“You’re alive. The rest we’ll deal with when the time comes.”
I left the guardian muttering to himself and posted Sota by the door, just in case he got any ideas about rousing his flight and taking the ship for himself. He wasn’t mentally sound enough, but he would recover quickly, and then I’d have an angry, clear-thinking guardian on my hands.
Arran stayed with me as I walked deeper into the ship, passing people busying themselves in the corridors and children sprinting from one end of the decks to the other. I found my secret pool, rolled up my pants to above the knee, and sat on the edge, dangling my feet in the water. If there were any ship parasites, I was beyond caring.
The map, my confession, the unseelie, and the knowledge of what we had to do weighed me down. I needed space, and time to collect my thoughts.
“Mind if I join you?” Arran thumbed at the pool.
“Go right ahead.” I braced my arms behind me and watched him pull the shirt over his head, revealing rippling abs that Hulia would have been measuring for profit. He kept his pants on and dove in, quick as an arrow. I quelled the nerves at the sight of the water swallowing him whole and waited for him to resurface. When he did, he was almost on the other side. He swam on, focused as though he had a goal in mind. He moved effortlessly through the water, barely making a ripple. Again, I wondered who had taught Aeon to swim and who had taught him to dance. There was much about his past Arran and I didn’t know. There had been no time to get to know Aeon again before he ate the starfruit, and now there never would be. For him to swim like he did, for him to dance like he didn’t have a care in the world, there must have been some good in his past somewhere.
“Where do you think you learned to swim?” I asked, unable to contain the question any longer.
He started swimming back toward me, a gleam in his eye. “Maybe a sweetheart taught me on a world far from here?”
Well, that sweetheart certainly wasn’t me. “Maybe.”
He swam up to my legs and folded his arms beside me, propping himself on the edge. “The meeting with Kellee didn’t go well?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“They’re fools.”
I managed a smile. “I’m the fool.”
“Never.”
His faith in me was sweet, if misplaced. “I have all these grand ideas about making a difference, ideas a friend had once given me, but surrounded by Faerie’s creatures, like Talen and Kellee, I sometimes forget I’m saru, and when I remember, I realize I can’t do these wonderful things because saru serve, and no matter how we try to change, we can’t, not really.” The tragic pilot’s last plea for freedom haunted me. We were all trapped in servitude under the fae, even the fae themselves.
Arran considered my words. He propped his chin on his folded forearms and lifted his dark eyes. “You’ve already done so much. How can you doubt yourself?”
I leaned closer and spoke softly. “Do you think we can change?”
Aeon had believed it. He had believed it so fiercely that I carried that belief with me to this very day. A belief that we were more than what Faerie made us. My friend—the one who looked back at me now with no knowledge of his dreams or beliefs—had believed in heroes. But I wasn’t asking Aeon. I was asking Arran.
He considered it. “Yeah, we can change. Everything changes, given enough time.”
“Not the fae.”
“Yeah, well, that’s their loss. Change is a good thing.”
Change is coming. Sonia—a saru who had lost everything she had worked for, a woman braver than I—had told me that.
“What’s next for us?” Arran asked.
“I’m… I don’t know. I can’t see us shoving the unseelie back into the hole they crawled out of, so I guess we’d better find somewhere safe for Hapters’s people until we can figure out how to get rid of the unseelie. After that…” I go back to Faerie with Sirius. “I don’t know.”
Arran’s eyes sparkled. “Do you have time for a swim?”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
The water looked bottomless, as though things could get lost in its depths, never to be seen again. And then there was Arran, half-smiling up at me, his face hopeful. There were a million reasons why getting in the water with him was a terrible idea.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he said, sincerely.
I had never doubted that. “Arran, we can—”
He laughed, cutting off my friend-zone talk, and grumbled, “Get in the water, Wraithmaker.” The sideways look he threw me was pure Aeon mischief, the same look he’d toss my way when he was about to stoke Dagnu’s rage, just because he knew how to get a rise out of our fae jailor, the same look he’d toss me when he had stolen something precious from a fae lord. “This is one of those opportunities you don’t say no to. Unless you have lives to save somewhere?” He kicked off the side and swam backward, splashing me. “Is the Wraithmaker scared of a little water?”
