“Ava? I don’t know who Ava is, but I agree. This game isn’t perfect.” The second I said her name, I had a moment of déjà vu. Maybe I knew her.
At that moment, a shadow passed at the end of the bookshelf. We both flinched and glanced over just in time to catch a body do a double take. A head pop backwards to inspect us.
Cash.
His body followed his head. When he stood at the end of the row, hands on hips, I got a good snapshot of his sinful physique. His thin T-shirt stretched across his broad chest and firm biceps. It was hard not to stare at that body. Lucky for me, I could stare all day and he had no idea it was me looking like this.
Wren glanced at him with female admiration flashing in her eyes. A stab of jealousy ran through me when I realized I didn’t like her, or anyone looking at him with the same knowing appreciation.
Cash sniffed the air in my direction. His fiery eyes locked on mine and relaxed.
“There you are,” he said and let his eyes run over Wren suspiciously before coming back with a frown. “Why do you look like that?”
“You can tell it’s me too?” I threw my hands in the air. “Why do I even bother with a disguise?”
“I know your scent.” Something about his words had me weak at the knees. He’d committed my scent to memory. “But, you may as well drop it,” he continued. “We need to get back to training. I’m taking over your session. We have to do physical and strategy at the same time to catch up with everything you’ve missed over the past few years.” His mouth twitched. “Also, you’ve left Squid in a bind.”
“I don’t care about him. And, and—” Damn it. I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, gathering my decorum.
“He’s not your mentor. We’ve had the ritual. There’s no going back. You should’ve waited for me at the arena.”
“I didn’t know you were coming! In fact, I knew nothing. They weren’t doing anything to help with my training. I don’t have time to wait around for other people to fix things for me, especially when deals are being made to auction me off as a stupid breeding animal. No offense, Wren. I like animals. Especially baby joeys.”
“None taken.”
Cash’s impassive face focused on me, but he didn’t waver. “As your mentor, I’m asking you, please, revert to your original appearance and join me back on the mat for training.”
Impassively, he folded his arms, biceps bulging.
There was no use fighting when I knew he was right; I needed his help to pass the trials. The alternative was spending hours here scouring for books that might not exist. I focused inwards and reverted my physical appearance to its natural state. Fire ants erupted over my skin. I welcomed the distracting sensations. My body shivered and shook until I couldn’t stand it and dipped my head, dark hair falling across my face.
Through the frizz, I could see Cash step forward, concerned.
But I held my hand up to block him. I didn’t think he realized I could see his expression through the cascade of my hair because he let worry shine through, and you only worried about those you cared for. That little show of emotion shining through meant he had been telling the truth about wanting to stick around. I bit my lip and moved my gaze to my feet until my hair smoothed out from its frizz and dropped in length. The tingling in my body ceased, and I straightened. It felt as though I’d been sitting for a long time, and my skin felt tight and rigid, so I stretched and cracked my neck.
Wren sighed and fiddled with her pixie short hair. “I wish I could do that.”
I smiled at her. “Change your hair?”
“Yeah, I hate this blond, that’s why I cut it short.”
“You know I can help with that,” I said with a smirk.
“Roo,” Cash stated. He wasn’t giving up.
“Fine. I’m coming.” I gave the books back to Wren. “Thank you, I’ll be back for those another time. Unless I can take them with me?”
“Not really, but the depository is open twenty-four hours a day,” she said.
“Excellent. Maybe I can help you some other time with your hair.”
“I’d like that.”
I memorized the area so I could find my way back and continue my search for soul information. After the blackout I experienced last night, I couldn’t afford to ignore The Others any longer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS WE WALKED back to the training area, I stole a peek at Cash when I thought he wasn’t looking. It was impossible to ignore him. Even if his aura hid from me, his presence couldn’t. He made it hard to breathe simply by being there. Awareness itched at me, always there, begging for attention.
He was there.
Next to me.
Inches away, ready to touch.
I groaned. Going my separate way was harder than I thought, especially when every fiber of my being wanted to be near him. I missed him already.
I stopped just before the arena entrance.
“Cash,” I started, not knowing how to finish. I wanted to put into words what my body felt, and to say I was sorry, but my throat locked up. This voicing emotions business was hard. No wonder he had trouble with it. And I was the stupid woman who chastised him for it.
He mistook my hesitance. “I’m your mentor. Nothing Urser, or his lackeys, or even you say will change that. I have every right to train you. It’s in our blood. We’re linked whether you like it or not. In fact, if it comes to it, there’s a test we can do in front of everyone to prove it. I’ve called the Tribunal in. That’s why I’m late.”
He opened the door and held it for me to enter.
In my absence, the room had filled with a throng of people and most of them were around the mat I had vacated earlier. A heavy feeling rolled in my gut. Whoops. If I had wanted to go unnoticed, I did a terrible job at it.
A loud and stinging smack on my butt brought a squeak to my lips. To my mortification, the smack evolved into a grope and squeeze on my left cheek. I turned around, fist ready to punch the offender and discovered Lincoln’s friend, Drew. He dressed in full boy band get up, complete with backwards cap. His hand was having a field day on my bottom and he tried to pull me towards himself like he owned me. “Yo, biatch. Yo’ass is so fine I just wanna—” He wiggled his eyebrows and bit his lip.
