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  There were no windows in the doors to peek through, and Michael had to open each one briefly before closing it with as little noise as he could and continue to the next one, finding Brundar in the fourth classroom he tried. Then he had to wait another ten minutes out in the corridor until the class was over.

  As they left the room, people gave him curious looks. Few of the immortals living outside the keep knew of him.

  He just smiled back.

  Brundar was the last one out. “What can I do for you?” He didn’t offer his hand. By now, Michael was used to the guy’s quirks. Brundar would shake a hand if it was offered, but it was obvious he didn’t like it, and he never initiated it.

  “I would like to resume training with you. If you have the time.”

  Brundar shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t. You should ask Bhathian.”

  Was he really so busy? Or was he just fobbing Michael off on someone else because he didn’t believe he could make it?

  Brundar regarded him stoically.

  Damn, it was impossible to read the guy. He was either very good at hiding his emotions or didn’t have any. Even Michael's telepathy was drawing a blank.

  Brundar surprised him when he said, “I’m heading to the kitchen for a beer. You want to join me?”

  “Yeah, sure. Thank you.”

  Brundar being social? Something was up.

  Michael had a sinking feeling as he followed Brundar down the corridor to the big industrial kitchen that he was about to hear a little speech about considering career prospects that didn’t involve Guardianship. Usually, Michael’s telepathic ability could detect intentions, or strong feelings, but Brundar was like a vault. Impenetrable.

  “Take a seat.” The guy motioned to one of the stools strewn around the huge center island. The thing looked to be at least twenty feet long and about four feet deep, and the surface was stainless steel.

  As Brundar came back with the beers and took a seat next to him, Michael couldn’t wait to open the bottle and gulp the whole thing down.

  Brundar popped both caps with a flick of his thumb and handed one to Michael. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  Fuck, it was hard to ask a question when the answer could either devastate him or make him soar to the clouds.

  Be a man and just ask.

  “Do you think I have what it takes to be a Guardian?”

  The guy didn’t hesitate for a millisecond. “Of course, I do. I wouldn't have invested my time in you if I thought you weren't worth it.”

  Michael fought hard not to sag in relief and keep from grinning like a fool. “Thank you. I was having doubts.”

  Brundar’s brown furrowed. “Why?”

  Michael shrugged, thinking of a way to say it without revealing the embarrassing details of his failure. “I watched Kri… train. She is so much better than me. I don’t think I’ll ever reach that level. She is the youngest of you guys, the least experienced, and a female, and still she is light years ahead of me.”

  That earned him the extremely rare sight of Brundar's smile. Damn, the guy was pretty when he smiled, like in almost girly pretty. Good for him that he was deadly, otherwise he might have given people the wrong impression.

  “Kri is an excellent fighter, and she’s been training for decades. You are a newbie. Give it time.”

  “How long? Like in months? Years? Decades?”

  “Years. In four you’ll be battle ready—as a foot soldier—not a Guardian. Give it another decade or so and you’ll reach Guardian level.”

  Michael sighed. It was better news than he’d expected, but it still wasn’t good. He would’ve been okay with a time horizon of four years to become a Guardian, but fourteen? Damn. He could become a medical doctor in less time. Trouble was, he wasn’t that good of a student.

  He had to ask. “Did it take Kri that long?”

  Brundar nodded. “It did. A word of warning, kid. Don’t ever let her hear you making light of her abilities because she’s a female. She will have to prove you wrong and it will hurt. A lot.” He ended with a wink—a shocking thing to see on Brundar’s face. The guy must’ve been in an exceptionally good mood today.

  “Yeah, you’re right. She is an amazing fighter.” Michael racked his fingers through his short hair. “What about my training, though? Is Bhathian a good teacher? Would he take me on?”

  Brundar didn’t answer right away, taking his time to think while taking several swigs from his beer. “Bhathian is good. But for you, I think Arwel is better.”

