Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
“Are those scented?” The smell of cinnamon and cloves lingers in the air.
“Mhm,” she says triumphantly. “I wanted to get pumpkin spice, but Violet had an opinion on that.” She sniffs the air in mock dismay.
It’s sunny but chilly when I go out the back door to find Violet. I know I need to. I know I’m the only one that knows what’s bothering her, and I don’t want anything to fester between us.
I glance to the left where we often train. I’ve given Violet free rein to teach martial arts classes, and she’s enjoying it. But the training field, the outside ring, and the semi-enclosed area near the pool are all vacant. Romulus and Remus are still by the back door, standing guard. I pat their heads.
“Where’d she go, boys? Target range?” They only lick my hands but don’t betray Violet’s whereabouts. Figures.
I look to the target range, but it looks undisturbed. I open the door just to be safe, but it’s cold and dark when I enter. Vacant.
“Violet!” I call her name, hoping she’ll answer, but the wind picks up and swallows my voice. Clouds part, brilliant light bathing the ground in front of me. Down by the private beach that flanks my home, I look for footprints, but find nothing.
I know where she is.
I walk down a hidden walkway built from rocks, so discreet and functional, it’s as if the side of the mountain where my home’s built was designed primarily for this function. I walk down to the beach, hang a left, and head for the large, private open field where I’ve set up her training station.
My men use it, too, but we all know it’s Violet’s.
It took a solid week of construction, and the equipment needed would buy me a new truck, but it was worth every penny. The waterproof, outdoor-proof training station is suitable for stretching and boxing. Featuring cables, a dual stack functional trainer for combat and rebounding, two pull-up stations, and monkey bars, it’s state-of-the-art.
Violet calls it “going out to play,” but the intensity of the equipment and how she uses it is anything but. To the left of what looks like a souped-up playground, we set up a secure shed to house heavy sandbags, strength bands, medicine balls and kettlebells. We have a fully equipped indoor exercise room, but Violet prefers working outside. She thrives in the outdoors with nothing but the sky above her.
I can see her tiny, petite frame, dangling from a pull-up bar, suspended in the air like she’s weightless. I stand against the rocky wall that leads to her workout area. Watching.
I cross my arms on my chest and lean back so she doesn’t see me. I love to watch the way she curls her body upward, then down again, her slim figure taut as she stretches and elongates her muscles. She pulls up then lowers down once, twice, three times, then swings from the bar, preparing to vault herself toward the parkour station I’ve set up behind it.
I watch as she gracefully leaps over and under the bars, vaulting herself forward before she swings herself with ease to a platform at the very top. I’ve set up a ropes training course here as well which she navigates with ease, keeping her instincts primed, her body strengthened, and her reflexes sharp.
She lands barefoot on the springy landing platform at the foot of the highest bar, crouches, and looks my way. Her right side drops lower, her knuckles grazing the ground, a primal look if ever I saw one.
She scowls. “Stop lurking in the shadows and tell me why you followed me. Hiding’s so unlike you,” she says with disdain.
“I’m not hiding.” I step into the light, arms still crossed. “And you’re getting mouthy as fuck.”
“Getting?” she says with a sneer. “You knew when you kissed this mouth what you were getting into.”
It doesn’t really bother me that she’s impossible to break, impossible to understand, and headstrong as they come. I fucking love that about her.
She turns away from me as if to dismiss me, and heads to the singlesticks, otherwise known as cudgels. She lifts one and weighs it in her hands. A slender, round stick nearly three feet long, it’s thinner at one end and thicker at the other, a suitable weapon for someone of her slim stature.
“You’re better than this, Violet,” I say, heading toward her. I grab a cudgel myself and kick my shoes off.
I face her, stick in hand. I want to bend her over and smack her ass with the damn thing.
“Better than what?” she says, eyes narrowed. Behind us, the waves crash on the shore. Violet shivers with a sudden gust of wind, then shrugs it off with impatience, like she doesn’t have time for that bullshit.
“Running,” I tell her, just before I swish my stick through the air. She easily deflects the blow, then throws her weight into sending another one my way.