Redsand Canyon down and out over the mount

There was something primal in Colin’s snarl, burning with a ferocity far surpassing his previous noise. Finley loved it. When he wrenched himself out of her grasp, at last she relented, dipping her head and stepping away. She’d been used to spars ending with one towered over the other, their strength firmly asserted, but with her last-minute attack deflected she felt no need to bleed their efforts dry.

Also, her leg fucking hurt.

“Impressive,” Finley said, each breath loudly pronounced as adrenaline ebbed away. Colin could go for another surprise attack and she’d be none the wiser; somehow she wasn’t sure she cared. “You fight well.” As if he’d had anything to prove, any obligation to earn her favor, to start—but that wasn’t why she spoke. Her words instead bore the breathless admiration of someone who, to her immense satisfaction, had been proven very, very wrong.