Careless Moment, Lifetime Regrets

by Kerri

Part 6

Logan drew back his blade and walked towards the back lawn to face her. She stood with the boy, he was talking and gesturing at her, but she didn't appear to be listening. Both sons towered over her, but to no avail. She looked eager for this. If he stopped to think about it, he might try to talk his way out of this fight, but she'd pushed too many buttons to slow him down now.

He fixed her with a steely gaze and saluted her with his katana. Charlotte nodded her head slightly and waited for him to make the first move, holding the borrowed broadsword down in a firm grip.

*I hope I know what I'm doing,* she thought to herself. *I promised Jess I wouldn't kill him, but I hope both of us are as good as we claim. Otherwise, this could get damned bloody.*

Still, life was dangerous. She hadn't lived this long without being able to protect herself.

Her heart started double-timing inside her chest, the adrenaline rush filling her. She had to consciously relax her muscles to avoid tightening up too much for the battle ahead. It was a battle, but she'd be damned if she didn't want to mount his head on her wall.

*Don't be too sure about me, Logan thought, *yer boy says yer good, but I'm good, too.* He swung his arms to loosen up, sparing a glance around the area. Everyone was out to watch this. A few gave him a thumbs-up gesture, with Gambit taking bets on the outcome.

He watched her eyes, looking for some sign of her intentions, but she gave nothing away. Her eyes watched his just as closely. She'd done this before, more than once by the look of her.

By the look of her, she lived for it.

He feinted forward, swinging his sword arm across his body, intending to give her a swat with the flat of the blade and teach her a little respect. Expecting the sting of contact, he was startled when it didn't happen.

She stepped inside his guard with a liquid grace and tapped his cheek with her hand, disappearing back out of his range before he could blink.

With a smile of pure bliss Charlotte raised the sword in a two-handed grip, and waited for his next approach. ~Here, puppypuppypuppy.~

She had the nerve! His response was savage and to the point. ~Stay outta my head, y'might not like what ya find. Y'could live to regret it.~ Without waiting for a reply, he attacked.

He struck at her with a solid pass, cleanly turned by her. It was followed, once more, with the meeting of metal, the singing of blades hissing across the yard. Another pass, another block, this time quicker and deadlier, until the metal was blurring before everyone's eyes, quicksilver movements too fast to follow.

Logan found his heart pounding as the blood rushed through his body, heightening his reflexes. Charlotte pressed him hard, forcing him back to give herself some room. He couldn't help but admire the two-handed way she manipulated the broadsword, moving from one grip to another to drive him back.

She was good, too damned good. One wrong move and it was going to hurt, badly. Might even be fatal.

Where'd she learn to fight like that?

He hoped he was up to this.

The fire singing in his blood drove him on. He swung his arms in disciplined motions, probing for gaps in her defenses, weaknesses in her techniques. A wild grin crossed his face as steel met steel time and again. ~I still think I'm in love, darlin'....~

Thomas stood with Jazz, one hand on his shoulder to keep the boy from interfering. The younger son clenched his fists, ready to jump in if she needed him....

Charlotte let herself disconnect and react without thought. A thinking mind would have been much too slow for this fight. He was good, this match was bringing her own talent out for a good show. She could only go full out with an Immortal and not fear the killing as long as she left the head alone, which didn't happen as often as it used to. A fierce smile of her own matched his. This was so much fun, exhilarating in a way she could never explain to anyone else who hadn't experienced the feel of the sword in the hand, the life riding on the edge of the blade. ~I think I'm not, 'Darlin'.~

Moving in close, Logan enveloped her blade with his, trying to wrench it from her hand in an effort to end this quickly, but she whirled around, pulling it free. She rapidly moved round him, testing his reflexes by making jabs at his face, his body and legs in random order, keeping him off balance. Noticing he favored his back foot, Charlotte pivoted on her heel, spinning round, slashing upwards towards Logan's neck.

Logan cursed under his breath and sidestepped her, sweeping his katana over and down, deflecting her blow. Charlotte didn't try to fight the stroke, allowing her blade to swing away from him, following its motion with her body and dancing back out of his reach. ~Yer better'n I expected.~

~You mean for a woman? I don't know if I should be flattered or not.~

They swung around in a circle. She was faster, he had more strength. Their spectators were silent, more than one held a breath each time a deadly edge came close to flesh. ~It's a compliment, lady, but if ya rather have somethin' more personal, try this...~

Stepping forward with lightning speed, Logan moved inside her reach. Charlotte recognized her vulnerability too late, sweeping her blade across in a desperate maneuver, trying to slash Logan's chest with an offensive stroke, but he anticipated her. He dropped to one knee, the blade whistling harmlessly over his head, then swung up into the opening left, cutting into tender flesh...

With consummate skill, he pulled back, the wound mere millimeters deep.

Jess growled, then surged forward, but Thomas held him tightly. "You'll distract her," he reminded him sharply, "that'll get someone killed."