I rolled my eyes. Yes.
He kicked water at my face. “Make me stop.”
“You’re annoying.”
“Oh, I’m annoying? Like this?” Another flick.
Fat drops landed on my clothes. I wiped them off with a scowl.
He changed course, and with a few broad strokes he was by my legs, peering up through his wet lashes. He rested his hands on my thighs, and when I didn’t protest, he dropped them between my thighs and eased my knees apart, placing himself between them. “Still annoying?”
The right thing to do would be to tell him to stop, to walk away like all the times Talen had walked away from me, but I didn’t want to and he didn’t want me to, so what was so wrong about any of this?
“Tell me to stop.” He ran his hands down the outside of my thighs where the wrinkled fabric bunched, bringing him so close he had to crane his neck to see my face. His eyes were kind and proud. They always had been. His face was open and unguarded. With me, he was Arran, no lies, no games.
Placing his hands on either side of my legs, he heaved himself out of the pool, soaking me in water and bringing his wet, smiling face an inch from mine. His eyes were bright and dancing the way they did before the arena. My heart raced, catching his excitement.
His arms quivered where he braced himself.
I hadn’t moved, hadn’t said a word. If he kissed me, I’d kiss him right back, because with Arran, everything was as it seemed. He had no secrets, none that he remembered. He was just uncomplicated, fun-loving Arran. But he deserved more, didn’t he? I’d take him and twist him, break his heart. It was what I did. I’d already killed him once.
He must have seen my thoughts cross my face because his excitement waned. “Guess not.” He dropped back into the water and disappeared below the surface.
At times like these, I almost wished Oberon were here so I’d have orders to follow. How did free-loving humans make unguided decisions every day of their lives? How did they not make mistakes over and over and over? Or maybe they did. Maybe mistakes were the point?
I unlaced my waistcoat, dumped it to one side, and pushed myself over the edge, sinking legs first into the pool. Warm water tugged at my fitted undervest, lapping at my waist, and licked higher as I lowered myself all the way in until the surface rippled around my shoulders and chin. The fact I couldn’t feel the bottom of the pool had my heart stuttering with fear.
Arran broke the surface in the middle of the pool, shook his head, flicking wet hair out of his face, and spotted me. His smile broadened. “There she is.” He swam up to my side. “Not so bad, right?”
Fucking terrifying. I clung to the edge. “Is it deep?”
His lips twisted. “Very.”
“Lie and tell me it’s safe.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Where’s the fun in safe?” His deep voice rumbled.
“So, how do we do this?”
He blinked, and I noticed how water had beaded at the ends of his dark lashes. We had once cried in each other’s arms, and his lashes had glis
tened wetly then too.
“Do what?” he asked, forgetting himself.
“Swim.”
“Swimming, right. So, you do want me to teach you?”
I was in the damn water, wasn’t I? “What else would I want?”
A dirty smirk tucked a corner of his mouth into his cheek. “We start by letting go.”
My heart skipped. “Of the edge?” I wasn’t sure I could do that.
He reached around and braced his arms on either side of mine, pinning me in. My heart raced for different reasons now. Thoughts too. Some of them nonsense. Most of them fearful.
He dropped his right hand below the surface and I felt his soft touch on my hip. Just light enough to steady me. “Hold on to me.”
I didn’t want to let go of the edge. Panic teetered at the edges of my thoughts.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his voice deeper, darker, closer. “I’ll always keep you safe.”
