Off Balance

by Aileen Erin

And the one after that.

  That boiling, seething anger rose in my gut and the faksano vibrated and I crossed them again. I screamed again. And again, the explosion came. This time more bodies disappeared into the gore.

  It coated my face and my hair but I moved. I moved until I couldn’t contain the seething, boiling pool in my gut, and then I crossed my faksano.

  I did it again and again—countless times—and then I realized that there was no one left. No one moving toward me. No one standing except those whose backs—fifty, maybe more—were pressed against the walls, heads bowed, fists to their hearts.

  Air rushed in and out of my lungs as I took in the gore around me. Bodies with their heads smashed. Dead eyes staring at me. Limbs limply lying at impossible angles. And blood. So much blood.

  The faksano slipped from my hands. There was a squish as they hit the soaked carpet.

  I looked down at my feet and saw a smashed head. Lifeless eyes stared up at me.

  “Oh my god.” I stumbled back a step. “Oh my god.”

  “Am?” I heard Roan’s voice and turned to him. He was ten feet in front of me covered in blood. He had a faksano hanging loosely in one hand.

  Oh god. “Did I—Are you—”

  “None of it’s mine. I couldn’t let you fight alone. Take a breath. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I nodded.

  A guard moved away from the wall to stand beside Roan, but kept his fist on his heart. Still, for a moment, I wondered if I’d dropped the faksano too soon.

  “My name is Ksuya. I’m on Solan’s security staff. I know you don’t know me, but you’ve gathered a lot of power. More power than you have since you came back. Your fao’ana are still active. Please breathe. You need to ground yourself before you kill everyone here.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” A tear slipped free and I wanted to brush it away but my hands were covered in things that I didn’t want to think about. “Is there anyone else or…”

  “That was everyone,” Ksuya said. The guard’s dark clothes didn’t show the blood, but I knew it was there. His wet shirt was stuck to his body. He held his hands up as he approached me slowly. “You’re fine. Everything’s okay. Take a breath and let it out slowly. I’ve seen you do the Aunare breathing. Do that now.”

  I looked around the hallway. I was around the corner from Lorne’s suite. There were bodies everywhere. Blood coated the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

  How could I breathe when I was surrounded by death?

  When I was death.

  “I…I…”

  Ksuya took a slow step toward me. “You did what you were meant to do. You fought.”

  “I didn’t fight. I killed them.”

  Ksurya nodded slowly. “You did what you had to do.”

  I blinked a few times. “I’ve never killed anyone before.” My eyes were burning and my lungs felt like they were filled with shards of glass and I couldn’t believe what I’d done. “I didn’t even see their faces. I just killed them.”

  Blood dripped, dripped, dripped down my nose, making a wet plop onto the body at my feet. It’d been so loud, and now it was so, so, so quiet.

  A high-pitched ringing started in my ears.

  “Are there more?” I swallowed hard. “Any more that I didn’t—”

  “No. The house has been cleared. You did a good job.”

  “A good job?” I let out a laugh that sounded like a sob.

  “Your mother’s coming back from the bunker. Lorne’s almost—”

  I heard Lorne scream my name and I spun to see him at the other end of the hall.

  His fao’ana were flashing and he stopped. He pressed one open hand to his heart, and then he shoved his other toward me.

  The bodies in the hallway turned into burning embers and then a second later to dust, but the blood coating every surface wasn’t gone.

  Something plopped on my head from the ceiling and I looked up, only to have someone’s guts fall on my face. It was warm and wet and slimy and—

  That was it. I was done. I was going to puke.

  I slapped a hand over my mouth, but that didn’t help anything.

  Lorne was rushing to me, and I felt frozen. I wasn’t processing this. I wasn’t—

  “Ami!” Declan’s voice came from behind me. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head because I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I’d never killed anyone before, and now…

  And now…

  I hadn’t just killed someone. I’d killed a lot of someones. A hundred. More? I didn’t know how many. I didn’t even see their faces.

