"Not going to poison me, are you?" She smirks when he plonks a cup of steaming chai in front of her.
Then she takes a sip and her eyes all but roll back with delight.
"Oh!" She inhales, taking another gulp.
"Good?" he asks, relishing her enjoyment.
Then, grins when she tilts the mug to her lips and drains it without bothering to reply.
A drop escapes her lips. It trails over her chin to pools at the base of her throat.
He wants to lick her skin right there and find out if it tastes as sweet as it looks. Warm, dark, like wildflowers on a moonlit night. Feeling himself harden, he swears to himself, then plops a sandwich in front of her.
She tucks in and is done before he’s even started on his. Silently he slips his own sandwich onto her plate before picking up his own mug of chai.
"That was good," she sighs, leaning back.
He tilts his head and studies her. "When was the last time you ate?" he asks.
"Does it matter?" She cuts the air with her palm.
No, it didn’t. Didn’t matter that she had been helpless, and unprotected at the Jungle.
It was inevitable she be sent back there.
For now, she was here, with him, safe at least for a few days.
"What made you leave your own country and face such a dangerous journey to get here?" he asks, then regrets it instantly. It had to be something extreme that made her leave. And yet he wants to know, wants to understand where she comes from.
He wants to know everything about her, and this curiosity confuses him afresh. Before he can probe that further she says, "No one leaves their own country by choice."
She hesitates, tries to speak, stops. Reaching for her now-empty mug she grips it with both palms as if for support.
But he has to push her. Has to ask, "So why did you leave?"
Not meeting his eyes, she instead fixes them on the opposite wall. "My father was one of the people who dared stand up against the government. He was a writer. A dreamer," she says.
Like him.
And already he doesn’t want to know where her story is headed.
Those who dream see things they can’t quite explain even to themselves. Those who dream pay a price.
And he’s right, for she continues, "They came in the middle of the night, dragged him, shot him in the head. Then, they came for us." She stops, bites her lips. Her voice monotonous, as if reading from a script. She’s seen these images in her head many times. And he’s just asked her to relive them again.
Oblivious of his turmoil, she continues, "My mother had managed to hide Lily in the wardrobe, behind a false wall. The most obvious place to hide someone, of course, but it worked."
She laughs. A broken sound that skitters across his nerve endings. He knows then that the worst is yet to come, and wonders why he even asked the question when he’s not ready to hear her answer. He would have preferred to imagine her among flowers in a garden or walking through lush green woods. But life isn’t pretty. That he knows that already.
"They came for me. One of the soldiers saw me, grabbed me," her hand traces the space on the nape of her neck and Jai feels the heavy hand that must have gripped here there. Hurt her. He winces, feeling the shudder of disbelief that runs through her at what she’d been through.
"I knew what he wanted, could see the lust in his eyes." She continues, her voice flat, dead. "That’s when my mother offered herself in my place."
He wants to reach out and take her hand but knows better than to disturb her now. Let her get it out. Everything that she’s been holding inside over the past few months, through this insane journey of hers, let her push the poison that’s been festering inside. So he doesn’t say a word, just lets her speak.
"They raped her. And made me watch. Then they killed her. And came for me…but. They were called away." She sighs, a light whistle of air.
"I knew they would be back." She gulps, her voice wavering. "And as soon as they left, I took Lily, packed what I could take with me and ran."
She’s still running.
She’d run to him.
Her shoulders shake and she grips the cup even tighter, her fingers clutched around the mug.
This time he reaches out, runs his finger over her knuckles, which are turning white with strain. Just a touch. And she shudders. The surprise, the pain, the slight arousal in her, it’s instantly in his blood. As if it’s been absorbed into his skin. Just like that.
He pulls back, a little shocked at just how aware of her he is.
She’s told him about the most traumatic experience in her life, and he wants to gather her to him. The need to comfort, to give, so strong that he springs to his feet, taking his cup to the sink.
"Get some rest," he suggests, his voice quiet, a hint of anger, thinly veiled, running through it.
He’s angry for what she’s gone through. At his not being able to help her more. At the world for what it has become.
Sensing her shudder of relief at the change of subject he turns to see her walk to the window and peer out.
She stays there for a beat. A pause. Her back to him as if to stem her churning emotions. When she turns around, her face is calmer, if still pale.
"I will," she says. "On, one condition."
"What?" he asks, his voice cautious.
"I get to see a little of the city, even if it means I have to be in disguise, or stay hidden. I haven’t come this far to leave without even finding out what this version of 'Utopia' looks like." Her voice is half-sarcastic, half-serious.
She really does want to see more of the city. She's curious. Does she think this place is as special as people make it out to be? An island of ease in the ocean of uncertainty the world has become?
Perhaps it isn’t a bad idea to take her out, show her the place. So she can see for herself how wrong her perception is. Order is not all it's cut out to be. Sometimes you need chaos to create, to feel alive.
He nods, then jerks his head to the door, just wanting to get her out of the room. Needing time to figure out why he is feeling so unsettled.
When she leaves, he slumps into his chair. Takes a sip of the chai gone cold.
