EMBER’S POV
The training room still wears the crack I put in the floor yesterday.
Hale sees it the moment we walk in, and her gaze snags on it, and something moves across her face, hunger, interest, gone before I can name it.
She rolls her narrow shoulders and steps onto the mat like a woman lowering herself into a warm bath.
“Rules?” I ask.
“No rules.” She lifts her hands. She’s small. Elegant. Not the least trained for a fight. “That was rather the whole point, wasn’t it, dove. Whenever you’re ready.”
I go in.
And she’s gone.
I don’t even see how she does it. One second I’m closing the distance the way Knox drilled into me — centre of gravity, weight back, eyes on the chest — and the next I’m flat on the mat with the breath knocked clean out of my lungs, and she’s three feet away
