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But at that moment, a memory flashed through his mind, something Noah said to him after he lost his arm. ‘People don’t know how to fight someone with missing or prosthetic limbs. It throws them off balance, and he took advantage of that. No one expects to be kicked in the chest with a peg leg.’ He glanced at Ingram, focused entirely on the fall and keeping Roc restrained. From the look in his eyes, he was most worried about Roc’s free wing getting in the way or failing to pull away in time and crashing with him. For all of his focus, all of his determination, his guard was dropped entirely.

Next, she eased herself onto the bed again like she did the night before. Though this time she wasn’t fooling around with her daddy’s chest. Like a cat she slowly stalked up and over her dad’s leg, hands and knees either side until she was looking right down at her father’s crotch. It was a difficult position to hold, and she wanted to be comfortable for a good while. Eventually she found that putting her hands either side of his waist was the easiest while letting herself lower down onto her elbows. Just one bonus of her daily volleyball training was keeping limber, though this wasn’t how she envisioned using it.

Should he do it? Just forfeit the match? To admit before the crowd that their prince was too weak to fight back? After everything that had happened to him, he had no pride left, nothing to lose. Maybe it was better to accept his failure and resign himself to his shame. Lying on the ground, he raised his arm, about to surrender, but stopped, thinking back to a conversation he had with Tarnas. It was during the year of training, the two of them sitting around the campfire on an autumn night. Seraph was staring deep into the flames, into the light and warmth, but all he felt inside was cold darkness.