Kyon stands, bringing me with him. I’m shivering so hard that it vibrates through me in racking quakes. The heat of his skin beneath my cheek almost burns as I lie against his neck. My core temperature is deathly low.
He hurries toward the house. It rises before us, a giant ghost ship. Its pale frame of bone-colored concrete and wood looks like sails of white in the light of the blue and silver moons. Night birds fly overhead, silently stalking prey. Kyon takes me straightaway to the patio and over it. We pass by the gaping maw of the bedroom entryway. Soft, white curtains wave at us in surrender.
Rounding the bend of the wraparound terrace, Kyon takes me to a large outdoor enclosure. Three of the walls are weathered—made of wood with small cracks between the slats. The fourth wall is an enormous fireplace made from the smooth, gray breaker rocks that surround the shoreline. Without a roof, the glow of stars shines on us. I can make out the sea between the gaps in the wide-plank boards.
Kyon walks to a raised black control panel and passes his hand over the surface. It triggers the fireplace—flames leap to life in the hearth. At the same time, small white tapers ignite from low wicks around the enclosure. The soft light doesn’t diminish the shine of the stars and moons above us.
We move near the wooden slats of the wall that faces the sea. He makes a gesture with his arm reminiscent of a conductor signaling to his musicians to prepare to play. Five black orbs uncoil from the floor. Startled, I gasp as they spring up like snakes from a charmer’s basket, hissing and arching above our heads. Water pumps through long tail hoses attached to their diamond-shaped heads as they surround us.
Flinching away from the scalding heat, I wrap my arms around Kyon’s nape and turn my trembling lips against his neck trying to find shelter from the hot water. The inky, round circles that mark his throat stare back at me. Kyon holds me tighter, murmuring unintelligible words to me in a low voice. Steam rises around us, and for several moments, neither of us moves. The only sound from me is the chattering of my teeth.
Slowly, I warm and relax against Kyon. Water slithers over me in a pelting rhythm.
“Why did you come back?” Kyon asks. His lips are near mine. “When you sent yourself into the future, I waited, but then your heart stopped and I knew—you weren’t coming back. I tried to keep you alive anyway, but I didn’t really think you’d return.” His tone is thoughtful. “I know how stubborn you are.”
My eyes drift to his. He’s watching my mouth. The water tastes of a thousand tears on my lips when I speak. “The better question is: Why would you work so hard to bring me back? I’ll kill you before I let you control me. You should’ve just let me go.”
He laughs low. “You’ve already tried to kill me. It didn’t work.”
“So why bring me back?”
“I look at you and I see the loneliest girl in the world.”
My chin ticks up. “I have a stone heart, Kyon. Nothing touches it.” It’s a lie that I need to make true again.
He watches me for a moment. I somehow feel like he knows all there is to know about me. “Maybe it’s your tragic innocence that made me keep you alive. Maybe I want to see it die screaming my name.” He leans his lips closer to mine. My hand grasps his wet hair. I tug on it with enough pressure to get his attention. His eyes shift from my mouth to my eyes.
“You have to earn me.”
Water streams over the sharp angle of his cheek to drip from his chin onto me. His black tattoos rope around his corded muscles and run down his neck. The thick lines bunch, forming a coiling sidewinder at my words. He lets go of my legs, allowing me to slide over his tattoo where it winds down his abdomen until my toes touch the hard stone floor.
“I don’t have to earn you, Kricket. You’re already mine.” He waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. The hovering shower heads turn off and descend to resting positions on the ground. He leaves me where I am for a moment as he walks to a recessed alcove. Pulling a sheetlike towel from a pile of them, he strips off his wet clothes. I turn away, blushing. My fingertips grip the rough, wooden slat that separates me from the sea beyond. I peer through the gap. How do I escape from here?
Kyon moves behind me; he’s so quiet that I don’t know he’s there until I feel him grasp the edge of my sopping nightgown. I shy away from him, bumping into the splintered wood. “What are you doing?” I gasp.
