Tenants and Tyrants (Book 5 of The Warden series) by Felicia Jedlicka Read Free Book Online

like a cat and was staring out at them with pouting eyes. “Look at that, you broke her!” She scolded Belus. “She’s going to be mad me for weeks now. Poor Penelope.”
    “Don’t call her that,” Belus said moving to the lever to close the hangar door. “She’ll be fine in a couple of days, but I would advise against trying to cuddle with her. She might snap your neck instead.”
    “Way to go sensei,” she scolded again just to make sure he understood this was his fault and not hers. “Are we done then?” She balanced the hilt of her sword on the palm of her hand. She knew they weren’t, but there was always hope.
    “No, Chuck and Duke haven’t had there go yet,” Belus said pointing to the men. They both stiffened up as if they forgot they were still on the clock.
    “Which one first,” Cori said playfully directing them over with her index fingers.
    “Both,” Belus said sternly.
    “What? I’ve only just started to put up a descent fight with one…”
    “No mats either.”
    “Are you kidding me?” Cori looked at the hard surface of the glossy white floor that permeated the prison. They were hard concrete. Without cushioning she was going to bruise every muscle in her back and probably get a concussion. “Belus that’s not…”
    He looked back at her with piqued interest. He was just begging for an excuse to make it worse for her. “Yes?” he asked further twisting the knife of temptation.
    “I can’t beat them, you know that. Together they outweigh me by…hopefully a person and a half. They just have more leverage. It’s just not going to happen.” She had hoped that was the right way to approach this. Honest and humble to her abilities. It wasn’t.
    The look that crossed Belus’s face was no less threatening than the look Penelope gave her right before she attacked. He stepped forward meeting her half way. “Then fight me.”
    He was definitely serious, but she laughed anyway. She looked to Duke and Chuck behind him, but they weren’t laughing, Chuck was vigorously shaking his head. She let her laughter die, and cleared her throat as if it was just a tickle that caused her insolent outburst. When her eyes returned to Belus, she regretted laughing.
    “Put your sword down, or keep it. Attack me,” he said flatly. “I am smaller than you. I do not outweigh you. If your skills are such that weight and height will save you, then we will finish for the day, and you can go home early.” He gave her the tiniest of smiles, but it wasn’t a friendly one.
    He knew how much of her time he had been commandeering. Between her standard duties, her gardening project, and his training, the only time she had at the end of the night, was to eat and sleep. Some of which happened simultaneously. She was fortunate to live in a house with two abnormally strong men, who could take turns carrying her up to bed, when she fell asleep at the dinner table.
    The permission to end the day early was almost worth whatever it would take to beat Belus. She knew it was underhanded to wonder if his shoulder wound was still raw enough for her to use it to her advantage, but she really wanted a break. “Okay, but I’ll keep the sword.”
    He nodded and waved her to come at him. She paused a moment to think about her attack. She knew that he had to have something up his sleeve, but she hoped that like all of her other endeavors that she could hold out to the end and get the upper hand at the last second.
    She came right at him, with a slashing motion. She expected him to jump back out of her range, but he jumped forward caught her wrist in the movement and she was airborne and landing before she even understood that the fight was over. When her comprehension surfaced with the searing pain in her shoulder, she screamed.
    In between pants and yelps, she took note of his foot braced on her elbow. Her arm was stretched out behind her with the sword still in her grasp, because she didn’t have the function in her hand