“So our government was founded by a shady, deceitful agent. And the people who are trying to fix the system are…agents…who are basically the same thing?”
Fort Nevada was not filled with deceit. “No. No, we are not basically the same thing.” Alex leaned back, his hand thumping on the bench beside him in frustration. He opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him off.
“It’s okay. I’m not trying to antagonize you. I only wanted to know what he was referring to. So, my second question is a little more personal.” She shifted on her bench and looked down at the ground. “The breeding program made all of us…all of the Sparks? So we’re all descended from the same group of men?”
He nodded. “More or less. The ability is a native one. All humans could have it. But yes, the strongest of us are descended from the men the scientists…refined.”
“How many were there?”
“Originally? Sixty-four. But only fifty-two of them participated.” It wasn’t a big number, which was why they had built in the safeguards.
“Fifty-two? That’s not many.”
“They keep records. They were very careful, especially in the beginning. It’s one of the reasons why the Wards are sent out to new Zones when they become agents. And why they can’t go back.” The old pain twinged. With her, he didn’t have to keep it from his voice. She understood.
“New blood.”
He nodded.
“And it’s the real reason all of you want me?”
He could see the fresh wound on her face.
“I can’t speak for Jackson,” he answered her. “But I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t a factor. Terrible as it was, the reason the breeding program was so effective is the Spark breeds true. Your Spark will, too. And as a weapon against the Council, a future filled with Sparks who can do what you do, maybe more? I’m sorry. That’s more important to us than feelings.”
“My Spark will breed true?” She shook her head. “You’re all assuming I’ll allow it to breed at all.”
Alex felt his brows draw down. “Allow it? You can control your fertility—of course you can control that.” As soon as he’d seen her expression, mocking him for thinking she wouldn’t use her gifts to make her own life easier, he’d amended the question. “Here we all were, thinking the only issue would be who you chose. But it isn’t just who, it’s also when.”
“No. It’s if. I don’t even know that I want children, and it’s certainly not going to happen until I tell the Dust to allow it.” She looked down at her hands.
Because she’d turned her face to the ground, he almost missed her next, soft question.
“Is that why Jackson kept backing off? Thomas decided Jackson was an inappropriate choice and he just…caved?” She nodded, a faraway look on her face, and it seemed to be an answer to her own question. “I thought he cared. I thought….”
She needed comforting. He didn’t want to do it. What was the point of telling her a lie? Love gave the world a weapon it could turn on you. They’d both lived that.
But he found himself rising to his feet and crossing to her, anyway. He lowered himself to a crouch in front of her, taking both her small hands in one of his and using the first fingers of his other hand to tilt her chin up.
“If Jackson won’t take a stand for you, then he’s a fool,” he said. He could tell her that much. It was the truth, even if the kid would have been bucking Alex’s own orders. “A fool. And any man who is given the chance to win a piece of your heart and doesn’t claim it….” He shook his head. “Worse than a fool.”
“Is that right?” She searched his face, as if looking for the lie. Not finding it, she softly smiled.
The urge to lift his fingers a few inches to trace those lips surged through him. Instead, he stood up and backed away. He gestured for her to stand.
“C’mon. I have an idea. I want to try something.”
She sighed.
“Seriously, I have a new idea. C’mon, get up.”
Get up, Lena. I need the focus.
She rose and stood with her arms crossed, waiting.
He focused, grateful for the shift in mood. Instead of trying to affect the Dust inside the body, as she did in her attacks, he’d try for the Dust attracted to the outside of her. Perhaps the Dust living inside was simply too protective of their very strong host? He breathed out and reached with his mind.
Nothing happened, exactly like all the times before.
“Um.” She wrinkled her brow. “Did you start yet?”
Alex groaned in frustration. He dropped his gaze to the ground at her feet, not wanting to see her expression after the latest failure. Push, dammit!
A flash of light and heat arced out in jagged white light from the ground. It threw Lena off her feet, over the bench and to the ground.
He stared, slack-jawed for a bare second. In two long steps he crossed the clearing and hopped onto the bench looking down at her.
She wheezed in an attempt to reclaim her breath.
He jumped down to her side, hands moving over her head and neck, and then down her sides, to be sure she was otherwise okay. She projected such a huge persona he was shocked at how fragile she felt under his hands.
She batted at him weakly.
Once he’d reassured himself she wasn’t broken, he wrapped his hands around each of her thighs and pulled up her legs to inspect her feet.
The indignity of it helped her find her voice. “Get off of me!”
“Lay still! I could have hurt you!” He barked the words, guilt and dismay making his voice harsh.
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. Her voice came as a weak thread of air. She sounded breathless, small. She pushed his hands away, and then pushed at him as she sat up. He crouched at her side, refusing to give way. His heart still pounded.
With a faint grunt of disgust, she scooted herself back from him. She brushed the worst of the gravel and dirt from her hair with her fingertips. When she finally looked up at him, she seemed to freeze for a moment at whatever she saw in his face. “Reyes. Alex. I’m fine.”