I let go of the edge and grabbed his braced arm. It felt like corded steel beneath my grip. I settled my other hand on his shoulder and let him hold me in the water, away from the edge. This wasn’t so bad. More floating than swimming, but it was a start. I smiled, and so close to Arran, the smile felt strange and new on my lips, like I was letting him see it for the first time. I didn’t remember ever trusting anyone so completely, except maybe when I had opened myself to Talen to save him. But that was different. I hadn’t had a choice. Here, now, nobody was trying to kill us, and nobody would die if I got this wrong. This mistake wasn’t life or death; it was just Arran and me.
“In another world, there’s a guy just like me and a girl just like you.”
“Oh?”
“They’re in a pool together.”
“He’s teaching her to swim?”
His eyebrow flickered. “She thinks he is.”
“He’s not?”
“He faked the whole thing to get her in the water.”
“Oh.” My soft smile grew. “That’s… sly of him.”
“Yeah, well, he tried to ignore it, but that didn’t go so well.”
“Ignore… what?”
He winced like he wanted to back away, but that couldn’t happen now that we were here, pressed together in the water, him holding me up. Arran’s smile turned serious, and I thought he was about to say something terrible, something that would ruin everything. “How strange it is to love someone he’s never met.”
But how could that be? He had forgotten everything, hadn’t he? I smiled, maybe even laughed dismissively. “You can’t—”
“I can.”
He had forgotten his memories, but not his feelings. Aeon was still alive inside him, inside the emotion.
I brushed my fingertips against his cheek. Did his feelings for me make this worse or better? Was this wrong?
“You…?” Love me? I couldn’t say it, because if I did, it would make it real, and frightening. No one had loved me before. Was it even possible to love someone like me?
“I tried not to,” he said sadly and shrugged. “You don’t feel the same, an—”
Fate and Faerie be damned. I kissed him. As I pulled myself close, I thought the widening of his eyes might be fear, so the kiss was quick and sharp. I hesitated and almost let go. But he cupped my face and kissed me like I was something to be savored, something to cherish, somehow gentle and possessive all at once. And I kissed him back, carefully, slowly, feeling the softness and warmth of a mouth I’d seen smile and laugh and joke too many times to count. I’d seen him scream, and rage, and cry. I’d seen him break and rise again. I’d loved him for years. Loved him since he had been locked in the cell next to mine and he’d fought back. He wasn’t Aeon but he was, and I was done trying to figure out what was right and wrong in this world. I was done playing the martyr.
He broke the kiss, bumped his forehead against mine, and peered into my eyes. “I’ve wanted to do that since I woke up in a new world with you looking at me like I’d lost my mind. It was the first thought I had, and I didn’t even know who you were—or who I was.”
I bit my lip to stop it from quivering. He was killing me. Each word cut deep, turning out all my fears.
“Nothing has felt as right as this…” He stroked my cheek, his thoughts lost in my eyes. “As real as this.”
I leaned into his hand. His strong, calloused fingers spread and sank into my hair. In the past, his hands had been torn and bloody, clenched around bars. When he kissed me a second time, the intent behind it deepened, becoming stronger, hungrier. Doubts fell away. I threw my arms over his shoulders and pulled him closer, needing to feel him, to banish any space between us. He pressed me back against the side of the pool, but I wasn’t trapped like I would have been with Kellee, and somewhere inside, the parts of me beyond thought recognized I wasn’t afraid of Arran. There was no bond toying with my emotions, no teeth about to sink into my neck and tear me open. Arran didn’t want anything from me. He was just Arran, and with him, I was Mylana again. Not the Wraithmaker, not the Messenger, not a distant, unobtainable hero with the hopes of a billion people pinned to her sleeve. Just a girl with a dream that someone might love her just for her, even after all the horrible things she had done.
With Arran, I was free.
The kiss ended softly and he brushed his cheek over mine, bringing his mouth close to my ear. “I should probably teach you to swim, right? If I don’t, it’ll look like I got you in here for other reasons.”
With my body buzzing to be touched and my head awhirl, learning to swim was the last thing on my mind, but I wouldn’t rush this. It felt too good, right now, right here, with Arran looking at me like I was a long, cool drink on a hot Summerlands day. He was a gift. He was my hope.