  Arwel? The drunk? Michael couldn’t remember seeing the guy ever sober. “Why Arwel?”

  Brundar waved with his beer. “Because he is a telepath, like you. More powerful, and his goes both ways, not just receiving like yours, but he can teach you to use telepathy to your advantage in a fight. Anticipating your opponent’s moves is half of what you’re going to learn as a warrior.”

  Ha, interesting.

  Maybe his gift could provide just the shortcut he needed to reach Guardian level sooner.

  “Thank you. I’ll go talk to him. You think he is free?”

  One corner of Brundar’s lips lifted in almost a smile. “I know he is. The challenge will be to keep him sober long enough to teach you anything."

  No kidding.

  Chapter 7: Kri

  “Where are you going?” Kri asked.

  Not that his gym clothes didn't make it obvious. Except, Michael had just come back less than an hour ago.

  “I have another session with Arwel.”

  “Is this going to be the last one for today, or are you going to spend the night at his place?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  If Kri didn’t know Arwel as well as she did, she would've suspected that there was something going on between Michael and his new instructor.

  The two were spending entire days together.

  “Of course not,” he mumbled before slinking out the door as fast as his feet could carry him short of running.

  Michael was avoiding her. And not only during the days. Every night he would come exhausted from his never-ending workouts and training sessions, grab a quick shower, and fall asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  They hadn’t had sex ever since the fight in the alley.

  Talk about frustration.

  She wasn’t going to beg for it. If he didn’t want her, she wasn’t going to ask. Problem was, it couldn't go on like this. She needed a steady supply of sex to keep her satisfied, and without it she was becoming a danger to society.

  Or as it was, to the gym equipment.

  Today, she’d managed to destroy a punching bag. Which was a big deal since it had been specially designed and custom made to withstand the abuse of immortal males. The thing survived Anandur for fates’ sake, but not her anger.

  The first couple of nights she’d blamed his injury for the lack of interest. But then he’d started training again and she had to face the grim reality that he just wasn’t into her. Not anymore.

  She should ask Michael to leave; find somewhere else to crash. It was too painful to lie next to him in bed, ignored. Neglected. Unloved.

  Damn. Kri wiped a stray tear from her eye. She wasn’t going to shed tears over the stupid schmuck. She was going to pack his things and leave them out by the door. He could pick them up and go without ever having to come in.

  Damn, damn, damn. More tears came rushing down.

  What a jerk.

  He wouldn’t talk to her either. But she had a damn good idea what it was all about. The injury, but not the one to his stomach. It was his stupid male ego that was bleeding. The idiot couldn’t accept that a woman had saved his butt in a fight.

  If he possessed an ounce of functioning gray matter in that thick skull of his, he would have realized that she had years of training on him. It wasn’t about being less of a male, but about lack of skills.

  Still, if he was stupid enough to make a big deal out of it, then he had no business being with her. She was
never going to be the little woman, the fragile female who needed protection from her strong macho man. If this was what Michael needed to feel good about himself, he’d better go looking somewhere else.

  Ugh. Kri hurtled her cup against the wall, watching with sick satisfaction as the coffee splattered, painting a big brown starburst. The cup cluttered to the floor, by some miracle not breaking.

  Fuck, still mad as hell, and now she had to repaint the damn wall. She needed to get out of the apartment, maybe go talk to someone. Except, there was no one she knew that faced a similar situation. It wasn’t as if Syssi could understand her—the woman was dainty and small and feminine. Besides, Kian was too confident to ever feel threatened by his woman, even if bested by her in one thing or another.

  Amanda was a better choice.

  Any man would’ve felt threatened by a female like her, and Dalhu was in a worse situation than most. She was stunning, educated, smart, and oozed confidence. Dalhu was uneducated, penniless, and totally dependent on her. It was astounding that their relationship not only survived but seemed to thrive. Perhaps Dalhu’s age had something to do with it, his maturity, or perhaps the guy was so strong, so confident, that his current circumstances didn’t affect him negatively.

