Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) (21 page)

Kiev and Avanon looked at each other, grinning. Standing, they went to the wall of cabinets together. Kiev wrapped a few of her marionette strings around her hand before pressing it to the wood; Avanon’s glowing hands opened hers. Mathieu suddenly realized that each cabinet would most likely only respond to that person’s power. It was a cleaver way to ensure privacy. That, however, was a concept that he found rather funny, considering the house they lived in.

The dark haired woman returned with a longbow, energy stones set down its arc. It was elegant, yet had a rigidity to it that was befitting the owner. In opposition, the blonde female brought back a satchel of small circlet blades.

Kiev sat first, opening her bag and holding up one circular blade.
“Pretty, right?”
The metal had a bright sheen to it, sparkling like starlight. “I can throw them, accurately might I add, and bring them back to me with my strings.”

“That sounds pretty damn useful.” Mathieu
said,
eyes slightly wider than usual. It was quite a very ingenious use of the woman’s power.

Solomon smiled. “Yes, it is. I’ve had my butt saved by them a fair few times.” The blond man leaned over and patted Kiev on the head. She beamed at him.

“And we all know that you usually need your ass saved.” The voice came from behind Mathieu and held a deep tremor to it.

“Darcia.”

“Solomon.” The men greeted each other over Mathieu’s head.

In the tension that ensued, Mathieu lazily looked over his shoulder at the newcomer. Darcia was tall, especially from this angle, and broad across the shoulder. His arms were corded with thick muscles even though he appeared to be in his mid-forties. The man’s hair was jet black and fell into his eyes, but what caught Mathieu’s attention was the mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. They caught the light at they were bared at Solomon.

After a moment, though, Darcia’s face relaxed into a smile. “So, I wasn’t invited to the powwow?” The other three laughed while Mathieu sat there quietly as Darcia sat beside him.

Kiev bumped Darcia’s shoulder. “It wasn’t preplanned. I showed up to see how Mathieu was doing with his first day of training with that bastard.” Kiev stuck her tongue out in Solomon’s direction.”
That’s  when
Avanon
showed up to train with Solomon. We started talking about how much stronger we’d become and couldn’t resist a little scrimmage. These two showed up at the end when I was kicking Avanon’s ass, and now you’re here.”

“You were not beating me!” Avanon said indignantly.

Kiev laughed derisively. “The hell I wasn’t!”

“Ladies.”
Darcia said with a small, teasing smile. “It doesn’t matter who won. But, it does seem that everyone came to fight with Solomon, myself included.”

Avanon’s eyes were full of excitement and she looked up at Solomon. “Oh, Blondie
do
it! You two fighting is the most badass thing. Last time,” her words were now directed at Mathieu, “they leveled our previous training building. It was phenomenal.”

“Why does that always get brought up? It wasn’t even my fault. If Darcia hadn’t busted out the Fire Sword, I wouldn’t have had to use magic, too.” Solomon huffed and blew his bangs out of his face.

Darcia chuckled and patted the blond man’s shoulder heavily. “You would’ve lost anyway, but I figured you deserved a challenge.”

“Except that Nathan put me in charge and he took it out of me, not you. Next time, you can tell him that you destroyed his building. We are not fighting today.” Solomon said resolutely.

“Afraid you’ll lose?”

“Never.”

“Got your butt handed to you last time.” The black-haired man mumbled off-handedly.

Solomon struck out with his foot, kicking the other man in the shin. “That’s crap and you know it. It was a draw. Elric complained about healing you up as much as he did me.”

Darcia rolled his eyes and huffed. “C’mon, spar with me. We’ll use those little wooden one.”

Kiev and Avanon nodded vehemently, egging him on. Mathieu sat there mutely, completely cut off from the conversation. He was somewhat invisible with these people, but sometimes he didn’t mind.

The blond man sighed, outnumbered.
“Fine.
Jeez. But let the record show that I said this is a horrible idea.” Grumbling, he got to his feet, closely followed by Darcia, and went to the wall, pulling down two practice swords.
“Bad idea.
Such a bad idea.”
He tossed one to the raven.

“Wonderful. Take your place, kitten.” Smirking, Darcia crossed the room and took up a neutral stance, the sword’s tip touching the floor just in front of him. His gaze flicked to the girls. “I’d move a little further back, ladies. We don’t need any accidental injuries.” The two scrambled to their feet and moved back as well. Kiev thought to grab Mathieu’s shoulder and pull him with them out of the way.

Solomon grumbled some more as he took up his fighting position. “Let’s try not to break anything this time.”

“Solomon, if we didn’t break something, no one would
believe we fought.”

The males stared each other down, eyes narrowing the longer that they glared. Solomon moved first, lunging forward with the blunted tip aimed for the man. Darcia chuckled, easily knocking his blow away and rotating the sword to crack into the blond’s ribs. Solomon grunted and lifted a knee into the raven’s stomach, forcing him to stumble backwards a few steps.

“Come on, Solomon. Don’t tell me you’re holding back?” Darcia teased.

“I don’t want to go all out. You aren’t worth it.” Rotating on his heel, Solomon kicked out at the man. Darcia ducked below his kick and swept the blond’s legs out from under him.

