He grunted and stumbled forward, already turning back on me with a shit-eating grin on his face. “NICE! A little lower and closer to the side next time will hurt worse.”

“Ah, I thought I went too high.” I charged for him, swinging my sais. “I was focused more on the footwork for my first go.”

“What a go it was, mate.” He caught my sais with his dagger blade, then wagged his eyebrows over the top. “Learnin’ new moves is fun, innit?”

“What else ya got for me?”

He arched an eyebrow, then dropped his shoulder. Suddenly I was flying over his back. A wild giggle slipped through my lips. The best thing about sparring with Jackson was that he understood the assignment completely. To help us calm down, Wwe both needed to fight something with everything we had without worrying we’d hurt a Coven-mate. However, he also knew that I liked to learn, so he kept pulling all these fancy moves on me and then pausing our spar session to teach them to me before we launched back into it. He was an incredible teacher.

He leaned over me with a smile. “Like that one a bit, eh?”

“Teach me whatever just happened.” I pushed back to my feet. “Wait, first do it again so I can feel it. Then teach me.”

We got back into the positions we were just in and then he threw me again. I focused on the mechanics of what I felt. When I jumped back up, he launched into teaching me how to replicate it. Sparring Jackson was exactly what I needed today. Fighting Tenn was more for getting all my energy out. It was like the best form of a rage room ever. Jackson gave my brain more of a distraction, which I desperately needed today.

Even as I watched his instruction intently, there was a part of my brain that did a little wonder ponder. That dream last night had wrecked me in a way I’d never experienced. It left a mark on my soul, as dramatic as that sounded. It was a cloud hanging over my head, raining down on me constantly even while the sun shined around me. I’d stepped one foot into the living room when my eyes had met with Cooper and Savannah’s—and I’d bailed. It was bad enough to have to experience that dream but to have witnesses was too much trauma for one day. They didn’t say anything, didn’t even make a face or sound. They’d barely acknowledged my presence . . . yet they knew. I knew that they knew that I knew. That one glance had been daggers into my heart enough.

Everest.

“Okay, you try.” Jackson got into position, so I joined in. “Don’t overthink it. Just muscle memory through it.”