Goddess Rising (63 page)

Sam was coated in sweat and already had bruises rising on her arms and legs from sparring, and a swollen chin from where she’d taken an open-palmed uppercut she had no doubt Alejo had enjoyed landing on her, even though they were wearing half-gloves for protection. Sam may have bested Alejandro this last round, but she wasn’t fooling herself—he’d want his comeuppance. He was too dogged and ruthless not to. As Alejandro slowly came to, Rita extended her hand to help him up before he waved her off.

“You won,” he said flatly, looking a little groggy and light-headed as he stood on his own steam.

“This round,” Sam quipped, shrugging.

Clarke looked them both over. “These two are both exact opposites,” he said to the group.

“
No shit
—” Rita muttered under her breath, triggering a ripple of snickers amongst the cadets.

“Quiet,” Clarke commanded with a look. “Wyatt’s clearly a trained fighter. Her movements are succinct, efficient, and agile. But she’s only trained in defensive arts.” He glanced at her. “I’m guessing Judo and Jiu-Jitsu?”

Sam nodded once.

Clarke smirked, looking back at the group. “De Soto is a mix of street tactics and solid boxing, and he has some range with his kicks, but he’s not fast enough yet to match her blocks,” he continued, explaining. “They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but I want you all to remember that the only thing that really matters when you’re in the field is who kills the other first.”

Clarke gestured at Sam and Alejandro, indicating they should face each other again. He stood in the middle. “In an ideal situation, you’ll get the chance to size up your opponents and plan out in your head what you need to get done,” Clarke explained. “But realistically, when you’re in battle, sometimes you can’t even see what’s coming at you until it’s right in your face.” He looked at Sam and Alejo. “Step closer. One foot apart.”

They acquiesced, facing off, each adjusting their stances as they readied to attack.

“Now the ultimate trick to good hand-to-hand warfare is how to keep it fast and silent. You need to be able to improvise quickly, analyze the fastest way to take the other guy down,” Clarke told them. “Wyatt, tell me what you’d do if you had four seconds to take De Soto out. Assuming you don’t have a gun or a knife.”

She stared hard at Alejo’s face, her eyes trailing down to his throat. Then his torso. Her eyes came back up.

“Hit him hard in the larynx. Probably with my elbow,” she answered.

“Why?”

“Because if I hit him hard enough right there,” she said, specifying his throat, “It’ll collapse the voice box and damage the esophagus so badly, he’ll suffocate. And at my height, it’s easier to deliver than trying to knock him out with a punch to the face or temple. It’ll also keep him quiet as he goes down. Less likely to alert other hostiles.”

Clarke nodded. “You’d disarm him immediately, and the move is quiet except for the gagging noises. He’ll be too distracted clutching his throat to be a problem, and he’ll be dead within a minute, maybe two. Now explain why you’d use the elbow. Why not the hand?” he asked her, his gaze direct and unwavering.

“The hand usually gets damaged first, particularly if you’re hitting the head,” she explained. “The elbow is a sharper weapon at this close distance. Don’t need the wind up. You just need a short, hard blow to get the job done. He’s got twice my strength, but it doesn’t matter with an elbow. It’s all about timing the delivery.”

“Good.” Clarke nodded, turning to Alejandro. “And you? What would you do?”

Alejandro stared at her, impassive and calculating. “Two fast blows to the temple with right hooks. The first to stun, the second to knock her out,” he answered, eyes narrowing. “As she’s falling, use the downward momentum to knee her hard in the face. Enough to shove her nose bone into her brain or cave in her nose and cheekbones so she suffocates on her on blood. Either way, she’s done, with compressed facial fractures. She’s not getting back up again,” he rationalized.

Alejandro was a natural. Instinctive where Sam was cerebral. He didn’t have a guard or a filter. And the military was going to make him a killer, if he wasn’t one already. Sam knew Alejo would be a standout. Knew he’d go far in whichever branch he decided to enlist, but she also realized she’d have to become more like that to survive. She, too, would have to be willing to pull out all the stops. No more playing back on the defense. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to get comfortable with taking the offensive. She’d have to be vicious and aggressive and unflinching. There was no room for distractions. No place for self-doubt.

