“I am not here to assuage your ego in matters of performance.” She retrieves the long knife she’d been carrying when I woke, straps the sheath back to her leg. “You still have both your thumbs. Make of that what you will.”
I get to my feet, wrapping the sheet around my waist, wincing at the sting of sweat, the low, thudding ache of the stab wound in my stomach.
“Are you … angry with me?”
Saying nothing, Saedii turns away, looking into the mirror on the wall and starting to finger-comb her braids. I step in behind her so she can see my reflection, then reach out to brush her shoulder. “Hey, talk to—”
“Do not touch me,” she growls.
I lower my hand. Feeling a little stung.
“That’s not what you were screaming inside my head a minute ago.”
“That was a minute ago.” Her eyes return to her braid, fingers moving swift through the thick, ink-black locks. I feel her closing herself off like she did in the war council. Slamming her mind behind towering doors of iron. “We have taken our pleasure in each other, and now we are done. Do not make this out to be anything more than what it was.”
“… And what was it?”
“A pressure release,” she says. “Understandable after our captivity together. Meaningless.”
“Why are you lying to me?”
Her hand falls still, her gaze locking back on mine. “I should cut out your tongue, Terran. I should rip it from your skull and—”
“Saedii, you were in my head just now.” I search her eyes, my voice soft. “I’m new to this whole telepathy thing, but I know what you were feeling. This wasn’t just some wartime fling. This wasn’t just blowing off steam.”
“You flatter yourself,” she scoffs.
“Saedii, talk to me.”
I grab her shoulder, turn her to face me. And though I feel a stab of rage run right through her as my hand touches her skin, beyond that, again, I catch that glint of approval.
This girl is a fighter. A leader. Born for conflict. Bred for war. She doesn’t want obedience, she wants a challenge. An equal.
I kiss her. Hard. Pulling her into my arms and crushing her against me. Her body tenses, her fists clench, but her mouth melts against mine like snow in fire, a sigh slipping past her lips as she throws her arms around my neck.
And beyond the clash of push and pull, want and not, again I catch a glimpse of it through the cracks in the iron she’s wrapped herself inside. Something so big and frightening she can’t bear to look at it for long.
I reach toward it. She pushes it down. Stomping it beneath her heels and pulling back from my kiss. And I look into her eyes and realize what it is, why she’s trying so hard to pretend this means nothing to her.
Because …
Because it means everything.
“You’re being Pulled,” I whisper.
Saedii’s eyes flash, and she pushes herself out of my arms with a snarl. I watch her turn back to her reflection, seething, busying herself with her braids with shaking hands. But I can see the truth behind the ice of her eyes, feel it inside her head, flooding through her despite her best attempts to keep it dammed in. The Syldrathi mating instinct. The almost-irresistible attraction they feel to people their souls are fated to be with.
Kal feels it for Aurora. He once told me that love was a drop in the ocean of what he felt for her. And looking into Saedii’s eyes now, thinking about all the times she could have killed me, should’ve killed me …
Maker, what an idiot I’ve been… .
“How long?” I ask.
She says nothing. I step up behind her, searching her reflection.
“Saedii, how long?”
She holds my stare, fury and sorrow and hateful, defiant adoration washing through her thoughts. In her mind’s eye, I see an image of me aboard the Andarael, in the depths of the Unbroken fighting pit with a dead drakkan behind me, staring up at her, bloodied but victorious.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “I mean, that would’ve gotten a nun’s motor running, so I can’t really blame you.”
She scoffs, trying not to smile, stalking away across the med bay. I can feel her seething anger. Self-loathing boiling under her skin. A part of her wants to snatch a shard of broken glass from the floor and stab me to death here and now. A part of her wants to crash into my arms and hold on to me so tight I break. She hates that she wants me. But she’s thrilled by it too.
“You didn’t know it would feel like this,” I realize.
She glowers at me, lips thin.
“Saedii, talk to me,” I demand.
“I have had … suitors,” she finally sighs. “Pleasurable distractions. But not like …” She hangs her head, sharp teeth gritted as her fingers curl into fists. Laughing softly as she shakes her head. “The Void truly has a dark sense of humor. To fashion me a fate such as this …”
“Am I so bad?” I ask softly.
“You are Terran,” she hisses.
“Half-Terran,” I say. “But so what?”
“So our people are at war. And my father would turn your spine to glass and shatter it into a million pieces if he suspected so much as your finger had graced my skin.” She chuckles, bitter, almost to herself. “Void knows what he would do to me if he knew that I … that we …”
Her voice drifts away, temper rising as she crouches to yank one of her boots out from underneath a medi-cot.
I walk across the room, run one hand over her bare back as she stands. I feel her shiver, even as she pushes back against me. The ache in her is so real I can feel it in my own head.
“Saedii, your father isn’t here,” I tell her. “And our people don’t have to be at war. You have the power to end this.”
“Don’t,” she growls.
“Come with me to Aurora Acad—”
“No!” she snaps, whirling on me. “Do not ask me again! Everything my father fought to build could crumble into dust now he is gone! Any one of a dozen Templars might try to seize power over the cabal! I am the Starslayer’s daughter! In his absence, it falls to me to hold the Unbroken together!”
“None of that will matter if the Ra’haam is allowed to hatch!”
“My duty is to my people!” she roars. “And our people are at war!”
We stand there in the gloom, and I can still feel her body pressed against me, the furious warmth of her emotions lighting up my mind. There’s so much to this girl I’m only beginning to see. She’s like sunlight encased in a shell of black iron. And even through the tiny cracks she’s shown me, I can tell how deep and hot she burns, how wonderful it would be to lose myself inside a heat like that. The Syldrathi blood in me calls to her, the bridge between our minds echoing with its song.
She’s beautiful. Fierce. Brilliant. Ruthless.
This girl is like no one I’ve ever known.
“So let me go,” I hear myself say.
“What?” she whispers.
“If you won’t come with me, let me go.” I swallow hard, seeing a tiny flare of rage and pain light up her eyes. “Give me a shuttle and some credits. Drop me off at a starport. I’ll make my own way to Aurora Academy. I’ll stop the Ra’haam alone.”