On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) by P.S. Power Read Free Book Online

suddenly trying to stomp on his left knee, a
delicate target at the moment, since all his weight rested on it. She pulled
back when her white sneaker rested in mid-air about an inch away, then drove
her foot as far between his legs as possible shifting her weight again so that
her left hip hit him in the right thigh as he tried to pull his leg back into
place. It wasn't a throw, exactly, and she hit him, but only as part of a
block. It seemed within the rules to her.
    Caught off guard, he scrambled back, wildly throwing a
roundhouse punch toward her head, which she blocked easily, by simply raising
her left elbow to eye level, pushing the punch over her head. At the same time
she threw a back fist into his now exposed ribs. This was a throw away move. Too
soft to cause damage in real life, that he didn't even bother trying to block
at this distance. They went on this way, trading attacks and counter attacks
for a while, neither doing anything that would have ended the fight had they
really been attacking each other, since her moves were both weaker and lacked
reach in this form, being a lot smaller than he was. For his part, he aimed
good blows at her and used clean movements and clever strategies. He just
couldn't seem to hit her or even come close enough to count. Finally, in
frustration, he managed to speed up enough to slip a punch past her guard and
hit her jaw with a dull thud. His eyes went wide, but Kate merely smiled at him
and kept going, hiding the fact that it had her reeling a little bit.
    That had been one of the first things that Master Dan had
worked with her on. The idea that if you got hit, you simply kept fighting. Too
many fights, he'd told her, were lost when people responded to rather minor
injuries by grabbing at them or trying to shy away from the next attack once
hurt. When you fought, you had to commit to fighting even if you were injured.
Since this lesson had been followed by several sound thrashings, she'd finally
gotten the idea.
    For the following several minutes, they kept going, nothing
else getting through her guard, even though Blaine finally started trying
again, speeding up as much as he could to try and hit her. Most of his attacks
left holes she could exploit, turning the block she used into the next attack,
moving into the places he'd left open, since all attacks left openings like that,
this had been something she'd practiced a lot over the last year.
    Finally Blaine jumped back, calling the exercise to a halt.
Kate stepped back, but kept her guard up while she did it, since faking an end
to the exercise to create an opening would actually be fair in her book,
she half expected him to do that now. Instead he relaxed and smiled at her.
    “You're good ! Sorry about hitting you like that...
Poor control on my part. I just couldn't touch you so I got reckless trying...”
He wrinkled his nose in disgust when he spoke of his own poor control.
    Kate waved this away, "If you fight, you get hit. We all
know how that one goes."
    Since they both needed to catch their breaths a little, he
asked Britney and Don to go next, while they lounged around watching them. The
way he said it could have been followed by him saying “dance monkeys dance!”
from the tone, but he didn't add anything more. He got them started easily and
then stepped back, letting the two of them go at it. Britney didn't look as
good as her brother had, but then she worked with Don, who, while not bad,
clearly wasn't up to the level of the other two in ability yet. He'd worked
with the other girl enough that he knew not to try and hold back too much, even
while making sure he didn't hit her. This would probably be difficult for him,
because it required him to step away from his attraction to her, even as her
nipples hardened from excitement while they worked. They seemed to be holding
to a one punch, one block pattern, the most common one for martial artists. And the one thing that really got them in trouble if they fought good