Deep Roots (Iris' Atlantis 2)

She had tried contacting me. I had maybe a full dozen petitions to send her a message as soon as I could, all of which I had averted. And it wasn't like I wasn't busy. I was.

And I was still avoiding Timothy's sister. Busy or not, there was one person I wouldn't lie about it. That person was Valentina Farías.

Blizzard lifted me off my feet, turned me around and slammed me hard against the mattress.

I found myself on the ground with no air in my lungs. And I didn't seem to find it anywhere around me either.

The white painted ceiling swam in my view.

The huge vampire sat on the edge of the mattress to wait me out.

Eventually I found air. I gulped it in huge lungfulls. It felt raw, my head hurt and I felt slightly nauseated.

"Why?" I asked, once I could talk.

We were in a hall that had once been the gymnastics room for a school. Now it hosted a few other pairs practicing, some vampires, some human links. Two people were standing at a side talking and laughing. It was a lively summer night here in the Castle.

"Where is your mind, Valentina?" Blizzard asked me instead of answering. He turned his wine red gaze to me as I hauled myself to sit.

He offered me a water bottle.

Lovely gesture after I had almost fainted.

I took the bottle.

"It was elsewhere. Why did you do that? I get sweeping. I get throwing. But you had force behind that move and it could have broken me. What if I had hit my head?"

Well, I had hit it. Just not badly.

"You would have passed out. Then, probably, you would have had some sore bruises and a good headache tomorrow."

I folded my arms. I would most certainly have a headache tomorrow.

"No. Don't you dare. Ever since I came here into the Castle to practice, it has been different. And I don't mean I don't welcome some extra sparring and even teaching the humans. I mean with you. You are sparring differently. There are more broken things. You aim everything you can at the head. I haven't gotten a single fist in my stomach in the whole month. Or a leg for that matter. What's going on?"

"Can you stand?"

"Yes. Sir."

I stood. Very slowly, Blizzard took my arm. I let him twist my arm and force me on my back, back on the mattress, where Blizzard pressed his knee gently against my breastbone. It was a standard technique. Not overly complicated.

"Now tell me why you are on the floor," He asked. "And why won't you struggle?"

"Because you twisted my arm? And if I move, you push that knee and it is going to hurt like hell."

"Good."

He lifted the knee and rose up in an effortless, almost playful twist. Then he offered me a hand down.

"Now, try the same."

He placed his big, lukewarm hand on my wrist to give me an opening. Suspiciously I took the arm, almost sure he would resist me when I tried to remove the hand and bring it to the same twist he had just used for me. But he let me take it. His hand in my grip was slack.

But the first twist I tried with it yielded me no results.

I changed the grip, bringin the hand against my breastbone as I sometimes did when a pair was clearly bigger than I was. I felt his joints and muscles twist under my fingers. But he himself didn't even blink.