  And I hadn’t just killed them. I’d slaughtered them.

  “Oh my god.” My words seemed to come from outside my body.

  I stopped caring about what was on my hands and I covered my eyes, trying to block out what I was seeing, but closing my eyes only made it worse.

  Because now I could see their faces.

  Each one flashed in my mind. Frozen in death. They were burned into my brain.

  This was bad. This was really bad.

  I was bad.

  A hand gripped my shoulder and I screamed, jumping away.

  “Amihanna?” Lorne was here and he pulled me to his chest. “You’re okay. You’re alive. And that’s all that matters.”

  He was wrong—so fucking wrong—and I couldn’t even look at him.

  Another drop of blood dripped, and it was one drop too many.

  I was running, moving fast, Aunare-fast, through hallways and corridors.

  People stared at me as I passed them with their fist still pressed to their hearts, but I didn’t care.

  I had to get out of here.

  I ran as if the hounds of Hell were behind me, ready to drag me to where I belonged. Because I’d killed them. I’d killed all of them.

  “Amihanna! Wait!” Lorne’s voice came from right beside me as he kept pace, but I couldn’t talk to him.

  Blood coated my face and I had to get it off. It was all I could feel. All I could smell. I needed it gone or I was going to—

  I found myself back at the door to Lorne’s rooms. It was still broken and hanging. I pushed it out of my way and raced to the bathroom.

  My knees hit the floor hard as I lost everything I had in me. Over. Over. Over again.

  I wasn’t sure where Lorne had gone, but I was alone and that’s what I deserved.

  I’d killed them all.

  “Am. You can’t let this bother you so much.” Declan had caught up to me.

  I rested my forehead against the edge of the toilet. “Leave.” My voice sounded as broken as I felt inside.

  “Please—”

  “I want to be alone. And if you’re my friend at all, you’ll get the fuck out.”

  I heard the door close and I was glad he was gone. I wanted to be alone. I deserved to be alone.

  I’d killed them. So many.

  They were the enemy. They’d been there to kill me. But I hadn’t felt a thing as their bodies fell lifeless to the ground. I hadn’t let myself.

  I breathed in, and the scent of blood and gore set me off again.

  My stomach heaved so hard I wondered if my insides were tearing free. I heaved even when there was nothing left inside me.

  I heard footsteps coming my way and I wanted to tell Declan to leave me alone. To get away. That I didn’t want to be seen. Not like this. Not so weak and broken. But I didn’t have air or time to say any of it.

  A warm towel pressed against my forehead and I turned enough to rest my head against the edge of the toilet.

  It wasn’t Declan.

  It was Lorne.

  Lorne was here.

  Lorne hadn’t left.

  “I’m running a bath for you, but we need to get you showered before you get into the bath. The shower is warming, too. I almost have everything ready for you.” Lorne knelt beside me as I lost my guts again, rubbing a strong hand down my back. “Just breathe. You can’t let this tear you down. They came h
ere, into this house, to murder you. You did what you had to do.”

  I looked at him, not knowing what to say.

  “If you think that I have an ounce of guilt or pity for them, you’d be sorely mistaken.”

  I slid to lie on the floor. Empty of everything. I was exhausted and spent, and I wasn’t sure I could even lift my head.

  “You done throwing up?”

  “Just leave. I’ll be okay.”

  “Not a chance in hell.” Lorne got up and I tracked his movement through the bathroom as he opened the shower and steam filled the bathroom.

  He was crazy if he thought I could get up, let alone stand in the shower. I was so tired that I was sure my bones had left me, but I really wanted to wash this fight off me. The blood that splattered my face was starting to dry, which made my face feel crusty and hard, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand it without losing it again.

  Lorne moved efficiently through the room, pulling out towels and turning on soothing music. Its deep tones seemed to ease the ache in my heart. Not by a lot, but some. He dimmed the lights and gave them a deep blue hue.

