"Is that so?" His penetrating blue stare swung back to her, both hot and cold as it traveled the length of her body in a slow, assessing glance. "Alexei tells me her skill is imperfect - "
"Lex." Renata scoffed. "Do yourself a favor and don't put your faith in anything Lex tells you. He says and does nothing without an ulterior motive."
"Thanks for the tip." He leaned back against the blade-scarred post. "So, then, it's not true, what he said - that Mira's eyes only reflect events that could happen in the future, based on the now?"
"Lex may have his own personal reasons for wishing it wasn't so, but Mira's never wrong. Whatever she showed you tonight, it's fated to be."
"Fated," he said, sounding amused by that. "Well, shit. Then I guess we're doomed."
He looked pointedly at her as he said it, all but daring her to ask if he deliberately included her in that observation. Since he seemed to find the idea so damned entertaining, she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of asking him to explain why.
Renata picked up one of her blades and tested the weight of it in her open palm. The cold steel felt good against her skin, solid and familiar. Her fingers itched to be working. Her muscles were limber from the warm-up, ready to be pushed with an hour or two of hard training.
She pivoted around with the blade in hand and motioned to the post Nikolai was leaning up against. "Do you mind? I wouldn't want to misjudge my mark and accidentally hit you instead."
He glanced at the post and shrugged. "Wouldn't you rather make it interesting, spar with a real opponent - one that can strike back? Or maybe you operate best with the odds stacked unevenly in your favor."
She knew he was baiting her, but the glint in his eye was playful, teasing. Was he actually flirting with her? His easy nature made her hackles raise with wariness. She ran her thumb along the edge of the blade as she stared at him, unsure what to make of him now. "I prefer to work alone."
"Okay." He inclined his head but took only a fractional step out of the way. Challenging her with a look. "Suit yourself." Renata frowned. "If you're not going to move, how can you be sure I won't aim for you?"
He grinned, full of cocky amusement, his thick arms crossed over his chest. "Aim all you want. You'll never hit me." She let the blade fly without the slightest warning.
Sharp steel bit into the wooden post with a solid crack, striking home exactly where she'd sent it. But Nikolai was gone. Just like that, vanished from her line of sight completely.
Shit.
He was Breed, far faster than any human and as agile as a jungle predator. She was no match for him with weapons or physical strength; she knew that even before she sent the dagger airborne. But she'd hoped to at least nick the cocky son of a bitch for goading her.
Her own reflexes honed to precision, Renata threw her arm out and reached for another one of her waiting blades. But just as her fingers closed around the tooled grip, she felt the air stir behind her, heat sifting through the swaying chin-length strands of her hair.
Razor-sharp metal came up under her jaw. A wall of hard muscle crowded her spine.
"You missed me."
She swallowed carefully around the light press of the blade beneath her chin. As smoothly as she could manage, she relaxed her arms at her sides. Then brought the hand with the dagger in it from behind her to rest meaningfully between his parted thighs. "Looks like I found you."
Simply because she could, Renata hit him with a small jolt of her mind's power.
"Fuck," he growled, and in the instant his hold on her eased up, she slipped out of his reach and whirled to face him. She expected anger from him, feared it a little, but he only lifted his head and gave her a small shrug. "No worries, sweetheart. I'll just have to toy with you until the reverb kicks in and takes you down."
When she stared at him, confused and stricken that he could know about the flaw in her ability, he said, "Lex clued me in to a few things about you too. He told me what happens to you every time you fire off one of those psychic missiles. Powerful stuff. If I were you, I wouldn't waste it just because you feel you need to prove a point."
"Screw Lex," Renata muttered. "And screw you too. I don't need your advice, and I sure as hell don't need either of you talking shit about me behind my back. This conversation is over."
Angry now, she recoiled her arm and released the dagger in his direction, knowing he could easily step out of its path just like before. Only this time he didn't move. With a lightning-quick snap of his free hand, he reached out and caught the sailing blade in midair. His smug grin totally set her off.
Renata snatched the last dagger from its resting spot on the kennel ledge and let it fly at him. Like the other before it, this one too was plucked from the air and now caught in the Breed warrior's nimble hands.
He watched her, unblinking, and with a masculine heat that should have left her cold, but didn't. "Now what will we do for fun, Renata?"
She glared at him. "Entertain yourself. I'm out of here."
She turned, ready to stalk out of the kennel. No sooner had she taken two steps than she heard a whooshing sound on either side of her head - so close it made a few errant strands of her hair blow forward into her face.
Then, ahead of her, a blur of flying, polished steel blasting toward the far wall.
Thunk-thunk.