  Kri shook her head. She should go talk to Dalhu and ask him how he managed to deal with it. Maybe he could have a word with Michael, give him some advice.

  First, however, she needed to talk to Amanda. It just didn’t seem right to go up to someone else’s man and ask questions about such private matters. She wouldn’t have liked it if another female had done it with Michael without clearing it with Kri first.

  Pulling out her phone, she texted. Do you have a moment? I need to talk to you.

  A few minutes later, Amanda replied. Sure, come on up.

  One of the advantages of sharing one big building was that visiting a relative didn’t require a commute. Claiming lack of privacy, some of the clan members hated it, but Kri loved it. What was the big deal about meeting someone in the elevator? It wasn’t as if they all shared one big living space. They had their own individual apartments. If you didn’t want to interact with anyone you didn’t have to. In fact, most of the socializing happened in the gym, and even there you could choose a time of day or night when there weren't many people using it.

  With the elevator ride to Amanda’s penthouse taking only a few seconds, Kri was at her door a minute after receiving the invitation.

  Amanda was waiting for her with the door open. “Hey, girl, come in.”

  “Thanks for letting me invite myself over.” Kri pulled Amanda into a quick embrace.

  “Any time.” Amanda put her hands on Kri’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “What’s going on, Kri? You look like you’ve been crying.”

  “No.” Kri rubbed her eyes with her fingers. “It must be the lack of sleep.” Hell would freeze over before she’d admit to Amanda that she’d been crying over a guy.

  Except, the woman wasn’t fooled. She took Kri’s hand and led her to the sofa. “Come on, tell Mommy everything.”

  Kri chuckled. “I stopped telling my mom things long time ago.”

  “Okay, so tell Auntie Amanda everything.”

  It seemed they were alone in the penthouse, but Kri asked anyway, “Is Dalhu here?”

  “No, he is down in the gym with Anandur.”

  Oh. So maybe Dalhu was dealing with his problems the same way Michael was—spending endless hours at the gym.

  “Does he do it a lot?”

  “Well, yeah, every day. After all, to maintain that amazing body of his requires a lot of work.” Amanda winked.

  “I meant, how long? Is it a couple of hours or all day long?”

  Amanda narrowed her eyes. “Why are you suddenly concerned with Dalhu’s workout routine?”

  Shit, she should go straight to the point instead of annoying Amanda with questions about her man. “I’m not. It’s just that Michael is spending entire days training, and I have a feeling he is doing it to avoid being with me.” It took tremendous effort to keep the quiver out of her voice. She was a Guardian for fates’ sake. What would Amanda think of her if she did such a girly thing?

  “Why would you think that? Maybe he is just impatient to become a Guardian? You should know how much training is required.”

  It seemed that she would have no choice but to confide in Amanda and tell her what had happened. Except, she would be betraying Michael’s trust. He’d asked her to keep it a secret.

  Some dancing around the subject was needed. Hopefully, Amanda was smart enough to get the gist of it.

  “I can’t tell you the details, because I promised not to, so I’m going to describe a hypothetical scenario.”

  Amanda made a rolling motion with her hand. “Go on.”

  “So, let's assume that Michael and I get into a fight with a bunch of good-for-nothing humans. Naturally, I’m much better trained, and I kick ass, while Michael… doesn't. He is upset that he didn’t do so good, and he gets Arwel to train him. In itself, it’s not a problem, but between the hours he spends training with Arwel, lifting weights, cardio, and any other workouts he can think of, he is gone entire days. He comes home at night and is too tired to do anything other than collapse into bed and go to sleep.”

  Thinking, Amanda put a long-nailed finger to her lips and tapped. “You think he feels inferior? Because you’re a better fighter?”

  “I think he feels threatened by me. I don’t know what to do, Amanda. It can’t go on like that. I’m actually thinking about breaking up with him. If he can’t handle who I am, then it doesn't make sense for us to stay together.” Kri crossed her arms over her chest and slumped into the sofa’s back pillows.