  Then he came to stand in front of me. “All right. Everything is ready for you.”

  “I—I can’t get up. I’m so tired and—”

  “I know you are. I won’t take advantage, but you need a shower and you’ve spent everything you had on surviving the attack. So, let me take care of you.”

  The hurt and love and guilt and longing in his eyes was enough to stop the argument before it started. I surprised myself when I nodded. “Okay.” I would take the help and anything else he could give me, especially if it made me forget everything that had just happened.

  He pulled off his shirt and my heart skipped a beat. Then he toed off shoes while he watched me, and pulled off his pants, leaving him in his underwear.

  My mouth grew dry as he moved to squat next to me.

  I stared into his deep blue-green eyes and I knew that I wanted him with everything that I was. But there were so many reasons I should stop this.

  Most importantly, I couldn’t be queen, especially when his people wanted me dead this badly. I would stay and fight, but…

  But then he picked me up and carried me into the shower and I wasn’t sure why I was fighting him anymore.

  Steam filled the large shower. He moved to sit me on the built-in stone bench. I watched as he squatted at my feet, pulling off my shoes and socks. Tossing them out of the shower. His gaze stayed locked on mine as he reached up, tucking his fingers into the tops of my pants—leaving my underwear in place—and pulled them down my legs.

  He tossed them behind him and rose slowly. So slowly. As if he didn’t want to spook me. He didn’t want me to run. But where would I go?

  My breath came in fast as he gripped the bottom of my shirt.

  “Arms up,” he said, and I did my best to obey.

  My blood and water-soaked shirt plopped to the floor outside of the shower. He reached around, releasing the clasp on my bra, and tossed that away, too.

  He pulled me to stand within the water. He was so close, our breath mingled and if I rose up on my toes…

  “Amihanna.” That one word. My name. But more than that, a promise. Need. Want. His voice set my skin humming and I closed my eyes.

  He said something softly in Aunare and I heard the door slide shut. The glass walls were frosted and closed up here in our steam-filled space, it felt like we were in our own little world, hidden from the death and distraction outside.

  He held me in the spray of water and used a warm, soft washcloth to rinse the blood from my face.

  And it was then that I knew that I loved him back. Lorne had said it to me more and more. I didn’t believe it at first, but I did now.

  Lorne was slowly bewitching me, and I didn’t think I was strong enough to stop it.

  Not today. Not anymore.

  I needed Lorne more than I needed anything else on any planet in any galaxy across the universe.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  AMIHANNA

  The water washed over us and his hands were on me, getting the last of the gore off. He took extra care with my hands before turning me around to face the wall again. His fingers moved through my hair, rinsing it with water, before he massaged shampoo into it.

  He was being so careful and gentle with me and I wasn’t sure I deserved it. I wasn’t sure I deserved him. I couldn’t believe what I’d done, but I couldn’t apologize for it either. If something happened like this again, I would do the same thing.

  What did that say about me?

  When he was done, he turned me back to face him.

  Lorne’s strong hand gripped my chin, forcing me to look up. “I would’ve killed everyone for you if I’d gotten here sooner, but…” He let out a breath. “You don’t have to feel guilty for anything. Not one damned thing. You deserve to live, and selfishly, I’m so thankful you’re alive. Thank you for doing what needed to be done.”

  I didn’t need thanks. I just wondered if I could’ve done something differently. “I was moving so fast that I didn’t stop. I keep thinking that maybe some of them would’ve surrendered if I hadn’t lost control.”

  “Or maybe they wouldn’t have. Maybe if you’d hesitated one of them would’ve killed you.” He ran his hand gently over my face. “You’ll feel better after you get some rest.”

  I wanted to believe he was right, but I wasn’t sure. “Have you killed before?” I hadn’t, but I knew I wanted to live. I knew that I didn’t want them to kill anyone else on the estate.

  “Yes.” He said the word, but he was wearing his king face, and I wasn’t sure why.