“Okay, teach me to swim,” I agreed. “But you’ve got your work cut out. I mostly just sink.”
Chapter 17
A few hours after my impromptu swimming lesson, I found a disused room not much larger than my old Calicto container. Benches had been grown from the walls, and a table had sprouted from the floor in the middle of the room, making it the perfect meeting chamber.
Sota sailed in. I pointed him toward the flattest wall. “There.”
His lens extended, widened, and splashed a twinkling image across the smooth surface.
“I wonder if I can dim the lights in—”
The lights behind the walls dimmed. Apparently, the ship was listening.
“Hey, sugar, you called?” Hulia sauntered in to gape at the glittering image painted on the wall. “What is that?”
“A map of the star systems as viewed from Faerie.”
“Holy sweet cyn on a tek-stick, that’s… beautiful.” She touched the image, upsetting the projection, which now coated her hand and arm. She let the captured star map paint her hand, and then frowned and withdrew. “Some of these stars aren’t there anymore. The fae took them.”
Took them meant destroyed. Tiny stars snuffed out, like the billions of lives they’d cradled before the fae returned.
I folded my arms and chewed on my lip, trying to make sense of the billions, perhaps trillions, of pinpricks of light. Each system had a red point at its center, just as Talen had said before destroying the real map.
“Your drone has the best resolution I’ve ever seen. What is that, like fifteen terrapixels? It looks real.”
Sota hummed appreciatively. “Twenty. Size does matter.”
Hulia chuckled. “Oh, Sota. I missed your sweet tek-ass.”
“Not as much as I missed yours.”
Hulia laughed harder. I rolled my eyes at the two world-class flirts. “Can we focus here?”
“Already am,” Sota purred.
I fought my own laugh. “Sota, take the snark down a notch.”
Hulia took up a spot on Sota’s other side. “How come I’m here and not your entourage of Buns, Dark, and Icy?”
“Buns, Dark, and Icy?” I shook my head at her wicked grin. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“Have you bed
ded all three yet?”
I wouldn’t even acknowledge that question.
“She hasn’t,” Sota replied.
“Sota!”
“Are you insane?” Hulia exclaimed. “What the hell is keeping you? Give them to me. I’ll dirty them up for you.”
Oh, by-cyn, why had I thought bringing Sota and Hulia into this discussion was a good idea? “Hulia, just—”
“She did get hot and heated with Buns a few hours ago,” Sota said.
Wait, what? “Sota, how do you know I was with Arran?” More to the point, how did he know Buns was Arran, unless he and Hulia had been talking? Of course they had. Sota was a terrible gossip, only matched by Hulia.
“I keep track of all the important individuals on the ship, and you spent exactly fifty-three minutes inside Arran’s very personal space.”
Hulia was giggling again. “That is not enough time to do the dirty in all the right ways.”
I opened my mouth, stumbled over my words, and said, “He was teaching me to swim.”
“Uh-huh.” She made a point of staring at the map with her tongue firmly stuck in her cheek.
“I’d bang him,” Sota said, “if I had all the right equipment.”
I covered my face with my hands.
“You and me both. At the same time,” Hulia agreed.
This was serious, and I could hardly keep a straight face. Damn them. “If neither of you have anything constructive to say, you can leave.”
Hulia planted a hand on her hip and eyed me around Sota hovering between us. “Just say the word if you want any pointers. I bet I can coax out the namu in your uptight saru ass.” She continued to stare, waiting for me to say something. “Did you kiss?” I didn’t get a chance to reply as she read the admission on my face. “You did! Was it fast and hard or slow and soft?”
“I’m starting to regret our friendship.”
“You can tell a lot by the first kiss. Fast and hard usually means he’ll be a royal pain in the ass, but slow and soft, those are keepers. So, which was he?”
The Nightshade's Touch: A Paranormal Space Fantasy (Messenger Chronicles Book 3) Page 17