  Amanda patted her knee. “You’re overreacting, sweetie. Every relationship goes through some turbulence. You can’t give up at the first sign of trouble. And as to the sex, maybe you should seduce him. After all, he is an immortal male—his needs are just as powerful as yours. He can’t hold out for long.”

  Kri snorted. “It’s hard to seduce a corpse. He falls asleep the moment his head touches the pillow.”

  “So catch him in the morning.”

  This was actually not a bad idea. She could put on an alarm and wake up before Michael had a chance to sneak out the way he’d been doing lately.

  Kri pushed up to her feet. “You’re right. I’m going to do that.”

  "Good luck, girl."

  Chapter 8: Kri

  In her dream, Kri swatted the annoying bee that wouldn't stop buzzing around her wrist, but instead of an insect, her palm collided with a square metal object. With a jolt, she woke up and whipped her head around.

  Good. Michael was still there.

  She had set her watch to vibrate at four in the morning, hoping to catch Michael before he sneaked out. Mission accomplished. Well, part one was. Part two was the seduction. Easy enough. Arousing a male was simple—touch him and he’d get hard—especially a young immortal like Michael.

  Kri padded to the bathroom and closed the door behind her as quietly as possible. Planning ahead, she’d washed her hair last night, cutting down her morning routine to under five minutes. A few spritzes of perfume and she was ready for action.

  Except, still drowsy as hell, she craved coffee in the worst possible way.

  Peeking into the bedroom, Kri made sure Michael was still snoring softly, before tiptoeing out to the kitchen to make coffee. After all, a woman needed to be awake to act all seductive. This needed to be more than a quick morning romp.

  They had had many of those since they had moved in together. In fact, other than these recent, miserable days, it had been part of their routine—a quickie in the morning, and a marathon session at night.

  Oh, the good old days.

  But they were not over yet. Not if she could help it.

  Leaning against the kitchen counter, Kri sipped her first cup of the day, then plugged in the thermal carafe, grabbed another cup, and took everything to the be
droom.

  She wasn’t letting Michael out of there for anything other than a quick visit to the bathroom. If he wanted coffee, she would have it right there, eliminating any excuse he might come up with to get out of bed.

  Carefully setting everything on her nightstand, Kri got back in bed and snuggled up behind Michael, spooning. What a shame that he’d taken to wearing boxer shorts to bed. She hated having anything between her skin and the soft bed linens, or between her and her man.

  Those needed to come off.

  But first, a little wake-up call.

  She reached around him and slipped her hand inside his shorts. Michael groaned, his semi hard erection swelling in her gentle grip.

  Was he awake?

  She pressed her lips to his neck, trailing little kisses down to where it met his shoulder, then nipped the sensitive skin at the junction.

  “Are you sleeping?” Kri whispered in his ear, then caught his earlobe between her teeth.

  He shivered. “Not anymore.”

  “I missed you.” She’d meant to say something sexy, but the accusation had just bubbled up before she could stop it.

  “I missed you too.” He turned around and wrapped his strong arms around her, his body stretching alongside hers.

  They were a perfect fit.

  She loved feeling the hard planes of his chest against her soft breasts, and the rigid length of his shaft against her belly. In the dark, in this bed, Michael felt like a man, not a boy, and she could pretend that he wasn’t so damn young.

  She kissed his neck again, then licked the slight mist of salty perspiration coating his skin. Fates, he tasted good. She lifted her mouth to his lips and kissed those too, loving how big and fleshy they were. With a probing lick at the seam, she asked permission to delve in, but he squeezed his lips tightly and shook his head.

  “Let me brush my teeth first.”

  “I don’t mind your morning breath.”

  “I also need to take a piss.”

  “Okay, but hurry. I’ve been waiting long enough already.”

  He closed his eyes and touched his lips to her forehead. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”