He has a dry towel draped over his arm. The other towel is wrapped low on his hips. “I’m taking care of you,” he replies, holding fast to my hem.
I try to swat his hand from it. “I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“It’s my duty,” he replies, not letting go.
“I absolve you of it,” I say through my teeth.
“It’s my right.”
I struggle to get away, but as I turn my back to him, he presses his hand flat against my shoulder, holding me against the wooden slats while he lifts my nightgown. He moves his hand to pull it over my head. I shiver again in the cool breeze as my back rounds away from his touch. Kyon’s fingers skim down my back—a caress. I don’t look at him. I can’t.
He wraps the length of thin fabric around me, covering my bare skin. Tucking the end into the top, his hand reaches for mine. I pull my fingers back, but he latches on and holds them fast until I look up at him. His expression is stoic. He waits for me to figure out that he’s not going to let my hand go. I relent. He turns and takes me back toward his house.
We enter the bedroom through the wide opening in the wall. He leads me directly to the large bed. The bed is still unmade from where I’d climbed from it earlier. He straightens the sheets and holds them back with a gesture for me to get in. When I don’t immediately comply he says, “Do you want me to make you get in?”
I sigh and climb into the bed wordlessly. Lying on my side I pull the blanket up to my chin while I turn and face away from him. Moving around the other side of the bed, Kyon gets in too. I immediately turn away from him again and move to the edge of the bed. His arms wrap around me. He pulls me to him and tucks me close to his body. My muscles go rigid. Kyon kisses my hair and snuggles tight against me. I begin to struggle and try to pull away from him.
“Don’t move.”
“I don’t want you to touch me.”
“I don’t care what you want. This is what I want. You need to know that I’m the only person to whom you can turn.”
“I don’t need you.”
“You will.”
Realizing that struggling only makes him hold me tighter, I relax and try to pretend his body isn’t molded against mine. I can’t reason with him. At the moment, the only thing he’s capable of grasping is me. The warmth radiating from him is not unpleasant though. The stress and the struggle to survive are catching up to me. My eyes grow heavy—I fight to keep them open.
Kyon says, “Sleep.” It’s as if he reads my mind.
“I can’t. Who’ll protect me from you if I do?” I murmur wearily.
“No one.”
I struggle to stay awake, but it has been such a brutal night that I eventually drift off to sleep in the arms of my enemy.
CHAPTER 3
HOLLOW WELL
My cheek presses against bare skin. I shift to see the broad expanse of his chest. Moving my fingertips, I notice they’re resting against a sliver of a silver scar. I trace it, not knowing what it is right away. When did Trey get this? I gasp. My fingers curl on his flesh and I quickly look up. “Kyon!”
His deep voice murmurs, “I like to hear you wake with my name on your lips.” With his shoulders resting against plump, white pillows, Kyon’s blue eyes hood as he continues to stare at me. He moves his hand along my hair, stroking me like a favorite pet. “You slept,” he adds, as if letting me in on a secret. It all comes rushing back to me in a flood. My head jerks off of him as I cover my face with my hands and sit up. “How do you feel?”
I can’t tell if his concern is genuine. I peek at him through my fingers, shooting him a sidelong scowl. “My chest hurts like
someone tried to drown me.”
“It’s still bruised. I compressed your heart after it stopped beating last night.” Stone-faced, he watches my reaction. “I’ll cut your hair now so that you’ll heal more quickly.” He gathers some of my hair away from my face. I blanch. It still troubles me that I’m genetically engineered to regenerate cells when my hair is cut. It makes me feel like I’m somehow less than real, and being in Ethar is already enough of a dose of unreality.
Dropping my hands, I sweep my hair away from him. “No. Don’t. I’m fine.” I don’t want you touching me, chester, I think, using the Etharian term for “pervert.”
“You’ll feel better instantly when I cut it. Your bruises will disappear.” He reaches for me again and I shy away.