He propped one elbow on his knee in front of him and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes closed then opened on a gust of air. “Dust, Lena. I could have hurt you.”
“Yeah.” She agreed. “You could have.” Her voice changed, and he could hear the sly grin under her words. “You really could have.”
The mischief on her face was contagious.
“I did it.”
“You did something.” She wiggled a bit and then made a move to rise.
He jumped to his feet to help. His pull and her slight weight made her sail up into his side. He wrapped his arm around her to steady her.
She grinned up at him, mouth opened to make another wise-ass remark, no doubt.
He focused on her mouth just a beat too long.
She closed it, biting her lower lip. That wasn’t a great help.
She stared back up at him, her eyes wide and her body very still. Before Alex had a chance to process the movement or talk himself down, his body shifted, turning to fully face her. He slid his other hand up to cup the back of her head, lifting her face as he lowered his.
Just a taste. One taste. I have to know.
The first contact of their lips was softer and more tentative than he intended, but the heat of it flashed down through his body. He pressed deeper, pulling her to him as he sampled. The heat responded, a spark spiraling up, rising through him and into her through the gentle contact of lips and tongue.
When it flashed back to him from her, the spark had grown. It slammed into him with the force and heat and intensity of a grounding, electricity arcing between them where they were in contact. It danced along his skin. Alex existed at that ecstatic line between pleasure and pain. His brain—always weighing, balancing, five steps ahead—simply stopped.
He was sensation. Electric heat chased electric heat, moving over them and flaring within them as their Dust wound together.
/>
The sound of his breath stuttering out slammed him back to reality.
What the fuck are you doing?! His brain re-engaged.
He tore his mouth from hers, jumping guiltily away and lifting his hands up. The last flares of their shared power crackled against his lips. He could see the same blue-white flares popping across hers.
She didn’t move. She was still, frozen, mouth still slightly open.
He was pretty sure he wore the same look, if thunderstruck stupefaction could be described as a “look.”
He sucked in a breath, then cleared his throat. The noise seemed to snap her out of her trance.
You put her in a trance. He wasn’t sure if his inner voice was outraged or smug.
Lena backed away, ducking her head and shoving her hair back behind her ears. It was her nervous tell. In a moment, her hair would slip back out, falling around her face again. He could feel his lips curl up in a smile.
No. Down, boy.
She laughed, a nervous sound. She turned away to move back around the bench, hands tucking her hair behind her ears again. She inspected the charred, scattered blast area where her feet had been, scuffing it with one boot.
“Damn, Alex.” Her voice was husky. She cleared her throat, too. “At least I held back when I hit you.” She rubbed her tail bone, underscoring that she meant his successful attack and not the insane heat of the moment before.
His brain sent her a silent, steady stream of gratitude for not making a thing out of the ill-conceived kiss.
You’re a moron, Alejandro Reyes.
“You were not holding back.” The memory of the pain in his belly warred with the more recent experience, but not for long. The warmth of their camaraderie, of her unrestrained laugh, of that impossible heat, felt too good. How the fuck did Jackson manage?
“I was mostly holding back.” She finally looked up at him, expression mischievous instead of stupefied.
“I was…mostly pissed off.”
“I see that.” She scuffed at the blackened ground with one foot again and grinned at him. “You did it!”
“I did.” He couldn’t help the sly smile that spread over his face as he gloated. “And Thom is gonna be so pissed I did it first.”
She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “We are talking about knocking me on my ass, right? And not….”
“No, no,” Alex said. “Not talking about that. At all. Ever.”
Lena laughed again. “Agreed.”
Should he be insulted?
18
Lena had laughed and agreed that they should never mention that kiss again. Why was it all she could think about? And why were all of the boys and men in the halls cutting her such a wide berth this morning? Usually they stared and whispered, the Wards sometimes pausing to watch as she moved past. This morning, they were avoiding her. Perhaps it had all been a dream or a joke. Not a single one of them was drawn to her, or her Dust.
Not freaking likely.
Reyes—Alex—had kissed her. The one man who had zero interest in anything other than her capacity to move their cause forward. The one man who had spent his life obsessed with and moving toward a single goal. His discipline was legendary. And somehow whatever Lena was had overcome his discipline and singular focus, and he’d kissed her.
No, he hadn’t just kissed her. He’d melted her. The heat of it hadn’t been an electric response, it had turned those little robots into molten metal burning through her flesh and veins and consuming everything she knew about feeling good. She’d been rooted to the spot. She’d been lost.
And then he’d jumped away, and his shock and dismay had been written on his face. So she’d pretended it didn’t matter. She’d laughed. And when he’d said they should never mention it again, she’d agreed. Of course she had. How could she articulate how devastating that kiss had been, least of all to Alex?
And it wasn’t just because it had been so far beyond delicious it made her chest ache, or that the devastation washed into guilt as she thought of Jackson—she hadn’t been the aggressor, but she hadn’t stopped Alex, either. Both the deliciousness and the guilt were part of it. But the devastation went deeper.