“What the hell are you doing?” I slapped his hand and took a step backwards, but his paws were still on me.
His eyes widened, and we had an awkward moment of understanding the other was not doing the expected.
“Get off.” I chopped him until he dropped his hold.
His expression turned to confusion and his brows met in the middle. He tried to cover up my rejection with a condescending smirk to Cash. “What’s her problem, yo?”
“Her problem is that she will scrape a flattened Player off her shoes in a minute.” The devil shone out of Cash’s narrowed eyes.
The kid sighed in dramatic exaggeration and gave me a pointed look. “Last night you told me to come slap yo’ass when I saw you again and then you’d give me a little somethin’-somethin’, you feel me?”
“I would never say that. That’s ridiculous. And I’m not feeling anything on you, thank you very much.”
“That’s not what she said last night.” Drew snorted and slapped Cash on the chest in a macho bonding sort of way. “She gave so good I needed to lie down afterwards. I’m still weak at the knees.”
Cash looked at his chest as though burned. Then Drew’s words sunk in. “What did he say?” he asked me through a locked jaw.
“Um…” Heat rose up my neck.
Could Lincoln have been telling the truth—had I gotten up last night and joined his party? And what the hell did “gave so good” mean? I doubted I would have voluntarily moved within two feet of that childish punk.
Drew scrubbed his face with his hand and groaned. “Yo, I got not time for this—I’ll see you later, Roo-Roo.” He slinked off, hands in his pockets, shoulders slouched.
“I don’t think so, buddy.”
Cash round
ed on me as someone bumped into my shoulder to get past. The room got crowded, and we blocked the main thoroughfare into the room. He pulled me to the side and pinned me with his penetrating, dual colored stare.
“You’d rather be with him.” He lowered his accusatory voice for my ears only. “Is this your way of cutting ties with me?”
I saw red. “Are you suggesting that I had—” God, I couldn’t even say it. “That I was intimate with him?”
“Were you?”
I opened my mouth like a fish out of water, but couldn’t answer, because I didn’t know.
Did I? I asked The Others.
Silence. How convenient. They always seemed to hide when Cash was around.
Cash’s jaw ticked with the effort to keep his face impassive, but the turmoil beneath his eyes was bright as day.
“I would never…” I started, but then someone called out to us. Our attendance in the room hadn’t gone unnoticed. The people on the mat glanced in our direction, and soon the crowd parted to make way for a tall, olive skinned, silver haired young woman. She wore an Amazonian leather breastplate over a black Lycra singlet, and her pants were black Lycra with leather knee pads, thigh guards and a weapons belt wrapped around her hips. The wannabe Wonder Woman cut an imposing figure with her high cheekbones and leather bound hair. She scanned the area in front of her until her gaze landed on me, then her icy blue eyes narrowed.
“You.”
In an amateur move, I checked over my shoulder to confirm she wasn’t talking to anyone else. Then I patted my chest. “Me?”
“Yes, you idiot. What have you done to Squid?”
“He tried to stop me from leaving so I stopped him from following.”
By now she stood in front of me, face to face. Up close she wasn’t as tall as I’d thought from a distance, but imposing, all the more. She gave me a vitriolic once over.
“You’ve breached the peace terms of the Ludus.”
“Ava,” Cash interrupted. “It’s none of your business. Go back to your house mat.”
Ava? This was the same Ava who was supposed to be in this body instead of me?
She turned her fiery gaze on Cash. “It is my business, and well you know it.”
I left her and Cash to the politics and sidestepped to see to the mess I’d made. Jeez. If I had known it would cause so many problems, I would’ve thought twice about—no. No, I lied. I still would have done it. Squid was a pain in the butt. My father was also a pain in the butt. Deciding to stay with them was becoming more tiresome with time.
Think of the people on the list.
Wren. Lincoln. Cash. And they were only the names I’d recognized. No. I had to swallow my pride and stay so I could look for more evidence.
I sidestepped Ava and nudged my way through the mob to where Squid slouched against the wall at the edge of the training mat. Lack of oxygen had turned his skin the color of an old prune. He gasped every few seconds and squeezed a little air into his lungs. I had incorrectly assumed the airlock I placed around him would dissolve once my energy holding it left the room, but the air density was still strong. How was I going to undo that?
Squid noticed me and gave me daggers.
“Uh… sorry. I didn’t think that would hold.”
“Didn’t think that would hold?” Ava approached behind me. “What kind of second rate Player are you?”
“One who didn’t even know she was one until a few months ago,” I shot back.
She sneered. “For someone who doesn’t know much, you sure know how to ruin a lot of lives.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Squid made a movement that brought my attention back to him. Right. I should find out how to soften the airlock. I prodded with my power until I found a weak spot. My energy fused with the hard air and poured into the weak spot. I shattered the block to the wind. Everyone standing within a few feet felt air rush their faces.
A shrill whistle sounded in the arena that captured everyone’s attention. It was everywhere at once and echoed in the round room. People scattered to various positions, seemingly in their house groups, standing to attention. I was left on the mat with Squid, Cash and Lincoln. Ava lingered nearby, not quite ready to commit to one spot.
