Free Twice Bitten by Chloe Neill

anticipate.”
    I rolled my eyes. The first time I’d fought him, he’d used all the Matrix moves. Now he was working Star Wars for techniques. He really did not have an original training thought in his head.
    “And how do I anticipate?” I asked him.
    “We’ve discussed your senses having improved after you completed the change.”
    I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how good his vision was, but I wasn’t going to give away my position and give him another easy shot. Still, I could hear him moving around me, slinking around in a circle like a big cat preparing to attack.
    “You’ve been working over the last week to tune out the ambient noise. To manage the increased sensitivity in your hearing, your sight, your smell. Certainly, that much awareness can be a distraction. But you are vampire. You must learn to utilize all your senses, to use that noise, that information, to your advantage.”
    I heard the whip of his pants as he kicked. I ducked down just as the cotton whistled over my head.
    Then I heard the pat of his feet when he touched down again.
    “Good,” he said. “But don’t just defend. Fight back.”
    I heard him pace away. I rose again and assumed the basic defensive position again. If I became a member of the Red Guard, was this how Ethan and I would find ourselves? Battling each other under cover of darkness? Not quite enemies, but not quite friends? I’d been putting off my decision about the Red Guard. It was probably time to give that some thought. . . .
    But not before I took this opportunity to kick his ass.
    I heard him walk around me, circling again, waiting for his moment to strike. Could he hear as well as I could? Were the lights on for him, metaphorically, because he could detect my movements?
    Well, either he could or he couldn’t. It didn’t matter; it was my turn to move. He circled counterclockwise, two or three feet behind me. I waited until he was at six o’clock, then shifted my weight, raised my left knee, and stuck out with a fierce back kick.
    I might have hit him had he not completely anticipated the move and dropped down beneath my kick. By the time I’d made it around and brought down my kicking foot again, he was up and spinning out with a low roundhouse. I had no time to react, and just as he’d done the first time I challenged him, he knocked my feet right from under me.
    I hit the mat again.
    “Again,” he said into the darkness.
    I silently mouthed a curse, but I got up again. This time, I didn’t wait for him to prepare. When I could hear him in front of me, I turned my hips and aimed a roundhouse kick at his head. I missed, but I heard him stumble backward, feet tripping across the mat as he dodged the move.
    “So close,” I murmured.
    “Too close,” he said back. “But that’s better. You’re listening for movement, which is good. But that’s not all you can do. Luc,” he said again, and my heart tripped a little, wondering what else he had in store. Binding my hands together? Flooding the room with water?
    Luc answered back a second later, this time with sound. A cacophony of noise—barking, talking, screaming, honking, clanking, chirping—began to pour into the room. It was completely deafening, the bass loud enough that I felt the vibration in my bones, in my echoing heartbeat.
    Ethan didn’t even give me a moment to adjust. He punched, but he’d misestimated my location, and his fist glanced off my shoulder. Of course, he was still a Master vampire, and the strike still hurt. Had I been closer to him, he’d have broken bone. I wondered if the sound was distracting to him, too.
    A second later, he was in my head.
    You cannot rely only on sound , he said. You must quiet the noise, be able to feel an enemy beside you, be able to fight even in utter darkness.
    How am I supposed to learn that? I asked back, shifting my weight from front to back as I waited for him to strike again.
    You are a nocturnal predator , he said. You don’t need to learn