“What?” he blinked. “Why?”
“Can’t you tell I’m sure?” She tightened her fist in his hair, dragged him forward for another kiss, cinching her legs about his waist as she pulled away. Her lips brushed his with every word she breathed. “We could both be dead tomorrow. Tonight could be the first and last night I spend with anyone. I want it to be you. Do you need a herald to crow invitation?”
“I just don’t want to hurt you…”
She fixed him in that glowing stare, veiled beneath charcoal lashes. “But do you want me?”
“… Of course I do.”
She kissed him again, mouth open, hungry, pressing against him with all her strength. Her lips were hot, almost burning, her heat making him sweat despite the chill. His hands ran up her ribs, over her back, and he cursed the metal she was encased in, blood pounding in his temples as she pulled away again, tossed the hair back from her face, breathing hard.
“Say it.”
Her voice was almost a growl. Her movements predatory, the shadow of an arashitora flitting across her eye as her lips brushed his, pulling back again as he tried to kiss her.
“Say you want me…”
“I do.”
“Say it.”
“… I want you.”
“Then stop thinking.” Her breath hot against his ear. “Stop talking. Tomorrow is getting closer by the minute, and there are better things you could be doing with your mouth…”
He lifted her up, slid the door closed with a bang, timbers trembling in their grooves. Staggering to the bed, her legs wrapped around him, her hands tearing his uwagi loose, fumbling with the straps and buckles on her breastplate as he cursed and she laughed, bright as summer sun.
Slow, he told himself.
Move slow.
Her lips and body crushed into his, breathing her sighs into his mouth. And as gentle as he wished to be, she was having none of it, pushing him down to happily drown, then dragging him up inside soaking heat, her teeth at his throat and her nails across his back.
“Hana,” he whispered. “Oh, gods…”
He could see her smile in the dark, caught in the rose glow spilling from her lashes.
“Goddess,” she breathed.
36
BLACK SNOW
Midnight.
They’d marched through the dark, horizon echoing with the thunder in every footstep. As soon as Fox Hour had sounded, Kin had slipped from his bunk and descended to the engine room, into the rumble and clank of the gear trains, the bursts of dirty steam.
Evening was the only time he’d been able to steal away from Kensai’s side since he’d arrived—the Second Bloom forced Kin to wait on him hand and foot whenever he was awake. His pointless tours of the Earthcrusher’s innards, hours spent simply staring from the bridge. Kensai seemed to enjoy wasting Kin’s minutes, every so often leaning on his shoulder as if his wounds pained him, just to remind the boy he was there.
Like he’d always been.
A man he should have called uncle. A man as close to blood as anyone left in this world. And Kin was set to destroy him, everything he’d worked for, everything he’d been raised to believe. Turning on the ones who trusted him. Again. Playing the loyal Fifth Bloom, nodding and bowing to the brethren passing him on the stairwells, knowing tomorrow they could all be dead. That all they knew would be gone.
Was everything inside him a lie? Where did deception end and his true self begin? And what would remain when all this was over and done?
Yukiko.
He whispered her name. The only truth in a world ringing more false with every breath.
He found Shinji in the Earthcrusher’s bowels, at work on a ruptured piston. The boy asked loudly for assistance, and Kin stepped in to help, wreathed in filthy vapor.
“Is all in order?”
“Hai,” Shinji nodded. “We’ve been in touch with the Yama rebels, and they’re on their way to First House. The codes we gave them should see them past the perimeter.”
“We may have a problem tomorrow when we hit Yama.”
“Kensai?”
“He watches me like a spider. You might have to blow the cooling system alone.”
Shinji nodded. “Maseo can do that. And I can cut control between here and the bridge. We can stage a fire on level nine, near the fuel filters.”
“Good idea.”
“It’ll work out, Kin-san. Have faith.”
“Faith? What the hells is that?”
“It’s what keeps you going when everything turns to brown.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about ignorance. Or just blatant stupidity.”
“Faith. Stupidity.” A shrug. “Same thing.”
*