Anyway, I couldn’t believe it. No one had celebrated his birthday? Not a single person, even his mother? She was a crappy mom. I’d gotten that from what he’d told me before, but to not even celebrate a birthday?

I sort of wished the woman was alive so I could kill her. What a terrible person. Or pure-blood. Whatever she had been, she was a crappy, mean person. Even with the issues my own mother had, she’d celebrated my birthday.

Mom may not have wanted me, but she loved me, and in the end, that was all that mattered.

Training wasn’t horrible. Not like it had been in the beginning, when I couldn’t even take a hit correctly. Now, I knew how to fall to not only avoid injury, but to quickly get back on my feet. I knew how to block punches and kicks, and had learned to deliver quite a few nasty ones myself.

I was so close to becoming a badass, killer-ninja demigod.

“You’ve got to use your dagger like you’re prepared to kill the person you’re stabbing,” Seth said from the sidelines. “Not like you’re wanting to poke them with it.”

My eyes narrowed as I looked over at him. Okay. So maybe I wasn’t a killer ninja yet. I lifted the Covenant dagger, a very sharp and deadly blade made out of titanium and designed to slice and dice, and tightened my grip on the handle. “I’m not trying to poke the dummy.”

“You’re poking the dummy,” Luke confirmed.

I was ganged up on.

Seth stalked over to the very life-like dummy and jabbed his finger at a shallow cut in what was also very flesh-like skin. Ugh.

“This wound here,” he said, referencing the cut on the dummy’s chest. “Wouldn’t even kill a mortal.”

I frowned. “It so would.”

“It would slow them down, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t kill them.” Luke flipped the dagger in his hand, catching it easily. Wasn’t he just special. “Wouldn’t even puncture a lung.”

I was going to have to take his word on that.

“You know how to use this dagger.” Seth lifted a hand, running it through his hair. “We’ve taught you everything you need. You’ve got the correct hold, the correct positioning. You know where to hit to take your opponent down. There’s no reason for you not to use force behind it.”

I started to argue, but as I stared at all the cuts on the dummy, I knew he had a point. The chest of the dummy was covered in slices and cuts, most of them, if not all of them, as deep as my finger. Those cuts were from Seth and Luke. All of mine were shallow, nicks in comparison.