“What’s wrong? Didn’t you get enough rest?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

His gaze was too keen and made her uncomfortable. “Are you sure? Xavier pointed out we’ve been pushing you too hard, and he’s right. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop pushing you, but you can say if something gets to be too much.”

Her gaze fell to the training mat. It was the wrong time for him to show her kindness. She would not cry. She wouldn’t.

Forcing words to come steadily out of her tight throat, she admitted, “I’m having an off day, but it will help to focus on something.”

“Very well.” He started to stroll in a circle around her, not to engage, she could tell, but simply to move. “Yesterday, you said you wanted to change the conversation. Why?”

Other than following him with her gaze when he was in sight, she didn’t bother to move. After all, he hadn’t told her to be on guard, or said “if you please.”

Thinking of Eathan, she replied, “Because I don’t want to just run away my whole life. Sometimes you need to stand and fight.”

“Agreed.” He came to stand in front of her. “As long as you remember, in most cases you really should fight to run away. Even when you complete the blood offering—and your speed, healing and strength have become enhanced—the reality is, at your best, your abilities will always be at the level of a newly turned Vampyre or a younger Elf. Many Elder Races creatures will still be faster and stronger than you.”

She noticed Raoul said “when” and not “if” she completed the blood offering. He was beginning to believe in her. Seemed like rotten timing, all the way around. She clenched her fists and bit the inside of her lip until it bled.

“They won’t necessarily be smarter,” she said through her teeth. “Or as well trained.”

“That’s what I can give you,” he said, smiling. “I’ll teach you weak points for each race, along with kill spots. Eventually we’ll get members of each race in for practice bouts. Take trolls, for an example. If a troll manages to get ahold of you and he’s intent on killing you, you’re dead. But even as an unenhanced human, you move so much faster than trolls do, you should be able to get away—unless they set a trap. They can be cunning like that, so you have to watch out for it.”

As he talked, gradually she calmed enough to be able to focus. “What is a troll’s kill spot? Do they have one?”

“Unless you have high-density explosives, they have just one—their eyes. Everything else about them is as hard as granite. A high-density explosive can stun one and damage their joints enough so that you can hack one apart with an axe, but that’s a massively slow, cruel and inefficient way to kill one.” He pointed to one of his eyes. “But if you aim for the eye, you can hit their brain. That’s quick and gets the job done.”

She gave him a leery look. He spoke with crisp dispassion, and as matter-of-factly as if he had dispatched a troll before. With his intimidating array of fighting skills, Raoul would have been a terrific assassin.

Maybe he had been one, once.

Except . . . He had said he’d worked for Xavier for forty-eight years, and he was now seventy-five. That meant he had come to Xavier when he was a young man of twenty-seven. Back then, he wouldn’t have been nearly as proficient, which meant he had to have learned a lot of his skills while working for Xavier.

Once the thoughts had wormed their way into her head, they wouldn’t leave. Tucking them away to consider at another time, she said, “Realistically, I’m not going to come up against any fighting trolls, am I?”

“You never know, but probably not.” He shrugged. “Usually they’re pretty peaceful. I’m just using them as an example. For the most part, we’re going to concentrate on creatures that you’ll see most often, because those are the ones you would be most likely to engage.”

She cocked her head. “Like Vampyres?”

He smiled. “Like Vampyres. They are famously dangerous, but they also have quite a few vulnerabilities, such as they can’t enter your house without your permission. That doesn’t apply to public places, like hotels or hotel rooms. It also doesn’t apply to any rooms you may occupy when you’re a guest in someone else’s home, so you need to know what your boundaries are and what’s safe.”

“So if I’m a guest in a Vampyre’s house, they can get to me wherever I am,” she said.

“Yes, or if you’re a guest in someone’s home, and they’ve already given permission to a Vampyre to enter, you can’t revoke it. The older, more Powerful ones can mesmerize with their eyes or their voice, but that’s one of the things a blood offering will help to protect you from. When you develop that connection with Xavier, another Vampyre won’t be able to mesmerize you. Of course, you can kill a Vampyre with direct sunlight, but a total SPF sunblock or a well-made cloak will usually buy them enough time to find shelter. Any Vampyre with a grain of sense buys clothes made of UPF 50+ material that will block up to 98 percent of UV rays.”

“What about UV lamps?”

“Don’t bother, unless you want to piss one off. They cause burns and pain, but they’re not strong enough to incapacitate.” He made a slicing motion across his throat with one finger. “Decapitation works, and a penetrating blow to the heart, like a sword thrust. Brain damage also works, but it’s got to be severe enough to be lethal. In other words, like the troll, you can shoot a Vampyre in the eye, and as long as the shot goes directly through the brain, it will kill them.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “I feel funny talking about this, you know.”

His lean face creased as he laughed. “None of this is privileged information. It’s not as though I’m imparting state secrets.”

The phrase caused her mind to wing back to earlier that morning, when she had discovered Eathan’s death, and she winced. But now was not the time to focus on that either, so she forced herself to concentrate on the subject at hand. “When Xavier interviewed me at the Vampyre’s Ball, he asked if I used drugs.”

“That’s a whole other subject,” he told her.

She shrugged. “It sounded like it could do some damage.”

“Yes, but it tends to happen over a period of time. Luckily, most often, the problem can be caught before any damage gets too severe. When it doesn’t get stopped in time . . .” He shook his head. “The results are ugly.”