Dawn bleeds over the treeline, and Sera is already coiled to strike.
"Block," she says, and her fist connects with my jaw before I raise my guard.
The world spins. Copper floods my mouth. I spit blood onto pine needles, wipe my chin, and reset my stance.
"Pathetic," she murmurs, circling. She hasn't even broken a sweat, her dark hair pulled back so tight it lifts her eyes into permanent predatory slits. "Again. Forearm vertical. Elvis tucked."
I raise my arms. My ribs ache from yesterday's anticipation, every muscle watery with dread.
She moves.
Her strike comes low—a sweep meant for my knees. I jump, clearing her leg, but she's already pivoting, using the momentum to drive her elbow into the space I just vacated between my shoulder blades. I hit the dirt chin-first, teeth clicking hard enough to chip enamel.
"Predictable," she says, standing over me. The sun behind her turns her into a silhouette, merciless and divine. "You telegraph every movement. The men taught you choreography. I'm teaching you survival."
I push up. My palms are shredded, embedded with grit. "Again."
She smiles. It's worse than her contempt.
The next hour dissolves into a haze of impact and recovery. She hits me in the liver, and I fold, gasping, certain I'm going to vomit my empty stomach onto my shoes. She waits, patient as a spider, until I can breathe again, then sweeps my feet. When I block correctly—forearm absorbing the blow intended for my temple—she simply changes levels and drives a knee into my diaphragm.
The air leaves in a rush. I collapse, retching, seeing stars that have nothing to do with the sky.
"Better," Sera says, stepping back. She tilts her head, studying me like a clinician observing bacteria. "You blocked. Took you three broken defenses to learn, but you blocked. Rhett would have adjusted your stance twelve times before letting you feel the consequence. Grogan would have apologized."
I wheeze, unable to speak, curled around my abused midsection.
"Pain is data," she continues, circling as I struggle to my knees. "Your body is telling you where the openings are. Listen, or die."
I lunge.
It's clumsy, desperate, driven by rage rather than technique. She sidesteps easily, but I've been watching her hips—the tell she has, a slight shift before she moves left. I anticipated the evasion, and my elbow catches her ribs as she flows past.
Not hard enough to bruise. But contact.
Sera freezes. Across the clearing, Kade stops sharpening his knife.
For three heartbeats, the forest holds its breath.
Then Sera laughs. It's not the cruel, weaponized sound from yesterday. It's genuine, startled out of her by surprise.
"Oh," she breathes, touching her side where I hit her. "There you are."
I sway on my feet, blood dripping from my split lip, ribs screaming with every inhalation. But I don't fall. I stand there, swaying, and wait for her to come again.
She doesn't. Not immediately. She studies me with something new in her eyes—not warmth, never warmth, but a recognition. A predator seeing another predator wrapped in fragile human skin.
"You're tougher than you look," she admits. "Stupid, stubborn, and completely lacking technique. But tough."
"Thanks," I slur through swollen tissue. "I think."
"The men treat you like treasure," she says, resuming her circling, but slower now, calculating. "Like glass under velvet. They worry about breakage. About your comfort, your consent, your feelings." She spits the word like poison. "I'm treating you like steel. Ugly, painful, necessary heating and hammering until you hold an edge."
Kade pushes off from the tree he's been leaning against. He's been watching all morning, offering commentary like "fuck, that looked like it hurt" and "stay down, cub, save yourself the embarrassment." Now he saunters over, tossing a canteen in my direction. I catch it one-handed, surprised by the weight.
"Drink," he grunts, his permanent scrawl softening fractionally. "You're swaying like a drunk. Hard to hit a target that's already on the ground."
The water is lukewarm, metallic, the best thing I've ever tasted. I pour it over my split lip, washing away blood and dirt, before drinking deep.
Sera doesn't look at Kade. She hasn't looked at him once this morning, her attention focused entirely on me with the kind of singular intensity that makes my skin crawl. But she waits until I finish drinking to speak again.
"They'll tear each other apart, you know," she says casually, as if discussing weather. "Your five. Wolves don't share well. Never have. Give them time, and they'll start competing in earnest—who can protect you best, who can please you most, who you'll turn to when the nightmares come. Jealousy isn't a bug in the bond, girl. It's the feature."
I lower the canteen. My hands shake. "I'm not interested in being the prize in their competition."
"No?" She raises an eyebrow. "Then you'd better learn to be the referee. Or the warden. Because once they stop being afraid of breaking you, they'll start being afraid of losing you to each other. And that's when the blood will flow."
She steps closer, close enough that I smell her sweat—clean, sharp, devoid of the emotional rot I expected.
"I rejected Hrollok because he wanted to possess me whole," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me. "He wanted to be my sun, my moon, my gravity. I already had a moon. I didn't need another." Her eyes flick to Kade, then back to me, sharp as scalpels. "You have five suns orbiting you, burning themselves up to keep you warm. Eventually, they'll start burning each other to get closer."
She steps back, adjusting her tactical gloves. "Tomorrow, same time. I'll teach you how to break a chokehold from a larger opponent. Bring ice for your ribs."
She walks away, Kade falling into step beside her, his hand settling on the small of her back with a casual possession that makes me think of Hrollok's agony yesterday. They disappear into the tree line, leaving me bruised, bleeding, and suddenly, horribly aware of the five threads pulsing in my chest—each one a leash, each one a lifeline, each one a fuse burning toward an explosion I can't prevent.
I spit more blood onto the pine needles.
She's cruel. Kade's crude. They hit me, mock me, treat me like metal to be beaten into shape.
But as I limp back toward the settlement, every step a lesson in anatomy, I realize with sick clarity: no one else has spoken to me like I'm real. Not Grogan with his careful diplomacy, not Rhett with his gentle hands. They've treated me like a storm to be weathered, a tragedy to be cushioned.
Sera treats me like a weapon.
And right now, bleeding and battered and finally, finally feeling like I have edges?
I think I prefer it.
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