
“Ha! You had enough energy to come home last night and nail me to the tent post. Don’t give me that crap.” She folded her arms across her large breasts and glowered at him.
“It’s not-” He’d been about to start an argument there, but immediately saw he was on the losing side of it and decided to close his eyes and regroup. “Ok, fair point. You’re right. It’s more that I want to stay focused on this right now.” He gestured out across the glade. “I spend most of my downtime thinking about what we could do to improve. We’ve come a long way but I still have no idea if we’ll be able to win a proving match. Plus, to be honest if I started training you I don’t think we’d get a lot done.”
Her resolve softened slightly at that, and the fact that he wasn’t going to argue with her about it. In truth, she’d expected more protest on the grounds that she shouldn’t be fighting. It was the kind of macho-bullshit that she was used to from men, but Gregory hadn’t seemed to mind about the idea of her training to fight. He just didn’t seem to think he was the guy to train her.
At that moment, Algra had noticed them talking together, and the distraction momentarily caused her to lower her guard with Ulf. The younger orc immediately picked up on this and delivered a powerful blow to the right side of her jaw. Unfortunately for him, she didn’t go down because of it and the blow brought her attention directly back to the matter at hand. It also had the alarming effect of genuinely pissing her off, and Ulf suddenly found she wasn’t fighting to educate anymore. It became horrifically clear just how easy she’d been going on him, as she threw aside her weapon and planted two devastating jabs in his ribs. He tried to swing at her, but that only resulted in more pain when her fist proved to be much faster and far more accurate in finding his jaw. He staggered backwards. The matchup was already over, and Algra swept his legs out from underneath him to finish the job.
“Enough!” Gregory called out before his mate could continue her brutal lesson. “Alright guys, I think that’s enough for today. You ok with that, alpha?”
Ulf had been trying to scramble backward to get away from her and urgently nodded his agreement. Algra gave him a short nod before turning away from Ulf and toward Gregory, a small and slightly evil smile lifting the corners of her mouth that only he was allowed to see.
“Why don’t you ask her?” Gregory turned to Janette.
“Who? Algra?” That took the wind out of her sails.
“She sure taught me a lot about how to fight.”Content © NôvelDrama.Org 2024.
“Greg, I was there a lot of the time she was training you. It seemed a whole lot like she was teaching you a lesson in how many different colours it was possible to beat into the human face.” She nibbled her lower lip as Algra approached.
“If you want to fight well, then there will come a time when that’s actually helpful. If you’re in a real fight, you need to learn how to deal with pain and keep going.”
“Yeah, you must be a real expert by now.”
He laughed and leaned over to kiss her cheek, and that eased the nerves from her features.
“Algra?” he called out to her as she got within earshot. “How would you start to train Janette to fight?”
The orc lifted her brows slightly, and stopped to consider Janette for a few moments before answering.
“I’ve seen her dance. She learns well. I’d begin there.”
Janette blinked at that before turning to Greg for an explanation since getting Algra to elaborate was like trying to get water from a stone.