Was it the way his amber eyes tracked me from head to toe in a sort of primal fascination that had me lifting the unfamiliar weight of the sword upon my shoulder, or was it the fact that the anger from falling prey to him more than once in our short time of knowing one another was just too much to bear?
Maybe it was that I'd been tricked by his seduction and simply hadn't cared enough to stop itâhadn't wanted to stop it.
Or maybe it was that he'd made me weak in front of him, had allowed myself to be laid almost bare before him as he took one of the only spare kisses I'd ever handed out freely in my life.
Whatever it was, though, there was a spark inside of me with Oren's name on it.
A spark that I planned to crush.
Thoroughly.
The Sirens all around us formed a circle, cheering for the person they thought was their princess but was really only a cheap imitation of someone they'd pushed into the position with reckless hope in their hearts.
I wouldn't make them proud, but that didn't mean that I couldn't take Oren downâand enjoy it while doing so.
"Josephine, I'm sure you've sparred before, correct?"
"Yes. I was trained by my sister's husband."
Olesia seemed pleased by my answer, even if it wasn't the proper or right way to address an Elder in this community like I'd seen other Sirens do.
I hadn't bowed my head low or use her title in a show of respect, but no one else seemed to notice or mind that I hadn't used the correct customs in their home.
"Wonderful. Orenthal, please step forward and choose your weapon."
In all the chaos of the past two days, I'd forgotten all about my own dagger that had definitely been lost in the shuffle, but that didn't make it any less satisfying when Oren chose his sword.
I tested the weight of the sword in my own hand that Olesia had handed to me before Oren had begun preparing for the sparring match, that other Siren's hands running up and down his body in a slow perusal of his form as if the two had once been lovers.
A lethal calm washed over my body, something serene and sedate swimming around in my veins.
Oren's eyes met mine, and a smile tipped up my lips.
This seemed to throw him off balance. The last time we'd spoken, it hadn't necessarily been on good terms.
He had been trying to bed me as another one of his mindless conquests that he so clearly must've had an abundance of if his powers of seduction and the title of demigod of beauty were any indication.
One minuscule twitch of his eyebrow upwards told me that he had no idea what thoughts were currently crashing through my mind like the waves from the Gold Sea upon the shore, staining the sand in a gilded sheen that swirled around in the air around us.
"Josephine, are you ready?"
A node from me seemed to appease Olesia and the other two Elders who'd come to witness what I'd deduced to be the main event of the day.
Even the crowds of Sirens in nearby crowds had come to watch in piqued interest.
"She can't really be expected to fight Lord Oren, right?"
"She's to be our princessâI'd be worried if she couldn't hold her own against him."
"But he's a demigod."
"And she's the daughter of the heir, which means she's our heir.
All around me, the conversations that were barely concealed reached my ears, the doubt and reverence in each sentence seeming to make me fold in on myself more and more, but I held firm to that calmness that swept over me upon seeing that dagger strapped to Oren's belt.
The same dagger he could've dipped in the blood of the men I'd killed just one night before.
I'd killed them like it was an everyday occurrence; like they were nothing more than a nuisance to me and my voice had done the job of weeding them out of the world as if they'd never been there to begin with.
Was it disturbing, that I could kill with such ease and without a care in the world for the stains it would place upon my soul?
As if there were any unmarred piece of my soul unbathed in shadows and death.
As if there was a single piece of me that could be considered innocent.
"Lord Oren?"
Oren stepped up to the makeshift circle of where the battle was to be held, and I surveyed him up and down, searching for that dagger, but it was nowhere to be found.
That didn't mean it couldn't have been hidden somewhere in his armor, though.
"Begin."
Velda's deep voice startled me as I had expected the command to come from Olesia, but that didn't sway me from my power stance that Drevan had once shown me.
Feet firmly planted, sword held out in front of me with both hands, my eyes tracked Oren's movements with an eerie precision; as if he were nothing more than a predator waiting to pounce upon me and make me his meal.
I'd thought something similar of him when we'd first met, and the description of him couldn't have been more apt.
Wind swept up some of his hair across his forehead, and while I was busy admiring the sunshine locks as they danced across his bronzed skin, he pounced.