My arm rises defensively. “I don’t want to feel better.” He reaches under the pillow behind him and extracts a wicked-looking knife with an ivory handle. My eyes widen and I stiffen as my breath catches in my throat. “What are you doing? Why do you have a knife under your pillow?” I’m proud of the way my voice doesn’t quiver, even when my blood is roaring through my veins.
Kyon holds the handle of the knife while he lazily fondles the steely blade with his finger. “Tell me, when you were remanded to that institution on Earth, after you ran away from your foster home, did you ever feel the need to hide a weapon near you while you slept?”
My heart pounds in my chest, as I think about the time I spent in a juvenile facility in Chicago. The streets had been safer than that place. “Yes,” I answer honestly.
His eyes pierce mine as they shift from the knife to me. “Why?”
I’m held by his intense stare, unable to look away. “Because I had enemies.”
“You still do,” he replies.
Reaching forward, his huge hand grasps a fistful of my hair. Angling the sharp blade of the knife, Kyon slices off my hair near the nape of my neck. The severed hair in his fist turns black and shrivels up until it’s no more than dust in his palm. Billowing shafts of new hairs rapidly regrow from my scalp. Pale blond, it falls over my shoulders in waves, resuming its former length. Kyon weaves his fingers in it, feeling its corn-silk softness against his skin. The oppressive ache and tightness in my chest eases, allowing me to take the first full breath I’ve had since last night. He plays with my hair for a moment, completely mesmerized by it. “Who are you afraid of?” I ask.
His stare turns cold. His hand tightens uncomfortably in my hair, but I don’t flinch. “No one,” he replies. “They’re afraid of me.” I wonder for the first time what he has gone through in his life to make him so ruthless and unbending.
“Who’s afraid of you?” I can imagine, looking at the psychopathic killer next to me, that there aren’t many people who aren’t afraid of Kyon.
“Anyone who’s smart enough to see us as a threat.” The truthful resonance of his voice is as frightening as his words.
I want to shudder, but I don’t give into it. “I need a weapon.”
He doesn’t hesitate. Opening his palm, he holds out the wicked knife for me to take. I pause, not sure if his offer is a trap. He waits patiently for me to come to a decision. Cautiously, I reach out, touching the ivory handle. As fast as the snap of a snake’s bite, Kyon’s hand closes over mine so that we each hold the knife with the blade pointed toward the mattress. “Use this on me, Kricket, and I’ll make you regret it.”
Refusing to retreat, I reply, “You haven’t made me regret stabbing you the first time.”
A slow smile develops on his lips. It spreads over his face. His eyes crinkle with humor. “That’s because you only served to convince me that you’re perfect for me. My little savage—the darkest star.”
He’s a psychopath. “Who’s coming after us, Kyon?”
He’s stony once more. He lets go of the knife, relinquishing it to me. It’s heavy in my hand. “No one I can’t handle. Are you hungry?”
I exhale deeply. I shove the knife under my pillow, hiding it from view once more. “Yes.”
Light dances off his face from the open doorway that leads to the sea. He’s a golden god—one at home in his surroundings. “What do you like?” he asks.
“Anything that won’t make me sick.”
His leans toward me, his nose nearing mine. With his eyebrows crashing together, he asks, “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean don’t make me sick.”
His frown deepens. “You think I’d poison you?”
I shrug. “You just tried to drown me last night.”
He points his finger in my face. “You’d be dead if I truly wanted to drown you. I was establishing who is in charge here. It’s not you.”
I shiver, but don’t look away. “Is that what we were establishing? That’s not what I got from it.”
His eyebrow rises in question. “What did you glean from the encounter?”
“It’s a good year for hunters.”
His eyes sharpen, becoming a deeper blue. “Remember that. I’ll find you, no matter where you go.” His fingers touch my cheek, brushing my hair away from it.
I lean away from his hand. “Why do you always threaten me?”
“That was a promise.”
“It was a threat.”
“You belong to me. I won’t let you go—not ever.” Something in his eyes changes, making his face attractive in its austerity. He’s in control, and he knows it. He needs me to know it too.
