Chapter 3 Sparks

The next morning he summoned me to the yard. Two guards escorted me through the compound of the lodge where the pack had gathered. Warriors ringed the training ground, some resting on benches, others leaning against the wooden fence. They eyed me with interest, some with bare-faced hostility.

Garrick stood in the middle of the dirt ring, arms spread wide, glowering at me as if he'd waited ages for this.

“You'll learn our rules," he growled, his voice even, authoritative. "You'll survive them through, or you won't last here."

I crossed my arms, revealing not an ounce of fear. "I've survived worse."

That smirk of his curled at the corner of his mouth, and I seethed and hurt in equal proportions. "Prove it."

He reached for a rack of wooden staff and held one out to me. His fingers touched mine when I took it, a brief contact, but it produced a fizzy crackle that traveled up my arm, down to the bottom of me, simmering low in my belly.

I gasped and his eyes narrowed. He felt it too.

We circled one another in the ring. The pack held its breath, silent. I gripped the staff harder, pushing through the fire that ran in my veins.

Garrick attacked first, quick, his blow a blur. I deflected, wood on wood cracking in the yard. The shock rocked my arms, but I was still standing.

"Not bad," he growled, moving around me, never once looking away from me.

I spun around, fast, to his flank. He did the same, force exceeding, shoving me away with each blow. Still, I would not give him what he was looking for.

With every punch, he crept closer, our bodies a mess, our eyes were at odds with every motion. His breath fanned my cheek once, stinging and scorching, and almost threw me further into disorder than his punches.

I clenched my teeth and swung once more, this time with greater force. He blocked, turned around, and in a quick motion, the staff was pulled from my hands and slammed onto the ground.

I stepped back against the fence, chest heaving, and then he towered over me, pinning me down with his body, his staff to my collarbone.

His chest was against mine, and every inch of him was warm. The wooden staff poked gently into my collarbone, but it wasn't the staff that held me in place. It was him. His enormous size, his body holding mine up against the fence, his eyes burning me as if he could peel off all my clothes with a look.

"Yield," he said again, his voice as harsh as gravel on stone.

My heart was beating so hard that I would have believed he could feel it against the beat of his own. My mouth opened, not from fear, but because every breath drew his scent deeper in; cedar, smoke, and the slightest remotest wildness that was Garrick's.

"Never," I drew breath, the word shaking with equal amounts of rage and something I refuse to acknowledge.

He clamped his jaw. The staff trembled infinitesimally in his grip, as if his self-discipline were more expensive than the fight had been. His gaze flicked down, once, to my lips. When he forced them back up to my eyes, it was more slowly, more savagely, as if he'd claimed the right to linger.

“Careful, Anika,” he murmured. His breath brushed my cheek. “One day, you’ll push too far.”

I tilted my chin, though my heartbeat thudded in my throat. "Then push back."

His chest resonated with the rumble of a growl, a growl so low that I felt it before I heard it. He leaned in closer, his lips an inch from my mouth. The rush of warmth that drifted off of him nearly sent my knees to the floor.

The bystanders shifted. I heard the scuff of boots, the murmur of voices, but in the distance, it was all irrelevant. Garrick's body pushed them back, until the cosmos widened for the rasp of his breath across my mouth and the hot weight of his stare.

He pushed the staff away, tossed it aside, and laid his palm on the fence next to my head. His other hand was at my hip, not quite touching. The air between his hand and me seared hotter than flames.

"Say it," he growled, his voice deep and rough.

"Say what?" My tone was sharp, but the shiver betrayed me.

"That you feel it too." His thumb rubbed the top of my hip, a brief touch, a spark that flashed through me. "This fire. This pull."

I hated him, but I wanted him. Both truths fought, but my body took its path first, bending towards that initial, brief touch of his skin. His eyes blazed dark, pupils dilating as if he had been starving and I'd just given him permission.

I shoved at his chest, weakly, but more for my own satisfaction than his. "I feel nothing," I lied.

He grinned, and damn him, it was devastating.

"Liar."

The word hovered between us like a promise. He leaned further in, his lips brushing the edge of my jaw before I could jerk away. My breathing clogged, treacherous, too loud in the drawn-out quiet.

His lips trembled at my ear. "You think you can deny this forever?" His voice was dry, low and intimate. "You can’t."

Shivers chased down my spine, my knees trembling before I stabilized them to still. I turned my face so that I could catch his eyes, so that I could let him see the passion in mine even as my body capitulated.

"Try me," I whispered.

His palm was on my hip now, a solid, claiming space he had no right to. The heat of his palm burned through my cloth, searing me. Standing this close his lips were almost on mine.

For a beat, I hoped that he would close the distance. Despite all the rage, all the hurt, the ache in my chest screamed for his lips to be on mine.