  I swallowed. I was scared of what he might say, but I had to ask. “How did you—”

  “Stop this. It was either you or them, and I like you alive. You have to hold onto that. We’re facing war. War is never easy or bloodless, but we will get through it.”

  I was afraid and horrified at what I’d done, and yet I was glad I was alive, too. I didn’t want to die. And yet my whole body was shaking and I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop.

  “How?” How would I get through this?

  Tears were falling but the water was washing them away, and I wished they’d wash away all these conflicting emotions with it—the sadness, regret, guilt that I’d killed people, while also feeling thankful to have survived.

  “Together.”

  I rested my forehead against his bare chest for a minute before I looked up at him. A piece of his wet hair had fallen free of his tie, and I tucked it behind his ear.

  “Amihanna.” He gave me a small smile, but it was his eyes that did me in. That and the way he said my name.

  I stretched up on my tiptoes and kissed his soft lips. Just a quick there and gone. I wasn’t sure I could take more than that. Lorne was changing everything.

  I remembered feeling safe when I saw him at the end of the hallway, coming for me.

  I remembered the thought—Lorne’s here. Everything will be okay.

  And maybe it wasn’t okay. Not yet. But he was making it feel like it might eventually be okay.

  “Amihanna.” His hand cupped my cheek. “I said I wouldn’t take advantage of you and I won’t, but if you keep looking at me like that, things are going to get hard for me.”

  “I’m sure things are very hard for you right now,” I said dryly, because I couldn’t help myself.

  Lorne laughed and the sound of it soothed the rough edges lingering from the fight. “There’s the Amihanna I love.”

  I kept hearing his words over and over.

  There’s the Amihanna I love.

  I love.

  I love.

  I swallowed down my nerves. His tone was joking, but I knew he wasn’t. He’d said it before, but I didn’t really believe him. Or maybe I didn’t want to believe him, because that would make everything more complicated.

  But he was bathing me. I didn’t think anyone had ever taken care of me like this. My mother, and m
aybe for a little while on Abaddon, Audrey—but she was a medic. This was different.

  This felt different.

  “Did you mean what you said?” My words were barely more than a whisper.

  “I’m sure I did,” he said just as softly. “But you’ll have to remind me what you’re referring to.” His fingertips ran down my face and I wanted to stay like this, in his shower, hidden behind the thick opaque glass, in the warm steam, in his arms forever.

  I wasn’t sure I could repeat his words back to him. It felt pathetic to ask, but I had to know. “Are you really in love with me?”

  I didn’t hear his sigh, but I felt it move through his body as I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my cheek to his chest. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if somehow that would make it hurt less if he meant something different.

  “Of course I mean it.” His fingers ran down my hair.

  I waited with my eyes squeezed shut to hear what he was going to say next, but he didn’t say anything. He muttered something in Aunare and the water cut off.

  I cleared my throat, stepping back from him. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of this shower and to bed without being awkward, but I would do my best. Because the shower was over and we were leaving this safe, intimate space. “Thank you for—”

  “I’m not done yet.” He swept me into his arms so fast that I yelped before I settled into his arms.

  I was glad it wasn’t over yet. Because if it wasn’t, then maybe that meant that he was feeling the same overwhelming need to be together that I was.

  He moved through the bathroom and to a tub big enough to hold a family of five. The water was tinted purple and piled high with bubbles. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a bath, definitely not one that I remembered. He slowly lowered me until my body sank beneath the surface, and I had a second to relax before Lorne stepped into the bath. He leaned against the opposite side of the tub from me and his hand grabbed my foot under the water. His thumb ran down the length of my sole as he started to massage the muscles.

  Maybe Lorne had bathed with a ton of girls before—and I wanted to know exactly nothing about that—but I hadn’t, with anyone. I needed to focus on something else, otherwise I was going to embarrass myself by trying to get out of this pool-tub thing and run far away.