It’s disconcerting how much he’s begun feeling for her in just a few hours. It’s as if she’s walked into his life and filled a gap. One which he never knew even existed. A gap left by his mother’s death. Her energy, her very female presence, has softened the jarring edge his life had taken on since. Something he realizes only now.
Jai hopes he can hold onto this lightness in his soul, the one she brings, for a few days more.
Chapter Nine
A day later
I awake with my adrenaline pumping so strong that my heartbeat roars in my ears like white noise. A dream, that’s what it was.
I’d dreamt I was back at the Jungle. That I’d been kidnapped and taken to the shifters' den, into the heart of the pack. One of them had approached me. He was in his human form, and yet I had never seen anything more animal-like.
Perhaps I even prefer the animal form of the shifters, for at least that’s more honest; then they show their lust and greed to the world. Don’t hide it.
A shudder runs down my spine.
No, that’s not true either. They frighten me, these shifters. Both animal and human; yet neither. Their lines marring, confusing. Almost as confusing as the man in the next room, who can’t decide what to do with me.
And I don’t want to acknowledge the effect he has on me either. That confused stirring which I don’t want to show the world. I don’t want him to see how he affects me. How he tugs on me, pulls on that hunger deep inside me.
Perhaps there isn’t much difference between us. Between me, and the shifters.
A trickle of sweat runs down my back and I pull the borrowed T-shirt away from me. I try to cool my skin. It’s so hot in this city. Always hot. The windows are open, and so is the balcony door. But there’s no breeze. Nothing.
I sit up and hea
t splashes over me, clogging my pores, sapping every last drop of moisture from me. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Water. I need water.
I jump up and walk towards to the kitchen when I hear low voices coming from the bedroom. Who is he talking to? Before I can stop myself, I’m standing with my ears pressed to the bedroom door. It’s Jai and…another man.
"It’s the only way out, Jai…Stop being so stubborn. It might be the answer to all our problems." The other man says, his voice serious.
What problems could they have in this, the "most welcoming city on Earth?"
"You know I’m not going to do it, Gilbert." Jai’s voice is insistent. He sounds fed up. As if they have argued about this a few times.
The rustling of paper. They are looking at something. Planning something. But what? A new strike against the shifters? Or, perhaps, how to move the refugees away?
Then the sound of them moving around and Gilbert’s voice raised in anger, "We need to understand how to harness the power of the sword. If the shifters are so fast that even our guns cannot stop them then it’s the only hope we have."
"I will not use the sword." Jai’s voice is quiet, with a hint of the steel I’m coming to expect from him. He’s tough, this man. Intense. Immovable, once he decides on something.
A hard man.
A sexy man.
The thought comes to me unbidden and I push it away, half-swearing to myself. My sister’s life is at stake and all I want to do is sleep with this guy.
Just thinking about it sparks off a slow burn of desire at the base of my belly and my throat goes dry.
Then the other man speaks again and I push the thought aside.
"You need to understand the power of the sword. Work with it. Learn to use it," he says. "When the next tetrad comes around in 2042 – and that’s just three years from now – you need to be ready to control the forces the sword can unleash."
Tetrad – a sequence of four eclipses occurring very close to each other. The last time it had happened was in 2014. Right at the time the tsunamis had been triggered. And now there’s another tetrad coming around? And what does this sword have to do with it?
I press my ear closer to the door, straining to hear more.
Jai snaps, "I will not be forced to use the power unlocked by the sword." The sting in his voice makes me jump.
"If you don’t, then who?" The other man asks, his voice firm. "You, the only surviving descendant of Catherine of Braganza," he adds. "Her blood runs through your veins. Deny it as much as you want but it gives you the ability to invoke the power of the sword at the time of the tetrad. The only other person who could have helped us with this is gone. You are our only hope, Jai."
"Enough!" Jai’s voice thunders through the locked door.
It has me taking a step back without even realizing it.
Tetrad. Sword. Power. And who is this other person who could have used the sword? The questions whirl around in my head.
In contrast there’s silence on the other side of the door. No voices. Nothing. As if the two are locked in a battle of wills.
Jai does have a temper but how well he keeps it hidden. I’d thought him to be easygoing, even relaxed, sometimes dreamy…and perhaps he still is all of that. But scratch the surface and there’s fire and steel. I don’t want to get on his bad side. No, I definitely don’t want to be at the receiving end of that whiplash of temper.
Then, I hear something crash as if Jai’s thrown something at the other man. Or the other way around. Sounds of a struggle and then low male laughter.
They are play-fighting. Like wolf cubs.
Jai’s voice rumbles out something but I can’t make out the words. Dropping down, I place my ear against the door.
My knees are cushioned by the plush carpet. A carpet?
I’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel something other than mud and stones under my feet, to be surrounded by something other than dust and the desperation of people who want to be anywhere else but there.
Who want to be here, in this city.
And now I am here and hoping I’ll never have to go back, and already I’m feeling guilty.