Solomon hit the ground heavily. “Oof!” It didn’t seem as though either attack had gone as planned, though, because the two ended in a pile of limbs. “Jeez. Get off.” Wriggling free, Solomon swung his wooden sword into the man’s stomach, smiling.
“Serves you right!”
The blond actually laughed manically.

Wincing, Darcia got to his feet and flicked his weapon out, stretching. Grunting in the other man’s direction, he lifted his blade to in front of his face, running a finger along the blade. It began to glow with an icy white glint, the tip encased in ice. Stepping forward with a speed unsurpassed, he swung the blade in a tight arc as he jumped, soaring through the air and knocking the man into a mirror lined wall. The glass cracked behind Solomon and Mathieu watched as the blond hit the floor. Biting his tongue, he screamed in his mind for his teacher to get up, to kick the crap out of Darcia.

As the two had been fighting, many hits and exchanged happened without Mathieu’s notice. His eyes tried to track the men’s movements, but their feet and hands moved faster than he could see. They blurred together and apart, the wooden swords making dull thunks more often than seemed right to Mathieu.

In one of the rare moments that the men were a few feet apart, namely because Solomon was crashed into yet another wall, their gazes met. A shiver of…something went up Mathieu’s spine and the look Solomon gave him was indescribable. But it seemed the blond man understood that Mathieu wanted him to win.

Nodding.
Solomon got to his feet and dusted the small sharps of mirrored glass off of himself
..
“Right.
No more holding back.”

Darcia bared his teeth like a shark and raised the sword again, moving towards his sparring partner.
“About damn time.”
But he never reached Solomon; instead, he soared backwards.

Solomon took a deep breath and pursued his mark, launching across the room and knocking him further back with the flat of his weapon. It seemed to Mathieu that Solomon had used some sort of magic that he had missed. The sparring pair played a short game of cat and mouse, their movements becoming jerky and fueled with adrenaline, an edge of anger. It ended in a stalemate, swords locked, along with their gazes.

Both of them were muttering so softly that Mathieu couldn’t distinguish what they were saying. Solomon sounding like a hissing cat, his hair standing on end like
one; Darcia’s words were more guttural and his body seemed to be growing in size. Testosterone and power filled the space between them.

“Excuse me, Mathieu,” Avanon wasn’t looking at him, “I’d recommend that you duck. It’s about to get explosive.” As if on cue, the power that was building between the two men suddenly burst out, rolling like a storm through the room.

The men burst backwards from each other and landed against opposite walls; Kiev stepped behind Avanon, and Avanon held her glowing hands before her to deflect the flow of power; Mathieu, however, got battered by the brunt of it.

He could feel it pulling at his clothes and hair, trying to push him back. But it was deeper than that, digging into his soul. Gritting his teeth, Mathieu pushed his energy out into a shield, trying to stop the pain; it helped minimize the spirit wrenching sting, but it took a few moments for the aching to stop completely. At some point, he had squeezed his eyes shut, and as he cracked them open, he found himself lying on the floor, face to face with Solomon.

“Hey…” The blond was grinning down at Mathieu. “You okay? Probably should have warned you…”

Avanon made a tutting sound from somewhere above him. “
I
warned him! He just didn’t listen.”

“I didn’t know you meant right then!” Mathieu groaned as he tried to sit up, but the pain in his chest wouldn’t allow it. It seemed that since moving here, he had become immobilized far more often than was normal. His hand
landed on his chest and he rubbed softly. It was like a strained ache.

“Let me see.” Solomon ordered, already pushing up Mathieu’s shirt.

Flushing, Mathieu batted at him as best he could.
“Hey, hey, hey!
Knock that crap off. Stripping me is indecent.”

Green eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Just let me see, okay?”

Mumbling, he sat up with some help and pulled his shirt up, letting Solomon see. Two small, runic marks had appeared on him, one on the front side of each shoulder; the space between them was red and looked like it might bruise. Gentle fingers poked at the marks and then the injured area, prodding questioningly.

“Thought so…” Solomon said after a thorough inspection, letting Mathieu’s shirt drop back into place. “Listen, I’m sorry. You didn’t guard fast enough, so we ended up leaving a mark where our energies flowed through you. It might tingle for a while, just so you know. But otherwise, you should be fine.” He patted Mathieu’s shoulder.
“Your first battle scar, kid.
See why I didn’t want to let Darcia loose on your first? Have to toughen you up a bit.”

Darcia came over and knelt down too. “Solomon, I’m only hard on you. I’d think that my apprentice would be stronger than me by now. But,” his dark gaze turned to Mathieu, “I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m not normally this violent.”

Kiev spluttered, “Oh please! You’re always violent! You
broke my collarbone the first time we sparred!”

Darcia grinned toothily. “Then I’ll clarify. I wouldn’t dream to hurt our newly prized little flower.”

“Who are you calling a flower?” Mathieu struggled to his feet, letting his healing energy flow through him and do whatever it could to help him. “Jeez, you guys are a pain. Roughing me up like that…” He blew his bangs out of his face, running fingers through his unevenly cut hair. Mathieu still hadn’t bothered to get it evened out.

Darcia patted his head. “Look at how pretty the flower is when he preens. Like a little doll.
Or a duchess.”
Darcia lifted his nose in the air and made a pinched face.

“No a duchess,
The
Duchess.”
Solomon and the raven were giving each other identical grins.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Back up. Duchesses are
girls
and I am clearly not.” Mathieu folded his arm and huffed.