Never Tear Us Apart - Complete

Chapter Ten

I'd had an absolutely shit night's sleep. I was still fuming about things with my mother, but Dimitri's hurt, reproachful look at me when I'd said my goodnights had stuck with me. I'd been flirting with Artyom, and Dimitri knew it.

I was the last down to breakfast, only to discover someone had found my packet of Strawberry Pop-Tarts and shared them around. I came in just in time to see the last bite disappear into Blake's gob.

"Tell me that was not the last Pop-Tart?" I growled genuinely disappointed; I'd been looking forward to having one.

"Shit," Eddie muttered guiltily, eyeing the empty box.

"Don't be childish, Rosemarie," my mother said. "There's strawberry jam – make yourself some toast instead. It's almost the same."

I muttered something highly colorful under my breath, ditching breakfast entirely and taking off out the back door for a run. By my fifth circuit of the property, I was feeling mildly happier. In fact, I was humming to myself quietly when I pulled up short. There a hundred yards in front of me was a young human woman about my age.

We stared, both of us a little shocked to see the other. She looked guilty like she wasn't meant to be out there. I was conscious of my mother's instructions to avoid contact with the Alchemists at all costs.

"Sorry. Excuse me," I said, dropping my eyes to the ground, turning around and running back the way I'd come.

I should report my little encounter to Mom, but I was still feeling sensitive after what happened yesterday, so in the end, I decided to leave it. Instead, I headed straight to the back of the building where Dimitri conducted his fighting intensives.

"Nice of you to join us, Novice Hathaway," Dimitri said in a frosty voice. "For future reference, training starts at 8 am."

I looked at my watch – it was 8.02.

"Yeah, sorry," I said dispiritedly. As if having my breakfast stolen was not bad enough, now I had a shitty Russian to deal with. And the worst thing is, I knew I'd brought it on myself. Had the situations been reversed – if Dimitri had flirted with another woman right in front of me – I'd be apoplectic.

Elizaveta glanced between Dimitri and me curiously. While we'd done our best to conceal the true nature of our relationship, everyone knew I was a lot more friendly to Dimitri than I was Stan or my mother. Seeing Dimitri so formal with me was uncommon enough to be noticeable.

Dimitri started us with stretches, then slow motion maneuvers. Finally, he led us across to the improvised sparring ring he'd laid out, quickly outlining the rules we each must have heard a thousand times over our years of training.

I eyed Elizaveta up carefully. She might think she was it and a bit, but there was no way I was going to let her better me without one hell of a fight. I was the one with four molnija and a zvezda, and I intended to show her exactly how I'd earned them. Carefully schooling my face into a calm, placid mask, I waited for Dimitri's word to begin.

She went straight on the offensive, as somehow I knew she would. Grossly overconfident, she overextended on a kick. I grabbed her leg, shoved her back, landing on her pelvis and fake staking her in under twenty seconds.

"Dead," I declared dispassionately.

"Not dead," she argued, claiming the angle of my thrust was wrong. As one, we turned to Dimitri.

A hard look crossed his eyes, and I knew he was still pissed with me. "Hard to tell. Try it again."

This time Elizaveta was more cautious, waiting for me to make the first move. I made a couple of trial moves to see how she'd react, before delivering a quick left, right punch combo immediately followed up by a nasty knee thrust into her hip. It was enough to unbalance her, so I followed it up by pushing her face-first into the soft grass, sitting across her hips and delivering a simulated stake thrust beneath her ribs from behind.