Her Unexpected Mate

Chapter Twelve

The Warriors were lined up again on the mat as Piper and Tristan walked in the gym, Dimitri in line with them while another Warrior took the lead. She'd seen him before, his name was Elihu. Tristan pulled her in line with the rest, standing to her left a few feet away.

"Today we're going to take turns teaching Piper self-defense tactics. She should be treated like a Warrior trainee from this moment forward," he announced and with that the Warriors formed a circle around her, standing at attention while they waited their turn.

Elihu approached her and Tristan in the middle of the circle.

"We're going to have to bring you into the battlefield with us if we're going to win this war and we need you to learn some basic self-defense training to use with your powers if you're going to be effective in the field. Do you have any training at all?" Elihu asked.

"No," she answered.

"Ok, then we'll start at the beginning," he said.

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Two hours later Piper was growing increasingly frustrated as she picked herself off the floor yet again.

"You're not very good at blocking," The Vampire in front of her said. She'd learned his name was Varun and she already didn't like him through no fault of his own, of course. He was just doing as he'd been asked. His light blue eyes sparkled with humor as he spoke to her.

"Yeah, that's becoming abundantly clear," she replied, dodging his fist.

"Why don't you start striking back?" he asked, sweeping her legs out from under her, again.

"I don't know. I guess I'm just not a very violent person," she retorted.

"Don't think of it as violence, think of it as defending yourself... proactively," he offered.

Piper grunted as she stood again, looking around for the hundredth time and finding no cups of water sitting around. They'd planned ahead of time to offer her no allowances. A matter she was starting to take issue with. "I don't want to hurt you," she said, knowing the words sounded stupid as they came out of her mouth. The Warrior was nearly a foot taller and easily seventy-five pounds heavier.

Varun laughed out loud. "At this point I don't think you could hurt a bunny rabbit, much less me," he lowered his stance, something that Piper had seen him do before, she knew the move he was going to make.

He lunged forward, reaching for her arm, Piper dodged him, finally getting it right and using his balance against him and hauling him to the floor.

The Warriors watching from their places around her cheered. She'd finally taken him down and now it was another Warrior's turn.

Piper groaned. She couldn't be happy for herself because a new lesson of pain was coming.

"Do you need a break, Piper?" Elihu asked.

Piper began to glare at him but thought better, "Yes, I'd like some water, please," she said.

"You'll have to leave the water outside the gym when you're done," he countered.

Piper considered that for a moment.

"No. You can't spill water on your shirt 'by accident', Piper," Tristan said, announcing her plan to the others as it was unfolding in her head.

"Ugh!" Piper groaned. "This is so unfair! You have no idea how hard this is!" she shouted at Tristan, angry at him.

"Yes, I do, we all do. We've been through this before," he said calmly.