It meant she really was everything they said.
It meant she would never, ever know if anyone wanted her for her. How could she know if the feelings any Spark felt for her were true, or if they were merely a reflection of her power, her so-called gift? If Alex had been overcome, what chance did anyone else have?
Head down, she nearly walked into a young woman hurrying in the other direction. Lena lifted her head and opened her mouth to apologize. The young woman blanched, stuttered an apology, and stumbled in her haste to get away. Lena stared after her.
“I think you scared her.”
She whipped her head around.
Jackson stood just ahead, body slightly turned as if he’d stopped when he’d seen her coming and hadn’t decided yet which way he wanted to go.
“Which isn’t surprising because your face is pretty terrifying this morning.” He shifted his weight away from her.
“My face?”
He nodded. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged. No. But that wasn’t going to stop her from doing what she’d come to do, which was learn how to make the Council pay. Instead of telling him that, she asked, “How were your overnight maneuvers?”
He took a deep breath, turning his attention to the people skirting them both in the hall. It seemed he had decided not to flee her and her terrifying face, and he eased closer.
“Good,” he answered. “I had time to think.”
Her stomach twisted. He was struggling to keep his agent mask of neutrality in place. Beneath the mask she could see flashes of guilt, even anger.
“Okay?”
He raised his head. “Look, you’re upset about something. This can wait—”
“For me to start to feel better so you can upset me again? That hardly seems fair to anyone but you. If you have something to say, Agent Lee, then be a damn agent and say it.”
“I asked to be reassigned. You don’t need a companion anymore. You know your way around this place just fine. You’re learning, adapting, doing everything you’re supposed to be doing, and I’m….”
“And you’re what?”
“I’m not. I don’t want to deal with this anymore, Lena.”
“Deal? With this…?”
“The temptation.” Jackson swallowed.
She gave him the time to find the words he struggled with, though she wished he’d just get on with it.
“It isn’t fair to ask me to resist doing what I want to do.”
She smiled. She’d been wrong. The relief flowed like a wash of warm water, clearing away her doubts. “You do want to be with me.”
He stared at her. His chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath, held it, and then let it go. “No. I don’t. I want you, but I don’t want to be with you. That’s the point.”
She froze inside. She could feel her head shaking back and forth, but her heart and lungs were frozen in her chest.
“I can’t keep being dragged in by the lure of,” he gestured up and down, indicating her. No. Indicating what she was. “I need to keep my eye on the prize. I’m sorry, but you’re not it. Not for me.”
That was it, wasn’t it? The Dust, the power within her, was the lure. Not her. Not Lena. Not anything she herself had to offer. She looked past him and forced herself to focus on lifting her leaden legs, one after the other. She walked around him, down the hall.
“Lena.”
She kept going.
“Lena.” He moved around her and took her arm to stop her. “Look, the Councilor said he’d reassign me, but today I’m supposed to keep working with you.”
“I have a lesson with Thomas,” she ground out.
“It’s been cancelled. Something came up, and he’s dealing with it, whatever it is. He sent me to find you. We’re supposed to—”
“I’ll sit in his office. Alon
e.”
“Lena.” He sighed. “This is why I didn’t want to do this. You’re the one who said not to wait ‘til later.”
“I didn’t want you to wait until later. And now I don’t want to be around you. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
He grimaced and leaned in, his fingers tightening on her arm to keep her from moving past him. “I’m sorry.” His voice was tight with emotion. “You don’t know how sorry I am. I didn’t want to hurt you. Can we just pretend, just for another day—”
She leaned in, too. “No. We can’t. Now let go of my arm before I tell the Dust to melt your fucking hand off.”
Lashing out at him with the threat had been childish. That didn’t mean it wasn’t satisfying to see Jackson’s eyes widen as he realized she was serious and remembered she could do it. He let her go. She made her way to Thomas’s office to wait for the Councilor to be done with whatever issue had come up. Messengers and agents buzzed in and out of his office for the better part of an hour. She tracked them while she waited. In. Out. In. Out. It kept her from having to think about anything that had happened in the last twelve hours.
She was about to give up and return to her room to sulk in privacy when the door opened again, and Thomas stood framed in it, ushering out the last three men who’d entered. He noticed her, and his brows rose.
As the men trooped out of his office, Thomas crossed to her. “Your determination to not do as you’re told is a thing to behold.”
“I am, in fact, an expert at not doing what I’m told,” she answered, with a nod of her head.
“So I hear.”
She returned his gaze, waiting. She wasn’t sure to what he referred, of course, given her previous comment. She certainly wasn’t going to try to guess what it was he’d been hearing and from whom. She had no desire to tip him off to anything he didn’t know.
But he finally smiled, and the warmth made it all the way up to his tired eyes. “Come on, then.”
She rose and followed him back to his office. Instead of walking around to the other side of his desk, he crossed to one of the two chairs in front and collapsed into it. She took the other.
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