Page 71 of The Mercy of Dawn

Everything that came next happened as a blur, Cyril’s body operating solely on the muscle memory built on countless hours of doing exactly this. She could almost hear Bron shouting at her in her mind.

Cyril gripped Mikael’s arm, pulling him towards her.

Swung for his groin again, and did not feint this time.

When Mikael hunched over with a groan, trying to rip his arm away from her, she twisted it back as she rotated around him.

A well-placed kick dropped the distracted prince to his knees, and she wrenched his arm back at a wholly unnatural angle until he was flat on his chest in the dirt. Colorful and half-choked profanities tumbled out of him the entire way down.

Cyril held Mikael in place the best she could, with one knee pinned to his free arm and the other in the middle of his back.

She fucking did it, and the rush of adrenaline finally caught up with her.

A tightened grip on his arm and a firmer press into his back were all she could do to stop the trembling that started in her hands. Her heart raced and her skin buzzed, and this felt way too good.

“Point fucking made,” Mikael hissed, his cheek pressed into the dirt.

But Cyril wasn’t done with him yet.

She tangled her fingers into his hair, already half-loose from the knot he wore it in, and pulled his head back. The prince groaned as she dug her knee into his back harder than she needed to.

“What was that, Your Highness?” she crooned. “Do you yield?”

“Yes, I fucking yield.”

He thrashed beneath her, and Cyril finally lost her grip.

She took a few scrambling steps back out of the reach of his limbs as Mikael rolled onto his back with a rumble of a groan. Covered nearly head to toe in a fine coating of the arena’s red earth, he rubbed at his chest with a grimace that put a smile on her face.

He’d feel that lovely reminder of his misjudgment for days.

Clapping and whistling erupted from the side of the arena, and Cyril had no control over the pride that swelled in her chest. It had been there, budding and flickering to life, the moment she got the prince on his knees, but it was an unrestrained beast now.

Going into this, she was quite confident holding her own was something she could handle. But taking Mikael down? Cyril hadn't been certain that was in the cards.

It was a risky, stupid gamble on her part that paid off in spades.

“What the fuck.” Mikael sounded a shade or two away from himself again, propped up on his elbows. He looked a little amused, at least. “You fight dirty.”

“It’s the only way I know how.” Cyril shrugged, though her grin surely betrayed anything casual about her. “You’ll have to give clear rules next time.”

“Next time?” Mikael laughed dryly as he sat up fully. He rubbed at his chest and winced. “No. No, thank you. Once was plenty.”

Cyril extended a hand to help him up. The least she could do after embarrassing him so thoroughly.

“You know all my secrets now, anyway. I wouldn’t—”

A startled yelp left her as Mikael gripped her hand and hauled her down to the ground.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

She let her guard down for a fucking second, and he knew it.

“Mikael!” she half-shrieked, half-laughed as he grabbed her by the waist and tossed her like she weighed nothing. She tumbled a few feet across the arena floor, kicking up dirt and dust and swearing, before she clamored to her feet.

Mikael was already up and backing well away from her with a wolfish grin on his face, his auburn hair loose and wild. The look he fixed her with, glacial and full of challenge, sent her heart pounding in a wholly unfamiliar way.

That was the steady flow of adrenaline that had a spark of heat smoldering low in her belly, right?