My eyes darted across the room, trying to find a reason for sudden military-like behavior.
“Tribunal, finally,” Cash said from the corner of his mouth. “Stand next to me.”
I shuffled to his side and stood waiting for something to happen.
Two minutes later, the double door entrance opened, and a goddess with baby pink hair walked in. She dressed in a white sheath that displayed her assets, including incredible long legs. Her smooth, alabaster skin shone like she held the moon in her bones and her face was worthy of the cover of a magazine. It was the woman from the office scene in the fake window. Guess they weren’t fake windows, then.
Behind her came Felix wearing round spectacles, and a second woman who had olive skin, short dark hair and almond eyes that angled upward. She looked familiar.
Each of them had a silver oroboros emblem embroidered on their white attire.
The pink-haired woman noted Squid on his knees and lifted a neat eyebrow. She walked over. Her clicking heels suddenly muffled when she made it to the rubber mat.
“Why are you not showing respect, Player?” Her British accent was crisp and cultured, unlike Marc’s occasional cockney one. “My plane landed two hours ago. I’ve no patience for this.”
Squid pulled himself up. “I apologize for my tardiness.”
“She attacked him,” accused Ava as she pointed a finger at me. “She breached the terms of the Ludus and nearly killed him.”
The pink woman trailed her vision from Ava to Squid to me. Then she discovered Cash next to me and lingered.
“Hunter,” she stated, eyes sparkling with familiarity.
He gave her a curt nod in return. “Jacine.” Then after an obvious hesitation, he nodded at her companions. “Felix. Octavia.”
They offered him a small nod.
What was that about?
“Is this true?” Jacine asked Cash. “Was he attacked maliciously?”
“Perhaps you should ask him.”
“I didn’t ask the man, I asked you.”
Cash swallowed. “No, it wasn’t malicious, it was self-defense.”
“Bullshit. Watch the tapes.” Ava stormed over to us, pointing her finger. “She’s a freaking Soul-Eater. She can’t be trusted.”
“Language, Player.” Jacine and her two companions lifted their brows at Ava. She slowed her approach, but didn’t stop.
Jacine faced me. “What is your name?”
“Roo—sorry, La Roux Urser, ma’am.”
“Dove, there is no need to call me ma’am. I’m anything but.”
“Sorry.”
“So, you are the infamous Urser girl who flew under the radar for all these years. Well, what do you have to say for yourself, hm? Did you attack this Player?”
“He was trying to keep me from leaving the room, and he had no right.”
“Shit,” Cash mumbled under his breath.
Jacine sighed. “Very well. By your own admission, you have breached the terms of the Ludus and will be sent to confinement until we can gather all the evidence and resolve this further. Where is your mentor?”
I paled. “What do you mean, confinement?”
“Where is your mentor?” the almond eyed woman repeated.
“I’m her mentor,” Cash said. “And this is unnecessary.”
All three of the Tribunal studied Cash.
“But you’re a Player,” said Felix.
“Yes, I’m aware of that and have been trying to prove it. I am independent, undeclared and I’m the one who sent for you all to witness the proof of our ritual.”
“A rogue ordering the Tribunal around.” He clicked his tongue like a disappointed teacher. “Risky.”
“Not in my book. Look, we’ve done the ritual, it can
be proven, just let us do it and we can all go on with our day.”
“We are not discussing that right now. She has been accused of breaking the accords. It must be addressed first.”
“Bullshit. I was attacked on site only a day ago by a Watcher and nothing was done about that.”
“Yeah, and somebody tried to kill me in my room—with a bomb!” I added.
Cash’s head whipped my way, his eyes large. “What?”
“I’ll explain later,” I mumbled under my breath, then raised my voice. “It’s true, he was attacked at the registrar’s office and Bruce’s men subdued him at the entrance so he could drag me into the Ludus by my hair.”
Take that bastard!
On the surface, the Tribunal had patience made of steel, but underneath, I felt their auras bubbling in turmoil.
Jacine’s perfect face froze. She blinked, then two fingers on each hand lifted to rub her temples. When she was done, she sighed and looked at Cash. “You were attacked by a Watcher?”
“Urser didn’t touch you,” Squid shot at Cash. “I did. And it was at the administration. Technically, that’s not official Ludus grounds and the peace accords are not valid.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You were under Urser’s orders.” Cash stepped toward the large soulless man, now straightening himself. “How is it not on official Ludus grounds, it’s in the fucking complex.”
“Language,” Jacine warned.
“Correction. It’s at the front of the complex,” Squid said.
“Enough!” Jacine chopped a manicured hand through the air. “We’re discussing the infraction at hand. We’ll have the surveillance tapes monitored, however, if it is as this Player says, and the infraction occurred at the registrar’s office, then there is nothing we can do.” Jacine’s eyes bored into Cash with so much attention that I felt there was something beneath her stare, something more. She glanced at her companions from the Tribunal and then back to Squid. “Are you wanting to lodge a formal complaint against this woman’s vicious intentions toward you?”
Playing God Page 8