Quick as a wink, his body lunged forward with a powerful might unmatched by the skills of Drevan, and his sword clanged brutally against the metal of my own that I'd just barely managed to pull up in time.
Although, if I thought back on his movements, they'd slowed dramatically until I had the time to pull my weapon up to block his own.
He was going easy on me.
Cheers erupted from the crowd as I parried, my stance shifting as I balanced on the balls of my feet and bounced away from him each time as he advanced forward.
Soon, my feet were to the edge of the circle, and after a bead of sweat rolled down my cheek I decided to attempt going on the offensive instead of having to play catch up.
My leg swept forward to try and catch him off guard, but he was too quick, his attention far more skilled than mine in the art of watching his opponent.
Because while I was busy trying the foot sweep, he was readying himself for the final blow.
In a flash of movement, he was at my side, my sword clanging to the ground in a heap of useless metal while the tip of his sword rested at the sensitive curve of my neck and suddenly this position was all too familiar as his addictive scent filled up the space around us.
I arched into his back in attempt to shy away from the lethal point of his sword but he must've taken that as an invitation to run his free hand up my side, and oh yes, this was all becoming far too familiar, especially as the Sirens around us watched on in rapt attention.
The Siren who had been helping Oren with his armor earlier shot bronze daggers dipped in the blood of my kills in my direction from her enraged eyes, and I had no doubt that had she actually held the tools for my demise, she wouldn't hesitate, and she wouldn't miss.
Slumping out of Oren's hold, I ducked away from him and grabbed the sword out of the dirt and held it out in front of me once more.
"Again."
His laugh was mocking and indulgent, like I was nothing more than a stubborn child who couldn't accept defeat.
But this was more about my pride, my stubbornness. It was to prove a point that Oren was no better than me.
That I was worthy of the title the Sirens were trying to bestow upon me.
That I wasn't a worthless, murderous, insignificant waste of space as I'd been called far too many times in my short life.
That I wasn't completely and utterly powerless.
"Are you sure?"
In response to his question, I lunged forward, catching him so off guard that his sword trembled beneath the force of my own.
The smile that befell my lips was feral in delight at having made him question himself, if only for a moment.
He quickly recovered and shifted his weight so that he was pressing down upon my sword with the strength from the muscles that seemed to bulge and strain against the armor coating his arms.
I didn't care to notice that the Sirens hadn't outfitted me in similar protection seeing as though I was still clothed in the brilliant blue dress that Sabira had gifted to me earlier, her own concerned face shining out at me through the crowd.
I glanced quickly at her hands squeezed tightly in front of her, face drawn as if she were holding her breath watching the events unfolding before her, but before I could glance back at Oren, he was there already using my own move against me as his foot swept through my stance and I fell back until I was sitting on the ground.
Staring up at Oren and his sword in my face.
I knocked it away with my sword and jumped to my feet.
"Again."
"Why don't we try without swords first? Close combat."
Something mischievous twinkled in Oren's eyes, and I cursed myself for believing anything could ever twinkle about Oren.
I threw my heavy sword off to the side where it clanged just like it had when Oren had disarmed me.
The echo of the silver against the ground rattled around in my ears as I noticed Oren's hands twitching around his belt, where his dagger had once been tucked to his belt loop.
"Ready?"
I beckoned Oren to move forward with my hands.
It was only seconds before I lunged toward him, arm pulled back as I attempted to trick him and make him believe that his face was my target when in reality, it was his groin that was my intended aim.
He grabbed my arm up in his hand, but before he could spin me around, I raised my leg up to knee him in his most sensitive place and his roar of anger and pain was enough to bring a sly grin to my mouth.
Bounding away from him and jumping up and down on the balls of my feet, the remnants of the sharp and satisfying crunch of my knee against him seemed to give me a conflated sense of power, seeing as once Oren was to his feet, he charged me.
There was an animal lurking behind his eyes if the low slant of the setting sun was any indication.
Tackling me to the ground, he pinned my hands beside my head that had taken the brunt of my fall, the world around me spinning in a dizzying array of colors floating around in my eyes.