“Maybe if you asked me to stay and if you were nice, I’d want to be here.”
His pupils sharpen, as if what I’ve said makes me more interesting prey. Gripping my chin, he makes it so I can’t look away. “I’m never nice.”
“You could try.” I know what I’m suggesting is ludicrous.
“You crave strength.”
“I crave pancakes.” Lifting my chin, I pull it from his hand. “With syrup.”
“Then you shall have them,” he purrs.
“Are you going to make them for me?” In truth, I can’t picture him in a kitchen cooking—not that I can picture any Etharians cooking, since they rely on automation to do most of their domestic tasks. I’ve yet to see another living soul around here. It worries me.
“I don’t know what pancakes are. It sounds as if you’d like to eat metal.” His look is discerning. He’s trying to figure me out. “This isn’t Rafe—there’s technology that will sort it all out for us.” He speaks in a louder tone, “Oscil?”
A holographic screen materializes in front of us. It’s the size of one of the flat-screen televisions that used to hang behind the bar in Lumin, the nightclub where I worked in Chicago. “Requirement?” the sexy fem-bot voice asks.
“I require pancakes.”
Hundreds of different types of pancake recipes stream in front of us. I lean nearer to Kyon to scan the colorful pictures, my brow wrinkling at the selection. “These?” he asks, pointing to something that looks like crepes.
“No,” I murmur in concentration. “These.” I point to a picture of a stack dripping with syrup. “Buttermilk.”
Kyon takes my hand in his large one, and stretching my finger toward the picture of the pancakes I want, the image ripples like I touched water. The image fades, and then disappears. Items that pair with pancakes appear in its place: syrup, fruit, juice, whipped cream. Kyon selects all of them for me, sending the pictures rippling away.
My stomach growls loudly. “How long until they’re ready?” I ask.
“It will be here shortly. You can ask Oscil for anything you require. Just say its name and it will assist you, but only when you’re in or near the residence or onboard one of my airships. It doesn’t have the ability to respond to requests beyond a certain proximity to a receiver.”
“What is Oscil?”
“It’s a prototype intelligence technology that I developed and use throughout my estates. It only responds to a few select voices. Yours is one of them.”
“What does it do?”
“It controls all the automation and se
nsors throughout my residences. It is also meant to be a personal assistant.”
“Where is it? How does it work?”
“You remember being on my satellite?’
I think for a moment, recalling seeing Kyon in his medical stasis capsule onboard an elaborate space station. “That place is yours?”
“Yes. I designed it. I own it.”
“Technically, I was never there, not physically anyway—and it looked more like a space station to me.” I had projected there from the past in order to spy on Kyon. I don’t know how smart it is of me to admit that to him, but he seems not to be too worried about it now. He’d known I was there at the time.
“Oscil is primarily housed on the satellite, near the moon of Inium, but I have backup facilities in several locations throughout Ethar. They can all run simultaneously or autonomously.”
I don’t pretend to know how this all works, but the fact that he does makes me shiver at his extreme intelligence. The chill causes me to look down at myself. I have only a sheet wrapped around me. It has slipped low, but it isn’t indecent. “Do you have something that I can wear?” I ask.
Kyon is busy making a selection from the menu in front of him. When he finishes, he waves his hand in a dismissive gesture and the hologram evaporates into the air. His eyes skim over me slowly, lingering on my breasts in a way that makes me pull the sheet closer. “You don’t have to wear anything. We’re alone here.”
I don’t know what’s more frightening: the fact that we’re alone here or the fact that he might make me walk around naked. “I’m not really a clothing-optional kind of girl.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Do you have clothes for me or not?” I ask with forced calm.
“I do. Everything you need is in your dressing room.” He looks past me to the set of white doors on the far wall opposite the ocean. I slide over to that side of the mattress. When my feet touch the floor, I hold the sheet to me and walk in that direction. I’m halted by a firm tug on the tail of my sheet. Looking over my shoulder, I glare at Kyon, seeing him wrap the end of my sheet around his hand.
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