Blood & Power [Book One of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

1.3: Pugilism

"I'm going to head downstairs Kara," I whispered as I disappeared from her line of sight. I regretted informing her as soon as the words had left my mouth, with her darting from her positioning and appearing in front of me.

I wasn't given any time to react to her movement, as almost immediately her head had snapped to the right. A bottle had been thrown towards us and her face had curled into a hostile grimace as she caught it sharply with her left hand. Before she could say anything to the group, I'd shuffled us to the side as they drunkenly moved past us. I looked down at her as she raised an eyebrow.

"For what?" She said quietly and gripped onto my arms tightly. I cautiously straightened myself and cleared my throat. My eyes had been drawn to the staircase where Adrienne was muttering to someone out of my view. Kara had quickly grabbed onto my hair and pulled my head down, her expression requesting an answer.

"To spar. It's a great time; everyone's eaten recently. I've wanted a good fight for a while." I answered honestly. I didn't spend much time in the skyscraper; there were books to read, people to talk to, clubs to attend and humans to taunt. While sparring had never garnered my full attention, it had been something I took to quickly as a vampire and a skill I'd honed over the years. There were very few in this building, and even others, that could successfully take me in a fight.

"Can you teach me now?" She responded quickly, her head turning to look at the staircase, and then back to me. She was almost bouncing as her eagerness to learn grew, despite the many failures she'd faced in the past. My expression must have become a frown because she'd pouted and added, "I promise I can hold my own this time!"

I remember the last time.

She'd been knocked down by several different vampires; her head slammed into the concrete ground each time. She often just lay there, cursing at the ceiling with sufficient levels of irritation. Eventually, she'd shoot up and start a fight with another vampire, only for the cycle to be repeated; a kick to the chest or a punch to the spine and she'd be knocked down. Some had just placed their hands on either side of her and thrown her to the other side of the room.

The interaction wasn't quite what I expected when I'd decided to spar today. Kara wasn't quite on the same level as other vampires; she was certainly stronger for the moment, but she wasn't controlled enough to know how to produce that strength at the correct times. Her punches could make contact against my skin, a change from her regular efforts, but it did little more than inconvenience me; her kicks and blocks hadn't fared much better.

I'd found myself on top of her and gripping both of her arms above her head. She was trying to scratch at my skin to remove herself from my grip to little avail. I exhaled heavily and removed my grip, pulling her up with me, "I'm never going to get this," she muttered as she ran from the room. That left me standing alone in the middle of the warzone the sparring room had become in the past thirty minutes.

It was one of the first projects the bloodline had decided to get to work on. It had previously been a mixture of storage rooms, IT rooms, and a large gym until we had pulled everything out and spent the day running into the walls; only interrupted by the vampires with more brain than brawn who demanded we help them put up some support beams.