“All right, today, I want to try something new,” Kellee was saying as he walked away, bare feet padding across the mats. He raised his hands and pulled his hair back into a stubby ponytail. While he sauntered away, thinking I was still warming up, I figured it would take three long strides to reach him, and if I launched my attack from the right, I might have time to get the whip in before he could fully turn. He always turned to his right. I knew he was fast. Too damn fast to beat in a straight fight. I had to cheat.
He was still talking when I sprang off my back foot, swung the whip, and veered in from the right. He twisted, right shoulder first, exactly like I knew he would, giving me a few extra microseconds. The whip sailed overhead. Kellee saw and twisted into a crouch, but he kept on going, dropping into a roll I hadn’t expected. The marshal was too low. I tried to adjust, to skip away, but he caught my ankle. I was going down, but I could salvage it. Dropping my shoulder, I fell into the unfolding disaster, corrected the flailing whip, and lashed out. I hit the mats on my back with an oomph.
The whip cracked. Kellee hissed.
His knee came down, pinning my wrist and whip to the floor.
“Good,” he admitted. Blood welled from the cut marking his cheek.
I arched an eyebrow. Did he think the Wraithmaker would give up so easily? Sinking my hand into the pocket of my jogging pants, I pulled out three tiny silver balls and tossed them into the air. I’d used similar tricks in the arena, horrifying my fae audience by bringing forbidden tek into the game.
He frowned and watched the balls hang suspended a few inches from his face. When he looked down questioningly, I winked and turned my face away. The balls exploded, filling the chamber with brilliant light. Kellee recoiled, spluttering a curse. I rolled away, hopped upright, leisurely wrapped my whip around his neck, and gently tightened it so there was no misunderstanding about who was in charge.
He blinked rapidly, shook his head and grumbled, “This had better not be permanent.”
I crouched and watched him blink me into focus. This close, the all-green in his eyes wasn’t green at all. The outer edge of his irises was blue, fading to green and then to the black of his pinprick pupils. “Submit.”
He chuckled. “Not happening.”
I hadn’t beaten him. I’d barely ruffled his feathers. His teeth weren’t out, neither were his claws. If he brought all his weapons, he could cut the whip with one swipe. This scuffle that had left me breathless was little more than a fun tumble for him. What would it truly be like to face the real Marshal Kellee? I barely knew what he was capable of, but I knew enough to guess how his people must have been a magnificent force in battle.
I thumbed the blood from his cheek. He froze. His eyes still weren’t fully focused, but he saw enough to catch my hand, preventing me from licking my thumb clean.
“Don’t.”
I stalled.
His pupils widened, focusing, drinking me in, and then he closed his hand around mine and brought my thumb to his mouth. He wasn’t about to—
His tongue swept up the side of my thumb.
I watched, entranced by the strangeness of having a man’s tongue lick across my skin. He moved my thumb closer and closed his lips around it, gently sucking it clean. He probably heard my heart and definitely heard my rapid breathing. But he couldn’t know how his intimate touch sent need fluttering inside me. The moment narrowed to just him and me kneeling on the mats, my thumb in his mouth and where we might go from here.
Kellee eased my thumb free, grazing it across the edge of a sharp canine-tooth, and turned my hand palm up. His hazel-flecked green eyes flicked up, checking for permission, and then he brought my middle finger to his lips and rested the most delicate kiss on the tip. I hadn’t known he could do delicate until that moment. He tipped my hand down, settling a snowflake kiss on my palm, and then brought my arm up a little and hesitated, his mouth hot where it hovered over the thin skin of my wrist.
His own breathing came short and fast. Each flutter against my arm summoned telltale goosebumps. He slowly, gently rested a single kiss atop the beating vein and sighed as though that one small kiss had cost him too much.
He lifted his head, and his eyes appeared to shine with longing, his smile tantalizing. Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
I wanted to curl my hand around his neck and draw him to me to taste that teasing, smart mouth of his. From the heated look in his eyes, he wanted me to. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would sink my hands into his hair and pull him close like I had in my dreams before the Dreamweaver stole him from me. Every. Time. But this would be real. He was on his knees, and in this one moment, he was mine. Maybe this was a dream? It felt like a dream, like we were the only two people left in all the worlds.
I ran my fingertips across his bottom lip, marveling at the maddening softness. He breathed too hard, moments away from taking what he wanted. Our tussle hadn’t taxed him, but holding himself back did. He liked it though, liked that this anticipation hurt, liked that I had control.
Kellee was gentle now, but his barely restrained tension told me he wouldn’t be once I gave him permission. This promise of more stretched thin, almost to the breaking point. And I would gladly take him, take all of him. But a wrongness chimed inside my mind and the ache of loss grew in the place of desire. I couldn’t do this.
I lowered my hand and turned my face away. I cared too much to hurt him.
Kellee pulled away and climbed to his feet. “The fae took the essence of cadaloup leaves and inserted its strands into our DNA.” His voice sounded colder and clipped. “Making vakaru blood poisonous. A drop can paralyze. Any more ravages the nervous systems, killing in three minutes.”
The moment we had shared slipped away like a dream on waking. “Does it work on the fae?”
“It disorientates them.”
I got to my feet and straightened my clothes, focusing on those simple movements instead of watching Kellee shut down behind facts and warfare.
“A messenger is here,” Talen said.
I reached for my whip and whirled. Talen stood a few steps inside the room, his violet eyes flicking to the whip, reading the warning. He could have been here the entire time and I hadn’t heard a thing. My pulse raced. Stealth and stamina. I couldn’t afford to forget what he was.
“From?” Kellee asked, ignoring me as he passed by and headed toward the exit beside Talen.
I followed, whip in hand.
“Calicto.” Talen eyed me as I passed him, his expression unreadable. Had he seen the moment with Kellee? If he had, did he care? I didn’t understand this fae, or why he was still here, and I certainly didn’t trust him.
“There are people left on Calicto?” I asked Kellee.
“A few,” the marshal replied, striding ahead.
A new shuttle had docked next to Kellee’s rover, this one just as small, but it looked as though it had been strung together with little more than glue and tape. A young woman waited inside the airlock. A shock of red hair cut shorter at one side framed a pale, round face dashed with freckles. She spotted the three of us through the airlock window, her gaze lingering on Kellee.
“It’s Natalie. Let her in,” Kellee said.
Talen obliged, opening the airlock.
Air hissed as the door retracted, and out stepped Natalie. “Marshal,” she acknowledged.
“Natalie.” He held out his hand.
Natalie’s blue eyes read me and Talen in an instant. Whatever she thought of us, she kept it all hidden behind an icy stoic mask. She shook Kellee’s hand, adding a familiar squeeze before letting go. “Is there somewhere we can go and speak in private?”
Kellee nodded. “Sure.” To Talen and me, he said, “I’ll meet you by the cage.”
Talen struggled to repress his snarl at the marshal’s dismissal. He wasn’t the only one. I watched Kellee escort Natalie along the dock and into the prison. Before disappearing inside, he touched her shoulder and leaned in, speaking too quietly for me to hear.
“What did he say?” I asked Talen once the door had closed behind the pair.
“That he has missed her.”