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later, the pressure of his hand had lightened, as though he had realised that he was hurting her and didn’t want that. Why? She had felt his hesitation before he had twisted her arm back too. He had never hesitated in a fight with her before. Was it because of her injury? It didn’t make her weak, if that’s what he was thinking. She could still fight him. She would still fight him if Tynan let her. She was sure he wouldn’t mind as long as it took place in the training room instead of somewhere the high-ranking vampires of the household could see them.
    Sophis put her black uniform jacket back on and fastened the gold buttons that formed a V down the breast as she followed Tynan across the pale yellow entrance hall and then descended the stone steps to the basement. The guards there whispered as she passed, loud enough that she knew word had already spread about her fight with Vivek and how things had ended.
    With her pinned under him in the most intimate of positions.
    Why had fate sent her commander into the room at that exact moment?
    She didn’t want Tynan to start believing she was a weak female too. He was one of the few guards in the household who believed in her and in having women in the ranks. He had commended her several times on her abilities. She doubted he was going to be commending her this time or that he would be as understanding and supportive as he had been when reading Vivek’s report to her. He led the way into his small cream-walled office near the armoury in the dingy basement of the mansion. The bright lamp on the oak desk struggled to add warmth to the windowless room and the sparseness of the furniture lent it a cold empty air.
    Sophis stopped on the other side of the desk to him, her back to the door. Vivek filed in behind her and came to stand on her left. He pressed his right hand to his broad chest and she noticed that he hadn’t put on his jacket. It wasn’t like him to be so disrespectful around Tynan. As an officer on duty, he should be dressed appropriately, especially when in the presence of their commander. Sophis’s gaze caught on the dragons dancing down his right arm, entwined with each other and so detailed that she could have spent hours studying them, picking out each lily or thorny rose in the gaps between them, and each scale on the dragons’ multi-hued backs. Tynan’s tattoos sparked curiosity because of the way they disappeared from view but Vivek’s were beautiful, breathtaking, and fascinating. They were art that enhanced the allure of his honed muscles and had always captured Sophis’s attention.
    She dragged her gaze away from them to find Tynan watching her, one eyebrow raised high. There was a look in his eyes that she couldn’t interpret. It had an edge of disbelief to it, a hint of shock, and a smidgen of amusement. Why?
    Her eyes widened.
    No. It was nothing like that. He was wrong. Just because he had found her underneath Vivek and had caught her looking at him just now, didn’t mean that she felt anything for him. Vivek’s tattoos had always interested her. Her staring at them was like her looking at a painting. It was an appreciation of the skill of the artist and the beauty of the design, not an appreciation of the canvas. Tynan had it all wrong. If Vivek hadn’t been standing beside her, she would have told him that too, regardless of how much trouble she would get in for speaking out of line to her commander. The days when her appreciation might have been more about the body the art was painted on were long past.
    Tynan looked as though he was going to settle himself in the black leather chair behind his large desk and then turned his gaze on her and Vivek instead. He frowned and his already near-black eyes darkened further.
    He plucked his white shirt from a row of coat hooks on the back wall near a large corkboard crammed with what looked like rosters and other snippets of information and slipped his arms into it, leaving it hanging open.
    His