She rubbed at her arm irritably where the Breed female had gripped it to—oh so casually—steady the hold she had when she threw Liza off balance.
“You’re getting stronger,” Liza muttered as she glanced over at Ashley, Chelsea and Claire where they were whispering and giggling in amusement, while Shiloh and Chimera stared back at Liza in amusement. “Your hands feel like hammers tonight.”
Emma arched her brow. “Really? Ashley swears I baby everyone.”
“She babies me.” Ashley threw her sister a hard look. “Every Coyote in town has been babying me too. It’s damned humiliating.”
Ashley was delicate, impossibly pretty and as spoiled as any debutante, and every time she bitched about getting kicked out of a fight, Liza wanted to laugh. She didn’t look capable of swatting a fly, let alone committing some of the bloody mayhem she’d heard of the other woman doing.
“And they’ll keep babying you or answer to my knife at their throat one night,” Emma stated, the cold hard tone an indication of her complete dedication to the threat.
“Stop interrupting the conversation over here if you two don’t mind.” Ashley displayed her incisors aggressively at her attempt to ignore her sister’s threats. “Em, did you hear about Liza and Stygian’s little ride out to the lake earlier today?”
“You mean the one where Stygian had her pinned against that post beneath the shelter a second before that shooter tried to rearrange her head?” Emma grinned. “Hell yeah, the Breeds on protective detail were ribbing Stygian over that one before we left the hotel tonight.”
Liza glanced at the girls gathered at the side of the room. “Just what I need, a bunch of Breeds gossiping about me when they should have been watching for the bastards using me as target practice.”
“Honey, you should have expected that the minute you hopped on that Harley with him,” the Jaguar Breed Shiloh Gage spoke up with effortless sarcasm. “Breeds are nosier than any woman created. They’re bigger gossips too. The fact that you managed to evade a professional assassin’s bullet is just fodder for the rumor mill. What I can’t believe is that he actually comes home instead of rushing you straight to his bed.”
Emma and Ashley snickered at the declaration.
“I still can’t believe he didn’t just kiss you.” Ashley giggled, her gray eyes twinkling in a merriment they hadn’t seen since she’d been shot by Holden Mayhew.
And though Liza was damned happy that the other girl seemed to be recovering so well, she still wasn’t pleased that Chelsea had placed her head on the chopping block to amuse Ashley.
At least Chelsea and Claire hadn’t told the other girls how he refused to deny mating heat existed. That part, they had sworn to never tell. She should have made them swear on the rest of it as well. At least, until they knew for certain about the whole punishment-by-death thing.
Yet there they were, all watching her after her friend had been so kind as to inform them of what may have transpired before the shooting.
“How much did you tell them, anyway?” Liza questioned her with suspicion.
She should have told them not to mention that almost kiss. She’d remember next time not to.
Chelsea gave a light shrug and a smirk. “Probably more than you would be comfortable with, but come on, Liza, it was so interesting.”
Liza felt heat wash through her face as she remembered the sensuality that had tightened Stygian’s expression.
“Great,” she muttered, resting her face against her up-raised her knees.
“Hell, I just can’t believe Stygian got so fresh,” Shiloh drawled. “He doesn’t even get sexy-nasty with the Breed females he takes to his bed. He hasn’t even been known to flirt.”
Oh, he knew how to flirt—just as he knew how to make a woman insane with anger.
“Why don’t you guys find something else to talk about?” Liza demanded.
“Because, this is just so interesting,” Shiloh assured her with practiced mockery. “Come on, Liza, it’s simply uncalled for to hear of Stygian actually going on a date.”
“Well, you can at least take a break and let us finish here,” Emma declared as she moved back to the center of the mat where Liza sat, finally breathing regularly. “Come on, bad girl, get off your lazy ass and see if you can’t find a way to at least tip me here.” Turning her palm, she gave Liza a backward wave. “Up and at ’em.”
Liza rolled her eyes as she came to her feet and gave her arms a loose shake to relax her stiffening muscles.
“Take it easy with those paws of yours,” she ordered the other girl. “Hell, my arms still ache.”
“Sissy. Stop wussing out on me.”
Wussing out on her?
Liza glared back at her.
She had yet to wuss out on anything.
Watching Emma carefully, she was able to dodge the first set of jabs as well as Emma’s attempt to trip her.
Liza focused her memory on the fight she’d managed to glimpse between Diane Broen and one of her former mercenaries. She concentrated on coordinating her movements to match the practiced symmetry the Bureau enforcer had used.
Why hadn’t she tried that before? she wondered distantly.
She’d watched enough Breeds sparring over the years that she should have already been incorporating what she’d watched them do.
She blocked Emma’s next attempt to grab and throw her to the mat. As though she had slipped into someone else’s skin, she began moving automatically. Blocking, jabbing, moving offensively instead of defensively until she had Emma actually breaking a sweat.
She had watched the Breeds—Cullen, Reever, and Klah—sparring for most of her life, and had resisted the urge to attempt to use the maneuvers she’d seen. Her body always felt ready, prepared to execute the moves, but her confidence in putting into practice what she had seen without training, had held her back.
Until tonight.
Until the urge to do so overcame her lack of confidence and she learned she had a talent she’d never recognized before. It was a talent she realized she’d had since her and Claire’s accident. The fiery car crash had nearly taken both of their lives, and had left each with subtle talents that for some reason they were terrified to reveal. Talents they had only shared the secrets of with each other.
“Geez,” Emma muttered as Liza blocked another move and came back at her quickly with an offensive jab to her jaw, then followed with one to the midriff.