They hadn’t even taken to whatever the sleep rotation was proving to be. I didn’t know whose turn anything was and hadn’t asked, but it seemed like I started most nights with one of them in my bed and ended it with two, sleeping. I didn’t need the rest, but it was becoming my favorite part of any day. I forced myself into the dream world because waking up from it with two of them cuddling me was such a treat.
Blaze, Devil, and Anders had to be doing the same thing since they couldn’t need any more sleep than I did. Still, I heard no complaints.
“Higher.” Kellan ordered me. We’d turned one of the ship bays into a training room, and today Kellan was working on getting me to jump. All strength aside, they were all bigger than I was. The nanos hadn’t made me taller or broader. In this particular case, his insistence that I should be able to jump as high as he did was ridiculous and rapidly pissing me off.
“That’s as high as I’m going to be able to jump.” Not to mention I’d jammed my hip into the side of the wall because the nanos hadn’t made me any less clumsy. I could go up just fine, but coming down, I really wasn’t graceful.
Kellan walked to the window, staring at the true nothing out there. “Yes, you can. Jump higher, or I’m going to think you need more push-ups to work on your core strength.”
I almost told him to go fuck himself. But this was Kellan, and he would probably like that. He’d always marched to the beat of his own drum. From moment one of meeting him when he’d made me so mad I’d zapped him, I hadn’t one hundred percent understood him.
I wasn’t sure he really understood himself.
Instead, I did something I’d not done in a long time. I opened up my mind, and I sent him a jolt. He yelped before he turned around. A smile crossed his face. Yep, there was Kellan. Always a little off. In the best possible way.
“You did it.”
Yes, it seemed I was still capable of it. In fact, the act had felt entirely the same. The only difference being I didn’t feel like I had to sit down and rest now. I stepped toward him, and he rushed over to me, grabbing my wrist. I’d not even thought about it, but he was right. We should check the number. I’d been staying at zero, but I hadn’t taxed my mind using my abilities in the weeks since we’d changed me.
It still read zero. Kellan nodded like it said something to him. “Can you do it harder?”
I blinked. “You want a stronger zap? I was just poking at you because I knew you liked it.”
“I want to see what you can do, and I want you to do it to me.”
I shook my head. “That’s something I do to hurt people. It’s defensive. I’m not going to zap you until I do some kind of permanent brain damage just to see if I can. We’ll have to save that and hope for the best if I ever have to do it on an enemy.”
“I could survive whatever you dished out.”
That deserved an eye roll, so that was what he got. “Do you not want to have sex with me? I mean… if you don’t want to, that is fine. I just want to understand what we are. You made a lot of declarations, but maybe you’ve changed your mind.”
He strode so close to me I could feel his breath on my face. “You haven’t asked me to sleep with you. Corbin either. It’s polite to wait until the lady asks.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Ask? I haven’t gone around asking. That’s not how this has worked. And what’s more, you know that because you listen to everything.” In other circumstances, that would be weird, even creepy, but not with all of us. It was just understood someone always had an ear listening. I’d found myself doing it a lot. When I washed dishes, I tuned into whoever piloted the ship. It was almost impossible not to.
“Just because they’re not obeying general laws of courtesy doesn’t mean I won’t. Corbin agrees.”
I took a long breath. “Kellan, if you want to get your head out of your ass at any time and let us get to know each other in the primal sense of the word, come find me. Otherwise it will be a cold day in hell before I ask for it.”
I stormed out of the room, not sure I could have explained why that pissed me off as much as it did. Maybe it was because it was Kellan. I might not have gotten so angry at Corbin. But Kellan liked to push my buttons. That was how we related. It had almost seemed normal to just press back at him rather than soothe.
My telling him that it was all fine would not have gotten what I wanted from this. Corbin, I could believe he thought he was following some kind of rule where I had to ask for it, but Kellan just wanted to make me squirm. And I wasn’t in the mood. I’d jumped as high as I was going to for the time being.
Being of superior strength and immunity plus all the other amazing things I could now do was great. That didn’t, however, mean that I didn’t sometimes hurt. At the end of each day, I was sore. Today, brutally so.
After my encounter with Kellan, I’d worked out some more but mostly managed to avoid the others. My guess was they were giving me a wide berth. Why should they want to get their heads snapped off the way Kellan had?
Hours later, my temper had cooled replaced by embarrassment. I was going to have to apologize. Why had I done that? It was like I couldn’t be my best self around him, and most of the time I preferred that. With Kellan, it was nice to have someone love me despite the fact that I showed him so consistently just how wicked I could be.
Mean. Petty. Rude. And…
The door swung open. He stood there staring at me. I was in a white bathrobe. We’d brought about a dozen of them with us on the ship, and I wore this one almost every night after I showered when I had to make the pain in my muscles go away.
“I’m sorry.” I said the words. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“Which part?” He threw his shirt against the wall, walking toward me in all his untoward gloriousness.
I rose. “All of it.”
“You like to yell at me, and I like that you do. I don’t want you to be polite. I just wanted you to ask me to fuck you. I wanted you to want it that much. Yes, that’s a selfish, dickish move, but that is what we do for each other. We give each other the space to be base and screwed up. I spend too much time during the day pretending to be normal. I like that I don’t have to be with you.” He stood close again. Like earlier, I could feel him breathe.
For the fun of it, I zapped him, lightly, again. He widened his eyes before he kissed me hard, biting on my lower lip until he drew blood. I backed up, wide-eyed. Damn. I loved that.
I bounced on my feet, not sure why, but there was a definite adrenaline boost to my system.
“Like that?”
“You know what, Kellan?” Was I really going to do this? Yes, I was. I sure was.
He lifted an eyebrow. “What?”
I shoved him backward with a hard zap. “Catch me. If you think you can.”
And then I was off. I couldn’t say where the need came from. I’d never had it before, but I wanted to run, and more than that, I needed to see if Kellan could catch me. Had I possessed this desire before? I had no idea. I’d spent my life locked up in a temple. Maybe I had, maybe I hadn’t. I’d blame the nanos if I had to, but I didn’t really care.
I was in a bathrobe, wearing no shoes, and rushing through Artemis like I was in some childhood game that hopefully would end with both of us naked.