Guilty that I’m only thinking about myself. What about the refugees who’ve risked lives and lost family to get here? And those I’ve left back home, promising to find a way out of their daily misery? Left them with the hope of a new world and freedom.
And I’d believed that too, had hoped for a place where things would be different. But, now? Now I am not so sure.
Desperation chokes me. These guys on the other side of the door have power. They can influence the mayor. Jai can help the refugees. I must get him to help us.
This is not why I’ve come here but now that I’m in his house, under his roof, I have to at least try. Hearing the sound of footsteps coming towards the door I leap back towards the couch.
Chapter Ten
When Jai walks into the living room, Aria's still asleep. The covers are flung half on half off. Her T-shirt shows damp splotches as if she’s been sweating, running away from nightmares. The electricity had gone off at night as it usually does, for even in this, the "world’s most liveable city’, electricity must be conserved to be used in life-threatening situations. Or for war.
Aria stirs, restless, and then, just like that, as if aware of his gaze, she’s awake and staring at Jai.
Their eyes collide and he can’t look away. The breath leaves him and he takes a step forward, moving towards her, when a touch on his shoulder reminds him that Gilbert is still in the room.
"We’re not done yet, Jai," Gilbert warns. Throwing a last warning look he turns to Ariana and says, "If it isn’t the hybrid killer in the flesh." His voice is not unkind. Not welcoming either.
"Who are you?" she asks, voice still husky from sleep.
It makes Jai want to tell Gilbert to leave immediately. As if his just being here and seeing her all soft from sleep is an intrusion he cannot tolerate.
As if he can’t bear for anyone else to see her like this.
As if he wants to keep these little moments just to himself.
He wants her.
"Gilbert," he introduces himself, "I’m Jai’s right hand in combat."
Neither moves to shake hands or greet each other further. They don’t know what to make of each other yet.
Then Aria surprises both of them. "And do you write poetry too?" she asks.
He chuckles and just like that the tension in the room dissolves.
"Afraid not," he says. "I leave the more creative pursuits to the sensitive souls." He nods to Jai. "The only soldier-poet you’ll find here is him."
Aria’s eyes swivel to his, the blue in them so pale they glitter silver in the morning light. She looks straight through him as if she knows all his secrets. As if she’s stripped him bare. A twist of desire unfurls inside and he wants to go to her. He wants to pull her up and let her brush against his hardness. He wants to lean into her and touch his lips to the base of her neck. Find out if it tastes as soft as it looks. He wants to—
She yawns and stretches, golden brown limbs slicing through the air, glowing in the rays of the rising sun. The cover falls off her shoulders to reveal a thin vest that stretches over her breasts, outlining her nipples. Before she can get up from the couch, walking up to her, Jai picks up the sweatshirt flung on the floor.
As he bends over to give it to her, he’s very aware of her nearness, the way the vest molds to her curves. He hears the breath whistle through her lips. Close enough to see her pupils dilate. They grow even lighter, as if there’s a storm churning inside. And this thing between them, the connection he’s felt since he’d first looked into her eyes, intensifies, shimmers between them. It presses in on him, heating his skin. He can smell that just-awakened, warm, vanilla and coffee of her skin. And he just wants to push her back and cover her skin with his. Absorb that essence of her calling out to him.
Pulling at him.
Desire springs in his groin…and
intensifies when his hand brushes hers as she takes the sweatshirt from him. A shiver runs through him, slamming against the already coiled heat in his groin.
In that second he forgets where he is, who he is, that there’s someone else in the room with them. Forgets even that she will be gone in a few days. And then he knows that something inside had recognized her that first instant, out there when she’d held up the bloodied sword and cried out in exultation. Right then he’d felt the life force that ran through her and known it was his. That she was his.
His gut has known since then, but only now is it sinking in.
And he’s not ready to accept this. Accept her. What he’s feeling for her.
What are his feelings for her?
He’s not sure.
The thoughts whirl around in his head and Jai jerks upright, letting go of Aria so quickly she's thrown off balance.
All through this drama Gilbert’s been watching them. Now he turns to Jai, a look in his eyes that says he’s noticed how Jai feels about her.
Jai shakes his head. Just a short move that only Gilbert notices. He gets the message.
"I should get going, running late to meet the General," Gilbert says, his eyes darting to Ariana meaningfully, at which Jai nods. The last thing he wants is for anyone else to know about Aria being here with him. But he can trust Gilbert with this secret.
"Get ready, we’re heading out," he tells her. His tone indicates that he’s not ready to explain what the earlier conversation with Gilbert was about.
"Out?" She frowns.
"You wanted to see the city didn’t you? Well, this is your chance."
The wrinkles on her brow straighten out. When her eyes widen, the indigo in them deepening to an impossibly dark blue, Jai knows then that her mind has kicked into gear, thinking forward.
"And what if someone finds out I’m illegal?" she asks.
"They won’t," he says, his voice confident. He nods at Gilbert, who steps forward. A flat, palm-sized machine of some kind in his hand.
Stopping in front of her, he holds it up in front of her right eye. "May I?" One side of his lips lifts in a half-smile.
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