He chuckled softly, then leaned forward and kissed my forehead. "You're pretty clever for a girl. And I hope you take note of that advice in your own life."
"Me? Take advice? It'll snow at Christmas before that ever happens." And given December was the first of the summer months here in Melbourne, something pretty disastrous would have to happen to the climate for that to occur. Though given the weird turns my life had been taking recently, snowing at Christmastime wasn't altogether beyond the realms of possibility.
Nor was me actually taking some of my own advice.
I gave him the baton, then shoved him gently toward the exit. "Go see him, and make sure you talk to him."
"You don't want me to walk you up to the change rooms?"
"Nah, I'll be right." The arena was fully monitored by security whenever anyone was down here training, but I had no doubt Jack would also be around somewhere. He had a vested interest in keeping me safe and whole. Not only because he wanted me on this mission, but because he wanted me as a full-fledged guardian. "I'll see you here tomorrow morning."
He nodded, tossed the towel around his bare shoulders, and headed off whistling. Obviously, I wasn't the only one anticipating a good time tonight.
Grinning slightly, I headed down the other end of the arena where my towel and water bottle waited. I grabbed the towel and wrapped one end around my ponytail, squeezing the sweat from my hair before wiping the back of my neck and face. I might not have been fighting to full capacity tonight, but we'd still been training for a couple of hours and not only did my skin glimmer with heat, but my navy T-shirt was almost black with sweat. It was just as well I could shower here—with the way my luck had been running of late, Kellen would be waiting for me by the time I got home. And as much as most wolves preferred natural scent over synthetic, right now I was just a little too overwhelmingly natural.
I reached out to collect the water bottle, then froze as awareness surged, prickling like fire across my skin. Rhoan had left, but I was no longer alone in the arena.
My earlier intuition had been right—crap had been about to step back into my life.
And it came in the form or Gautier.
Towel still in hand, I casually turned around. He stood at the window end of the arena, a long, mean stick of man and muscle who smelled as bad as he looked.
"Still haven't managed to catch that shower, I see." It probably wasn't the wisest comment I'd ever made, but when it came to Gautier, I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut.
It was a trait that was going to get me in trouble—if not tonight, then sometime in the future.
He crossed his arms and smiled. There was nothing nice in that smile. Nothing sane in his flat brown eyes. "Still jumping mouth first into situations even the insane would think twice about, I see."
"It's a failing of mine." I idly began twirling the towel and wondered how long it would take security to react. And if Jack would let them react.
"So I've noticed."
He'd be hard-pressed not to when most of my mouth-first offenses of late involved him in some way. "What are you doing here, Gautier? Haven't you got bad guys to kill?"
"I have."
"Then why aren't you outside hunting, like the good little psycho you are?"
His sharklike smile sent a chill running up my spine, and in that moment I realized he was on the hunt.
For me.
Fuck.
Which didn't really fully encompass the shitload of trouble I'd landed in, but right then, it was the only word I could think of. And it was running over and over and over in my mind.
Along with the thought that I'd been set up. That this was what Jack had intended all the time when he'd arranged this training session.
Rhoan wouldn't have known. He would never have agreed to this. Never.
"So, you're here to put me through my paces, huh?"
His amusement rippled around me, as slimy as pond scum. "You catch on quick."
Not quick enough, apparently. I should have known Jack was up to something. He'd been too jovial all day—a sure sign the shit was about to hit the fan where I was concerned.
But why would he put me up against Gautier so soon? Hell, I'd only been training a couple of months. Most would-be guardians had at least a year before they had the pleasure of Gautier pulping them.
Maybe something had happened. Something that had forced a revamp of the timetable.
Despite the situation, excitement trembled through me. I wanted this ended. Wanted to get back to a normal life—though given six months had now passed since I'd first been injected with the experimental fertility drug, normalcy might be a thing of the past. If that drug was changing the very essence of what I was—as it had other half-breeds—then those changes would soon start appearing.
Gautier began to stroll leisurely in my direction. I continued to twirl the towel, and watched him through slightly narrowed eyes. I was never going to beat him, and we both knew it, but I sure as hell was going to go down fighting.
He stopped halfway down the arena. "You ready?"
I raised an eyebrow, feigning a confidence I didn't feel. Which was pretty pointless, because he was a vampire, and would know how accelerated my heart rate was. Would know it was fear, rather than excitement.
But fear and I were old companions. It hadn't stopped me before, and it wouldn't stop me now.
"Do you give all your targets a warning?"
"Yes."
The complete and utter stillness about him reminded me of a snake about to strike. And it made me afraid, as no real snake ever had.
"And why would you do that?"
"Because tasting my prey's fear as I hunt them down is almost as heady as tasting blood." He paused to breath deep. Rapture touched his flat eyes, and the chills running down my spine became a landslide. "I can taste your fear, Riley, and it is exquisite."
"You're sick. You know that, don't you?"
"But I'm very, very good at what I do."
The promise of death was in his eyes. And I knew that he and I would fight it out, for real and to the bitter end, sometime soon. Not here, not at the Directorate, but somewhere on his turf, on his terms.
Goose bumps ran across my skin, but I resisted the urge to rub my arms. Clairvoyance might be a latent skill coming to life, but it sure as hell was one I could do without.
Especially when it told me shit like that.
Gautier's fingers flexed, just the once, then he was gone from sight. His steps were featherlight on the matting, little more than whispers of air. I wished I could say the same about his scent. It was thick with the reek of death, so vile that it snatched my breath and made it hard to concentrate.
And if I didn't concentrate, this could go very, very badly.
Not that it wasn't going to, anyway.
I blinked, switching to the infrared of my vampire sight, and watched the heat of him draw closer. And closer. At the last possible moment, I flicked the towel forward, snapping the end across his stone-cold features, then I ran like hell out of his way.
He didn't give chase, simply stopped and raised a hand to his face. Though I'd been aiming for his eyes, the towel had actually snapped across his cheek, and hard enough to draw blood. It probably wasn't the wisest thing I'd ever done, but damned if the sight of his blood didn't cheer me up a little. I might get beaten senseless, but at least I'd managed to do the one thing no guardian had ever been able to do—draw blood from the great Gautier.
But then, few guardians would be insane enough to face Gautier armed with just a towel.
He ran a finger across the wound. Even from where I stood, I could see the blood sitting on his fingertip. His gaze met mine, and again I saw death.
For all of two seconds, I thought about running. Just getting the hell out of this arena and away from this psychopath. But if I did that, I'd be off the mission. And right now, I wanted that revenge more than I feared Gautier.