For a moment I think time might really be frozen, as Adele stares at me unblinking, but then she smiles. “One down,” she says. “You’re next.”

I grin back, feeling a slight flutter in my chest at the prospect of a one-on-one anything with her, even if it’s a fight. “Bring it,” I reply.

Her smile drops away, replaced by an animalistic snarl. The snarl is directed at me, either for something I’ve done, or something Roc’s told her. I wish I knew what it was.

Stepping off of Trevor, who’s still gulping at the air, Adele moves to my left, her steps slow and methodical. Stalking her prey. Me. Although I shouldn’t be intimidated because I’ve been in plenty of fights, I am. Because she’s a girl. Because she’s my girlfriend.

Faking a confident smile, I follow her movements, striding to the left, as we circle each other. My stomach swirls with a mix of trepidation and elation. Trepidation because I’ve seen her fight before. Elation because she looks so damn hot when she’s like this.

We circle once, twice, then a third time, both of us content to wait patiently for an opening. I playfully stick the tip of my sword out toward her and she slaps it away with her own blade, the sound thumping dully through the cavern. I sense movement to my right: Trevor drags himself away, toward the fire pit, where Roc and Tawni have stopped their own sword practice to watch the fight. No pressure, right?

I stick my sword out again and she smacks it away, twice as hard this time. Her anger radiates from her in waves. What have I done? I consider stopping the fight now, but I know both Trevor and Roc will never let me live it down. Although we all might die anyway, so maybe that’s not the worst thing.

To my surprise, Adele sticks her own sword out, grinning slightly. Was the whole angry girlfriend thing all an act? My muscles relax as I relish the thought. Lazily, I swing my sword to knock hers away, an act of humor, but at the last second, she pulls her blade back and whips it two handed at mine, connecting solidly and fiercely, shooting splinters of pain through my fingertips.

Trying to fight off the numbness in my hand, I sling my sword back to the left, barely blocking Adele’s next slash attempt. She moves in close, the only thing separating us a bit of air and our locked swords, a gleaming X between us. Adele’s piercing green eyes bore into mine, and I feel like dropping my sword and hugging her. She licks her lips as she redoubles her efforts, pushing with all her strength against me. It just makes me want to toss my sword aside and kiss her.

I ignore the urge, and instead, shove her back as hard as I can. Her eyes widen as my larger frame wins the short-term battle, lifting her off her feet slightly as she’s thrown back. Lithely, she lands on her feet, almost like the way the palace cats used to jump noiselessly from the china cabinet to the table to the floor.

She moves forward again, waving her sword back and forth in a fury-filled attack. I block to the left, to the right, and back to the left again. She attempts a jab but I swat her sword downward, ringing it off the ground. I try a new strategy: distraction. “Nice moves,” I say.

Ignoring my comment, she slashes again but I knock it away. “I can do this all day,” I say.

“So can I,” she replies. “But I’d rather end it now.”

“Good luck with that.”

She swings high, forcing me to raise my sword to repel her blade, but before our swords connect, she ducks in low, simultaneously swinging a roundhouse kick at my exposed hand. Shards of pain sweep through my hand and wrist as her thick-soled boot slams into the point where my limb meets the hilt of my weapon. Reflexively, my fingers open up, dropping my sword with a clatter.

Her own weapon in an awkward position, she flings another kick, this one aimed at my head, but I duck and am able to grab her foot with my uninjured hand as it flies by. She bucks her leg, trying to dislodge it, but I know just what to do in this situation.

I throw her leg upward, as hard as I can. The momentum pushes her entire body back and up, her head snapping backward, her leg rotating high over her head. Trying to maintain control, she releases her own sword, using her arms to keep her balance as she performs a perfect back layout, once more landing on her feet. But this time, she’s weaponless. We’re back to even.

Sweat drips from my forehead to my nose to my chin. A disgusting trail of liquid meanders beneath my tunic, too, flowing down my spine. Suddenly I feel confined and trapped beneath my shirt. I pull it over my head, wipe my face, and toss it aside, immediately relishing the feeling of the air against my sweat-sheened skin.

“Trying to distract me?” Adele says, her lips curling into a smile that sends warmth all the way to my toes.

I laugh. “You could do the same thing and I can guarantee it would work,” I say flirtatiously.

“In your dreams,” she says, her smile vanishing.

She attacks.

As usual, she leads with a kick, aimed low, somewhere in the vicinity of my knee. Dodging to the side, I whip my own kick at her hip, but it misses when she jumps back.

“Want to just call it a draw and have a reconciliatory hug?” I joke.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she retorts, faking a high kick from the left and then sweeping her other leg along the ground from the right.

Jumping her tripping attempt, I lean forward, grabbing her from the front in a bear hug. Using my strength-advantage, I pick her up and force her to the ground, settling my own body firmly on top of hers. A light, airy feeling floods my chest, moves into my throat, and there’s a flush of heat in my head. Our bodies have never been closer. She’s breathing hard, and I am, too, our warm breath mixing as our lips drift closer, me tilting my head downward and her raising her head slightly. The tingly-warm-airy surge of pre-kiss exhilaration flutters through me just before our lips meet. I close my eyes.

Just as my pouting lips meet hers, she knees me in the abdomen and twists hard to the side. Our faces are still jammed together, but her lips are no longer open to receive mine. Instead, they’re a tight determined line, still full and beautiful, but somewhat scary, too. Shoving a forearm against my jaw, she says, “Concede.”

I don’t care about the victory anymore. I just want to know why she’s so angry at me, why she wants to hurt me. What I’ve done to wrong her. “Not until you kiss me,” I say.

“Forget it,” she growls. “It wouldn’t mean anything anyway.”

“Why not?” I say, struggling to breathe as she adds pressure to my windpipe.

“Don’t you remember what I said to you before you zonked out just a few hours ago?”

I think hard. We lay down. I felt warm and loved. My vision started to blur as sleep took me. Adele said something, but I thought I was dreaming. What was it?

“I can’t remember. I thought it was a dream.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then tell me,” I plead, choking the words out. “I can’t read your mind! All I know is I woke up, you were talking to Roc, and now you seem to hate me and I don’t know why.”

There are wrinkles and pain on her face, and moisture in her eyes. “I told you that my mom told me that it was no accident that we met. Don’t you get it? Someone wanted us to find each other. Someone did something to make us want each other. Everything’s been a lie from the very beginning.”

What? No, I don’t get it. How could I? None of this makes any sense. But before I can ask her anything, she pushes off me and stalks away, leaving both my body and mind in pieces on the ground.

Chapter Nine

Adele

I glance at Roc as I pass. His wise brown eyes are unreadable, his lips a thin line. I don’t look at Tawni or Trevor. Yeah, training could have gone better, but seriously, how was I supposed to train with what I have on my mind? It’s like asking a miner to dig a hole with a loose boulder hanging above his head. Kind of hard to concentrate.