Sam cleared her mind as Clarke gave the group their next set of instructions.

“For this next round, try to keep your tactics down to a handful of seconds. I’ve been having you spar continuously to gauge your style, tenacity, and endurance, but the truth is, you need to spend as few seconds on your enemy combatant as possible. Maim, kill, and move on. You hit hard, you hit fast, and you aim to kill. Now get back to working with your partners.”

As the cadets broke apart, Clarke turned toward Samantha again. “No more of this parry and defense shit, Wyatt. You already have a leading edge. You just need to learn to take advantage of it.”

Sam glanced at Alejo, at least a full head taller and eighty pounds more muscle than her. “Sir, no disrespect, but how do you figure?”

Clarke’s mouth turned up with the hint of a smile, hazel eyes amused. “You’re beautiful, which is distracting, and men in most cultures have issues with attacking women outright for a variety of reasons,” he answered frankly. “You have the first mover advantage by taking that initial moment of subconscious hesitancy. You just have to be willing to take no prisoners. You have to be ferocious.” He paused a moment. “Think you can do that?”

She eyed Alejandro. “May I have another partner?”

“Why?”

Sam smirked. “Because I’ve got no problem kicking this guy’s ass,” she explained as Alejo rolled his eyes. “I’d like to try going head-to-head with someone I don’t have history with.”

“Chicken.” Alejandro smirked.

“Says the guy who just passed out in my arms.”

“From boredom,” Alejandro drawled.

Clarke lifted a brow, glancing between the two of them. “You two got a thing?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “Intense mutual dislike.”

“Aw, you’re just jealous of me most of the time, Wyatt,” Alejo answered, a conceited smirk on his face as he bounced on the balls of his feet, clearly getting his second wind back.

Sam snorted. All told, the only good thing from the fallout with Wes so far was her relationship with Alejo. Sam doubted they’d ever hang out together, but she knew he had her back now. Sam didn’t mention that she knew about his role in getting Wes arrested, and Alejandro didn’t mention that he’d made her soup and saw her cry. So she figured they were pretty much even. But that didn’t mean she wanted to try to go up against someone else after four hours of training with Alejo.

“Okay, then go against me,” Clarke suggested, squaring off with her on the mat as Alejandro stepped aside, eyes bright with curiosity and excitement.

Holy shit.
Not exactly what she’d intended, but then she’d been the one to go asking for a different partner. Sam took a couple fast breaths as she planned her moves, watching Clarke as he observed her, mapping out his own strategy.

Hit hard. Hit fast. Overwhelming force like Alejo
.
Aim to kill.

Clarke was likely going to crush her, though the idea of going head-to-head with an honest-to-God SEAL was as exhilarating as it was scary. But Sam couldn’t focus on the fear, and she couldn’t back down.
There was no room for self-doubt
, she reminded herself. Not if she wanted to play with the big boys.

Clarke had called her femininity a strength. Perhaps he’d been the first to do so. Growing up, her father and Uncle Grant had treated her gender as a neutral factor at best. Being female was not a strength, not a weakness—just a fact. At the Corps, being a female had been an assumed weakness the first few weeks. And then it had made her an anomaly when everyone realized she was one of the few girls who could roll with the boys with no problem.

And now, finally, it was a source of power.
You have the advantage
, Clarke had told her.
But you have to be ferocious.
Sam made her mind up in a split second.

“Go easy on me, all right?” she asked Clarke, her voice a little breathless, eyes all big and sincere.

Clarke grinned broadly, like he’d be taking candy from a baby. He stepped toward her as Alejandro moved away, and Sam extended her hand to shake on it. Clarke responded in kind, human nature or his inner gentleman kicking in.