And then he pulled away, enough to leave me burning.

The pack growled, loud enough to remind me that we were not alone. I tensed up, seething at the ring of spectators. Garrick didn't even flinch, his gaze stayed on mine, and I saw a look of promise and threat together in it.

"Training is over," he said, his voice firm again, the Alpha in full control. "Go."

The crowd broke up, but they all gave us lingering stares. I stayed pinned against the fence, breathless and infuriated with myself for wanting him.

When the courtyard was clear, Garrick edged closer again, his hand sliding away from my hip slowly enough that it left a burning trail in its wake.

"This is just the beginning," he breathed, voice thundering for me and me alone. "And you know that."

He took a step back, leaving me aching and searing, the air between us charged with all the things unspoken.

The wooden staff lay still in the dirt between us, but Garrick's glare was the real weapon. I should have shoved him aside, rushed back inside, refused to play whatever game he thought this was. Instead, my body stayed rooted as if paralyzed, my chest panting hard, my skin burning where his hand had been.

"Pick it up," he told me. His voice was steady once more, tough, the Alpha demanding. "We're not done."

My throat tightened. "You just dispersed the crowd."

He advanced on me, taking the distance I'd frantically struggled to create. "They're gone," he said to me. "Now it’s just you and I."

The air shifted, filled with something neither of us was brave enough to say. My heart stumbled. I dropped into a crouch, holding the staff, twisting it in my hands, trying to calm my hands down. "Fine," I growled, my voice hot enough to conceal the tremble in my chest.

He circled me, his eyes on my body. "Don't hold back this time."

"I never do."

I charged, striking with all my strength. He absorbed the force, muscles straining as wood crashed into wood. His strength came through the staff into my shoulders. He pushed out, hands against me to push me back. I gritted my teeth, turned, and struck again. All that I did, he blocked with ease, body inches from mine so that each block shoved us chest to chest, shoulder to shoulder, heat to heat.

"Better," he gasped, his lips inches from my temple, sending a whisper of air over the skin.

I growled and pushed harder. He smiled and spun his staff around mine, pulling me towards him. I staggered into his chest, air exhaling from me. His arm encircled my waist to hold me upright, but he didn't release me.

My palms spread across the hard wall of his chest before I could curl them in. Flame flared up inside me like fire in dry tinder.

"Let me go," I commanded, but the command was far too feeble.

His arm tightened that little bit more. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

My heart rattled, traitor loud. "Yes."

He leaned forward, his mouth inches from mine the world blurred. "Liar," he repeated, softer but no less conclusive and deadly.

I shoved him, hard enough to escape, and swung. He parried the blow half-way round, twisting until my back struck the fence with a crashing bang. His body pinned me again, the staff trapped between us.

The burn of him pressed against him made my knees weak, but I forced myself to hold  his stare. His eyes were darker, pupils wide, his breathing harder than before.

"You fight like you want me to pin you here," he rasped.

The words cut through me, raw, shameless, too close to the truth I tried to deny. I fought against the staff, but he didn't budge.

"I fight because I hate you," I spit.

"Do you?" His voice dipped, burning. He released the staff and leaned in so his hands bracketed my head on the fence, his chest against mine now, no weapon between us. "Or do you fight because you want this?"

His hips thrust forward, subtle but deliberate. The contact jolted through me and left me gasping. My nails dug into my palms as I fought not to react or melt.

"Don't," I gasped.

"Don't what?" His nose skimmed against mine. His mouth hovered an inch from mine. "Don't touch you? Don't desire you?"

All my nerves screamed at me to fill the gap, to enjoy what I'd convinced myself that I didn't want. My body deceived me, arching up against him with disregard. His breathing was rough, unpolished, like my vulnerability had broken something in him.

His lips descended, almost grazing the rim of mine, my heart thudded so hard it drowned out anything else.

"Garrick…" The name was ripped from my lips, laying bare all I had sought to hide.

He braced himself. His eyes blazed into mine, fire and mastery wrestling on his face. For an icy moment, I was sure he would break, that his mouth would take my lips and the battle would be lost.

Then, cursing under his breath, he pulled away, chest heaving and falling. The abrupt coldness between us left me shivering, stung by the fire still searing my skin.

"You think you won something here?" I gritted out. "You didn’t."

He stiffened, running a hand through his hair, his chest falling and rising like he'd just run a marathon. His eyes pinned mine, hot and torn.

“One day, Anika," he said lowly.

He took a step back, but his gaze was still locked on mine, his words heavy with conviction. "One day, you will realize that I actually won."

And then he turned and walked away, leaving me shivering against the fence, my lips aflame from a kiss that never occurred.