The pain seemed to sharpen her focus, she moved back out of his range. She was still smiling as she looked at her shoulder, the blood welling up and oozing over onto her skin. With her free hand, she touched the blood and smeared it along the metal, then saluted Logan with her blade. "You take the first," she panted lightly.

"Y'had 'nough?" Logan asked, lowering his blade slightly.

She waved Hank away when he tried to look at her shoulder. "Not yet."

With that, she launched herself at him, blade singing as it sliced the air. Logan backed up, forced into a defensive position, watching her carefully as she chased him. Again he cursed as he was forced to jump back, sweeping her blade aside. She followed through the stroke and hacked at him again.

He dodged past her and swatted her rear with the flat of the blade.

She growled at that, ~why couldn't you stay dead?~ pivoting on the balls of her feet to pounce.

Logan let her land against him, then rolled onto his back, bringing his feet up into her stomach to launch her over his head. She landed on her back with the air slammed out of her, leaving her in an audible rush. He quickly jumped to his feet and slapped her sword from her hands with his blade. ~Mebbe 'cause I like livin'.~

Charlotte glared at him.

He stood over her. ~We done?~

She gulped in the air in quick gasps. ~Guess that depends on what you think done means.~

Logan rested his sword tip against the ground and offered her his hand to help her up.

She looked at it, and him, suspiciously, then accepted his invitation.

Instead of using her legs to rise, she pulled hard on his arm, bringing him off-balance onto her raised feet, kicking him over her, using his last maneuver against him. As soon as he cleared her head, she scrambled for her weapon, leaping cat-like on her feet. ~I don't think I'm finished with you yet. I've got more issues to work out.~

~Then go to therapy.~ He jumped to his feet, angry he'd fallen for that. She wasn't fighting fair.

~Why, when I can make a new winter coat out of that fur skin you're wearing?~

~Come an' take it, then.~

~Is that a come on? Much better than the last one you tried on me.~

~An' what was that?~

She swung her blade at him. ~Something along the lines of 'I love you.'~

~Musta worked, we got a boy.~

~I have a boy, you have nothing.~

Charlotte's blade snuck under his defenses, carving a line of blood across his ribs, followed by a hard smack to his thigh with the flat of her blade.

He pulled back, more to reassess the situation than to catch his breath. She stood poised, ready for his next advance. The sensation of her struck his soul. He had a brief flash of a memory, as though a curtain had been pulled back for the merest glimpse of an image. In that instant, he saw the woman in front of him, face haunted, naked and bloodied. He blinked and it was gone, replaced by a woman incandescent with the joy of combat.

With a low growl he circled to face her, battle rage beginning to flicker in his eyes. He couldn't tell himself he was just humoring her anymore. He controlled his anger, barely. Couldn't let it make him reckless and careless, she was out for his blood. Snarling, he attacked.

Logan pressed her back against a tree, parrying and riposting her hasty strikes. She got too close to the tree and had to duck when he tried to pin her again. Snarling at Logan, she dropped all pretense of civilized swordplay and swung viciously at his neck. Logan's eyes widened in surprise, barely having enough time to duck underneath the wild slash. Charlotte scrambled away, then turned to face him again. The smile was gone, but the bliss still shone from her eyes.

She stopped, held her ground for a minute, but had to retreat again. He relentlessly pursued her, again forcing her back against the damn tree. She tried leaping forward, but he pinned her sword arm above her head in a bruising grip, using his body to hold her, laying his blade against her throat.

Their eyes locked over the lethal edge, each of them becoming as still as marble statues, frozen in a classic male-female confrontation. They stood like that for a long moment, gasping for air.

Logan leaned forward. ~Still want my blood?~ he mocked.

Charlotte glared at him, then brought her knee up. ~That, and your heart on a spit.~

In his effort to block her move, he released her arm. She pushed him back and dove out of his reach.

He swung his blade around in time to deflect the blow aimed for his neck. Why did she keep trying to separate his head from his body?

On his downward stroke, she caught his blade on the edge of her hilt, striking it from his hand. Before it could land, she vaulted forward, knocking him flat on his back, grabbing the hilt of his weapon in her other hand from where it came to rest near her. She forced both blades into the earth around his neck in an X formation right up against the skin. The slightest twitch on his part would slice open his neck.

Logan stared up at her from underneath the shining steel quivering around him, committing every detail of the wild-eyed woman to memory. The sounds of their labored breathing was all that could be heard.

The glowing golden eyes sparkled at him in triumph.

Charlotte lifted both hands away from the hilts. Touching the healing wound on his ribs, she held up her fingers covered with blood, looking at the dark fluid almost curiously. After a long moment, holding his gaze, she delicately sniffed her fingers, then traced them across her cheeks, leaving marks that resembled war paint. She touched a finger to her tongue, then sucked it slowly with obvious relish. She straightened from her position, carefully backing away from his body.

"That's a sight I'd like to see immortalized on film," she said with faint humor. "Do you think you could hold that pose while I run for a camera?"

Jazz let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

End Part 6.

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