She stepped closer than he expected, her right hand closing on his wrist to lock it into place as she spun swiftly and tucked her hips under his pelvis in a blur of movement, her right shoulder buried sharply in his rotator cuff.

One Mississippi.

A fast, dislocating snap of her hip sent Clarke flying up high and over. Sam used her grip on his wrist to direct him onto the ground in a hard 180º angle, knocking the wind out of him.

Two Mississippi.

She came down hard before he could respond, elbow positioned right over Clarke’s trachea before he could roll away, applying just enough pressure to show him she meant business.

Three Mississippi.

A collective hush fell around them as the cadets and the SEAL trainers stopped to stare.

Alejandro’s mouth fell open.

Her heart was racing, like she’d been shot full of adrenaline.

Sam looked down at Clarke, his hazel eyes wide with surprise.

“Like that?” she asked, smiling at him.

A low, rumble of laughter came out of Clarke’s throat as he stared up at her in astonished approval.

“Yeah, Wyatt,” he said, out of breath. “Just. Like. That.”

*

October—Friday Evening

Chris and Wes’s Apartment, Texas A&M

W E S L E Y

Wes trudged up
the stairs to his apartment, thinking about what Miranda had told him. He wondered if what she’d suggested was possible or if he should even go after Samantha—try to fix what he’d broken. It was a circular dilemma. If Wes went after her because he was lonely and missed her like hell, was it because he was really just a selfish sonofabitch who wanted her back even if it wasn’t what was best for the both of them? Or was it because he’d made a mistake and he was manning up and admitting it?

Miranda’s point about his father had cut him up. Wes didn’t want to be the guy who left when the going got tough—not even just a little bit—no matter how good the excuses were.

When Wes opened the door to his place, he was shocked and a little relieved to see Chris toweling his hair dry as he flipped through the channels on their TV, like nothing had happened.

“I thought you were going to ignore me forever,” Wes said as he shut the door.

“Thought about it,” Chris admitted, glancing at him. “But I would have felt guilty letting a guy as pretty as you stay in county lockup too long.”

“Ha-ha. And I ain’t so pretty now, thanks to you.” Wes pointed at his nose. “Purcell bailed me out not long after you.”

“I heard.”

“How?” Wes looked at him in surprise.

“Went back there yesterday. They told me what happened.”

Wes nodded as he made his way into the kitchen. He pulled out a couple beers. “You felt guilty, huh?”

Chris shrugged, catching the beer Wes tossed him in one hand as he tossed the towel aside. “How’re your ribs, you stupid sonofabitch?”

“Cracked. But then, you know that, evil bastard,” Wes answered openly. “You got fists built like iron sledgehammers. I almost feel bad for the other team.”

Chris tilted his head. “You hurt Sammy again, and I’ll
really
make you suffer.”

Wes sat down on the sofa. “I don’t need any threats, Chris. Life without this girl’s been bad enough without you beating on me like a piñata.”

“And if you think
I’m
bad, wait ’til Rita gets ahold of you,” Chris added meaningfully. “You’re not working tonight?” he asked, switching subjects.

“Nah,” Wes shook his head. “Manager figures my face will scare off the customers. Told me to come back on in a few days.”

“Just as well,” Chris replied with a shrug. “With October break coming up, it’ll be quiet around here.”

Wes slapped his forehead. Between drama with Sam, class work, and bar work, he’d completely forgotten about the long weekend. “You going to be around?”

Chris shook his head. “Away game, remember?”

“Shit, I forgot. Sorry.”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” Chris answered. “Like what a stupid prick you are,” he added, slanting Wes a look.

Fair enough. Chris was pissed, but at least they were talking.

Wes leaned back on the sofa, his ribs aching. “Miranda and I submitted the articles for the internship today.”

Chris lifted his beer. “Congratulations.”

“Not yet,” Wes responded. “But it’s looking good. Purcell is pleased.”

“So what happens if you get the gig?” Chris asked.