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There were precisely three things I knew with absolute certainty.

One, I loved Kai Rí with every beat of my heart.

Two, whoever invented combat training could kiss my badacious booty.

And three, there wasn't enough coffee in the known Universe to make swamp mud in my bra acceptable.

SPLAT!

And there it was. More humiliation. Face-first. Full body. The kind of landing that made a sound like the Great Goddess Herself had dropped a wet pot roast from Heaven, and I was the pot roast.

I came up spitting swamp water, sputtering mud, and spitting out what I sincerely hoped was not a bug, blinking against the muck sliding down my forehead in a slow, personal betrayal. Somewhere behind me, a very smug, very gorgeous Fairy King was doing an absolutely terrible job of not laughing.

"Kai Rí." I didn't turn around. I didn't have to. I could feel him grinning at my back like a sunburn. "Did you just put me on my face in Dead Man's Swamp?"

"You left your left side open." Not even a little sorry. Not one ounce.

"I left my left side open because my left side was busy not wanting to fall in the swamp!"

"Then you should've moved your feet, Love."

I peeled a strand of algae off my cheek with the kind of dignity only available to a woman who has already lost every ounce of dignity she started the day with, turned around, and glared up at the six-foot-seven-inch wall of muscle, red hair, and unfair cheekbones currently standing there in a T-shirt that had, four months ago, been white.

Then I looked down.

At my boots.

My gorgeous, glittering, hand-bedazzled combat boots, the ones I had spent an entire Sunday afternoon covering in rhinestones, because if the Universe was going to make me train to fight things Below, I was, at bare minimum, going to look like a woman who could accessorize her way through an apocalypse.

My boots. My beautiful boots. They were covered.

Again.

In mud.

"Kai."

"Yes, Love?" He was entirely too pleased with himself.

"Do you know how many rhinestones have died for this bullshit?"

"I'll buy you more."

"That's not the point."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Not even a little."

I would've smacked him if I hadn't needed both hands to wring swamp water out of my braid.

“He's learned when to shut up and let you be mad,” Aideen, the Dragoness with whom I shared my soul, offered from somewhere deep in my soul, sounding entirely too amused for a being who was supposed to be my ancient, wise, Dragon Queen soul partner, aka alter ego, and not a peanut gallery. That's growth.

“Nobody asked you.”