Even Oren was nothing more than a blob of sunshine blotted out with black shadows from the darkness of his armor.
But still I wouldn't give up.
His knees were on either side of my hips, so I used my momentum to swing my lower half up to try and buck him off of me, but he wasn't budging.
"Had enough yet?"
"No. Again."
And so he stood and we sparred. Again.
And again.
And again.
Until my bottom lip was swollen and bloody.
Until my eyebrow was split open and dripping golden blood down the side of my face which made each and every Siren in the vicinity gasp audibly in shock at the sight before them.
"She's got the blood."
"So it's true."
"I thought for sure she'd be found unworthy."
Over and over the Sirens' words were coated in judgements and disbeliefs, but if they knew what the color of my blood meant, they didn't offer up the reasoning to me.
"Josephine, don't you think you've had enough?"
There was a wild, untamed look swimming in the depths of Oren's amber eyes, and just as I remembered how it felt to be held so gently in his arms, I also remembered how it felt to be tracked and hunted and drugged and kidnapped by those very same arms that were content to spar with me until they withered up and fell off of him.
"Not yet."
I wanted to best him. Just once.
Bruise his ego, smash his pride.
It might've been petty and beneath me, but that didn't mean that I still didn't want to see it, didn't want to feel accomplished and taste the sweet tang of victory on my tongue.
"One more spar, Josephine," Olesia called out from the crowd which had grown immeasurable by the time the sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon line.
"Perfect. One is all I need."
Oren smirked at me, his hair unruffled but his eyes gave him away.
The moon was going to rise, and then he would slip.
I only had to catch him mid-transformation.
"Ready?"
Neither of us waited before pouncing on the other, fists flying, teeth bared, groans and screams of pain as we fought with fist and feet.
I finally caught a punch on the underside of his jaw that snapped his head back, but the unrestrained rage in his eyes afterwards was enough to make me scuttle back in fear of whatever reprimand he might incur upon me for getting a strike in.
"Nice hit, but try to place your weight on your back leg before using your energy to throw your punch into me, that way it won't feel as if a child were playing a game with me."
I narrowed my eyes at his words, knowing full well that the hit had hurt him, at least a little bit.
Fists up in the air, circling each other like some kind of twisted dance, I pinpointed the moment the moon began to take effect.
Oren's neck twitched to the side unnaturally, and an ominous crack accompanied it, as though his bones were breaking before our eyes.
"Josephine, you need to stopâ"
"I can take care of myself, Inala."
And that was when Oren made his move.
He faked right but went left, aiming for my throat with his bare hands, as if his plan was to choke me to death in front of all the Sirens in Hefeta.
I was unable to dodge his attack as he was far too quick, but I knew I couldn't let him grapple me to the ground. Once he got his weight atop me, it would be over before I could even blink.
Instead, I allowed his hands to close around my neck.
I allowed for his entire attention to be placed on me and I wrapped my arms around his middle, searching his armor for the dagger I knew had to beâ
there.
The hilt was cool and ragged against my palm, but heavy as I unsheathed it from its hiding place in Oren's belt.
With both his hands squeezing my neck until spots of black adorned my vision, the Sirens began screaming at me in warning to call for mercy, but they didn't spot the dagger in my hand.
They didn't notice when I plunged it directly into the thick corded muscle of Oren's arm.
He didn't have a chance to scream before he reared back away from me, pulled the dagger from his arm and tossed it to the ground before bounding away as the curse his mother placed upon him took hold.
Glancing down at the blood covered dagger, I couldn't help but to curse myself for being so quick to impale him.
Because if that was his blood coating the metal, how could I ever have figured out if he'd first dipped it into the blood of the men I'd killed the night before?
Although, if the sound of his rumbling growls and roars of rage and pain echoing out to me through the trees he'd just disappeared into held any weight, I had a feeling I already had my answerâand I wasn't going to like the outcome.
***
Author's Note:
What did you think of this chapter?
What do you think will happen next?
What do you want to happen next?
Favorite scene so far?
Ideas on where Oren and Josephine's relationship is going?
Plot twist ideas?
Let me know what you think!
Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)
***
The World of Irena: