Ashla regretted the words the moment they left her lips. She could all but hear the squealing sound of hard-applied brakes screaming through the room as his head jerked up. His passion-dark eyes glittered as they went wide in surprise.
“Explain this,” he demanded sharply, not realizing how intimidating his royal vizier’s tone could be when it appeared in his temper. “You are of an age for sexual maturity. I understand you do not have sexual instruction in your human culture as we do in mine, but you at least have…How do you call it? A sexual liberation? A time of experimentation and learning?”
Trace came to realize his mistake exactly five seconds after she did, and only then because he was watching the expressions change across her face in search of the explanation he sought.
“You said it again. You said ‘human.’”
Yeah, he sure had.
“Yes,” he agreed shortly. “But you said you didn’t care and didn’t want to talk about it now,” he reminded her. “I’m only reminding you of that because I don’t want you to think I wasn’t planning on being completely honest with you before all of…this”—he nodded down to the close situation of their bodies—“took us over.”
“Yeah, but I totally didn’t get that this whole ‘human’ differentiation was going to be a part of it!”
Trace took a deep breath and sighed it out. “There’s a lot more to it than that. A lot more to this place, and to you as well. I will tell you anything you want to know, whenever you want to know it. Only, if now is when you want the dissertation, I’m going to have to ask you to put a shirt on. You distract me into oblivion like this.” He stressed his point by reaching out to shape her breast through her bra, his thumb circling her areola through the fine material a couple of times. When the point of her nipple began to poke out, Trace couldn’t seem to resist curling long fingers into the skimpy undergarment until he was lifting her breast up to his lips. He brushed her with breath first, then nuzzled dry lips against her until she made a sound of complaint. “Shall I keep on point?” he asked softly, the double meaning so very bad of him. He was all but throwing away another perfect opportunity to clear this up with her. Why is this so hard? It was almost as if he were afraid of something. The idea grated, but he knew it was too keen not to have basis in reality.
But just then, the newly bold little sex kitten he had discovered put just enough curve in her spine to brush her nipple between his lips. It was all the encouragement he needed, her texture riding against his mouth like that, her scent stirring like fresh spring runs through winter-weary blood. She was between his teeth in the next heartbeat, his tongue guiding the way until he held her gently still for the slow tasting he craved.
There was an exquisiteness to it all that left them both moaning in soft disbelief and pleasure. Her fingertips crackled through the crisp hairs on his neck as she held him lightly to his task. She dropped her head back, closed her eyes, and let the sensations simply ride down her body. It was like extreme skiing, or the way she had always imagined it would feel—just you and a feeling of exhilaration you got to ride any way you wanted, except for the times when it took hold and rode you instead.
Ashla’s right knee connected to his outer thigh and rode up to his hip, encouraging him to step in those last inches of intimacy. She still wore her boots, denims, and flannels below her waist, but their closeness had a way of burning right through all of that, even allowing her to feel his body heat warming the already heated skin of her thighs.
Trace was fascinated by how temptingly hard such delicate flesh could become as his tongue swirled around it. He sucked her strongly enough to elicit a throaty cry from her, a sound that went so deeply through him that he had to have it again. His hands were peeling away her bra completely even as he switched to the opposite breast and coaxed her to sing out for him once more. It didn’t take much for his senses to start filling with feedback that alerted him to her climbing arousal. The scent of her alone was enough to blind him with the need to have her. Trace drew away from her breasts, looking down at the bright red and pink declarations of his presence left behind on her flesh. He was immediately overwhelmed by the possessive sensation slithering through him, a primal satisfaction triggered by the sight of his well-marked claim on her skin.
He spread his hands up her body, riding the curves of her torso quickly because she was so damn petite and his hands seemingly enormous against her. Yet in spite of her smallness, he recalled the energy with which she had taken everything he had so feverishly given her during his euphoric state. In fact, the memory of it raced through him like molten metal, heating and hardening him all the more. It was gorgeous raw material, he realized, and given the proper time and skill, he could turn them both inside out with it.
But you have no time, a voice whispered through his mind, and this is far from a proper venue for pleasing any woman, never mind one who is so complex and so deserving of more.
He had treated her so callously the first time.
He simply could not do it again.
“Aiya,” he groaned on a whisper of frustration, “you always make me forget myself. Or remember myself. You remind me I am a man with appetites for more than just duty and protocol. I haven’t felt this way for years, so it and you overwhelm me.” The truth was, even before Acadian he hadn’t experienced anything quite like this. “But you make me forget…everything,” he breathed a bit incoherently as the sight of her in his hands worked exactly as he was accusing her of.
“I like that,” she sighed, her sky blue eyes smoky with unspent passion and need, her lashes half-swept and sultry. “I like the idea of you forgetting yourself because of me. Or remembering. Either way.”
Her fingers fell to the front of his shirt, and quite quickly she had undone the row down to his navel. He wore a black undershirt, but it was still much more intimate to them both as she ran her hands inside his shirt and over the ribbed fabric beneath.
“I have things to tell you,” he said, his breath and words quick and short against the side of her neck. “This place is not appropriate, and—”
They weren’t as alone as she thought they were.
Trace’s head snapped up sharply, his passion-muddled senses suddenly searing away all extraneous information as a chill ran like an alarm down his spine. He went for his sword—and met with air, recalling too late that it lay discarded on the floor by his feet. It was instinct alone that made him jerk Ashla off the counter as he hit the floor in search of it. He heard and saw the saw-stars an instant later even as he was still in movement himself, their characteristic whine so like the circular saw they had won their name from. Three bladed missiles shot through the space where he and Ashla had just been, coming in from the right and landing in the far wall on the left with three quick and successive thuds.
“Trace!” Ashla cried out in surprise as her back hit the cold tile floor of the post office lobby. He was crouched over her, her legs still framing him as they had when she had been settled on the counter, her hands clinging to his open shirt. Trace wasn’t looking at her, though; his eyes were trained back beyond the teller desk even as he slowly drew his sheathed weapon out of his belt and across her body. Ashla released her grip on him, her hands and arms dropping back onto the floor as she watched him with wide, disbelieving eyes. His hands and the weapon both began to part, with only inches to spare between it and her skin as the brilliant metal blade slowly pulled free of its scabbard. She tried not to breathe so hard, as it brought her breasts dangerously close to the exposed edge of the blade if she did. She watched him slowly place the beautifully inlaid sheath down on the floor without so much as a sound. Then and only then did he finally look down at her.
Trace knew Ashla hadn’t seen the saw-stars just by the expression on her face after he had drawn his weapon. He could only imagine what she was thinking after having a man throw her to the ground and laying her under a blade, but his position was defensive and would best stop the next missiles that attacked them. Sinc
e he couldn’t explain this without giving away their location, he gave her a very serious look as he touched a finger to his lips. If she was half Shadowdweller, he hoped that meant she knew how to be quiet. Certainly their unseen enemy had his skills in stealth down pat. Only years of fighting in a war made up of similar attacks had saved Trace’s neck and Ashla’s just then. His veteran instincts had been their salvation.
He very gently reached to touch her where her legs were clinging to him in reflex. As much as he loved being there, he couldn’t afford the restriction. With a coaxing caress down the inside of her knee and thigh, he urged her legs apart and then, as silent as death, he shifted his stance so she was now between his legs and protected by the crouch of his body. Then he reached noiselessly for one of her discarded shirts, his eyes sharp around the room as he slid the fabric into her hands.
“Wait,” he mouthed to her, holding his palm out in a staying motion.
By then Ashla was finally realizing that Trace had sensed some kind of danger, and that he wasn’t into sex games with sharp objects. Knowing both facts, she didn’t think she should waste too much time on relief over the latter. She wanted to rush into the shirt he’d given her, but his warning kept her immobile.
It was absolute stillness then, where Ashla feared the sound of her breathing was way too loud and labored. Then, like the sudden springing of a ground spider out of its hidden hole, Trace leapt into motion, the sharp sound of metal ringing out three times to match his successive and swift movements. If not for the sparks flying off the blade of his swift-moving sword, Ashla wouldn’t have realized he was repelling a volley of objects with it. At least, not until a fourth one glanced off the floor near her ear, chipping the maroon tile, which flung into her cheek with a painful sting.
Trace saw it all, the silent wince of pain on her face most of all. That she didn’t cry out actually made him proud of her, but she needn’t have bothered anymore. It was clear they were in their enemy’s sights. So Trace quickly moved to free her from between his feet, urging her up and behind him. He hardly blamed her when she practically glued herself to his back between frantic wriggles to get her shirt on. However, it forced him to compensate for the way her hold was hindering him. Every extra thought was a second wasted before reaction time; Magnus’s lessons echoing in his head were warning him of that.
He knew better than to go for the door. As much as it looked the fast escape, without knowing how many opponents he faced, he could assume nothing was safe. Not unless he made it safe. He looked around quickly, cursing when he realized that all other exits must be on the opposite side of the counter…which was clearly how the enemy had entered the building.
The vizier wanted to know just who that enemy was, and how they could possibly know he was even in Shadowscape. Again, now was not the time to waste thought on it, but he couldn’t shut down the suspicion whispering through the back of his brain. He and Ashla needed to move. Had he been alone, he could have shadow-skipped, the unique power the one thing that had kept him alive through treacherous and deadly circumstances—like escaping the clutches of a sadist and coming back from a fight after being stabbed in the back.
But he wasn’t alone. And he knew that if a ’Dweller died in Shadowscape, he was dead in every ’scape. He couldn’t risk that it would be any different for Ashla than it was for the rest of them. The idea of leaving her body in Realscape as empty as a locust’s husk made his skin crawl with rage. At least he thought it was rage. It was dark and it was powerful, but rage somehow didn’t seem to be all-inclusive enough to suit the emotion he was feeling. Emotion, however, was even more of a hindrance than thoughts were when it came to reaction, and he forced it all away as his mentor’s voice whispered the advice into his mind as clearly as if he were there himself.
It was thinking of Magnus that actually gave him the idea he needed. Magnus would not leave Ashla’s side in Realscape until Trace returned. Not until twenty-four hours had passed. The camp, though, was a good distance from where they were and he would never risk making it there and back to retrieve help. Even shadow-skipping couldn’t get him there fast enough, and it would be unconscionable to leave Ashla to the wolves hoping they would leave her be just because he was the target they wanted. Anyone who would ambush an enemy so dishonorably was unpredictable. The only thing Trace was sure of was that he could take nothing for granted.
Magnus, however, had once told him that if an enemy erased the honor in battle first, then it obligated you to play by his rules. Trace was more than willing to accommodate the advice, but he had one small problem.
He had explained nothing to Ashla.
Trace stepped back with her, drawing her back as far as he dared without completely cornering them. Then he took a deep breath.
“We have a problem.”
“Yeah, I can see that!” she whispered harshly. “Why does everyone want to kill you?”
“Because I am a very important part of the government where I come from,” he explained in a quick hush. “If they kill me, it begins to weaken a political structure that cannot afford any weaknesses right now.”
“Oh,” she said contritely. “That explains a lot.”
“Hardly,” he sighed. “Listen, jei li, I have a lot I need to tell you.”
“You said that.”
“Yes, but now I don’t have time to do it the way I should have.” He made certain to meet her eyes and drive his sincerity into her mind and soul with sheer force of will. “Remember, I am going to protect you with my last breath. Don’t ever doubt that, okay?”
“Trace, don’t say things like that,” she scolded fearfully, clutching harder at him.
“I have to say it, because I need to leave you here.”
“What?”
“Shh,” he both soothed and scolded. “Just trust me.” He turned on his heel, pushing her back against the near wall. He kept both eyes on the lobby and beyond as he briefly kissed her forehead. Then he pushed back away from her, his chest aching as he watched her panicked breathing increase with his distance and he was forced to pry her hands free of his shirt. He stepped back and she moved as if to lunge forward to him. He stayed her by crossing the flat of his blade between them, his expression a warning, the only exception being the angst written in his dark eyes.
When Ashla realized she was the cause of what she saw in his pained gaze, it had the power to keep her still in place against the wall just as he wanted her to do, in spite of the horrible fear coursing through her veins. She gripped the flat metal faces of mailboxes on either side of her. Trace had placed her against a cinderblock break between one wall of them and another.
She watched him back into the darkest corner of the room, his attention torn between where he knew the threat to be, and her. Slowly, shaking all the while, she sank down low to the floor, watching and waiting to see what he was going to do.
It was because she was staring at him so hard that she saw every moment of the way the darkness seemed to just swallow him up. Then, in a blink of her eyes, there was nothing there but walls. She covered her mouth to keep from gasping aloud, her eyes shot with shock and disbelief. She blinked, telling herself he had to still be there. Where else could he go? After all, people didn’t just disappear! If they did, then that meant…
She really was crazy!
Chapter 13
Trace had tracked the darkest corners of the room in his mind, those moonlight and starlight had left neglected and virtually black. This was the kind of shadow that was absolutely necessary for him to shadow-skip. Basically, it was like Fade, except instead of switching realms, he switched to a line-of-sight location. It was a silent and swift way of traveling across the room or further. Every ’Dweller could skip close shadows to an extent, as long as they connected at even the smallest point, but no one could match the distance Trace could skip to because all he needed was to see the other space of shadow. No connecting shadows necessary. It liberated him to move like no one else could; nor did many expect i
t because it was not a skill he’d advertised.
In this case, it allowed him to come up behind the enemy that had pinned him down. He materialized in the black, coming free of his skip with perfect silence. He took a moment, sensing more than seeing the stealth-guarded figure before him. He could hear beyond this immediate area of utter silence, to the distant sound of Ashla trying to breathe.
He could also sense a second person close by. The area behind the postal workers’ station was full of objects and walls that could conceal, but for the most part it was a single, vastly open space. That meant the moment he moved on one enemy, the other could get a clear shot at him.
But when the flash of silver metal in moonlight winked for the briefest second, Trace knew his target was about to make a mark of Ashla. It was clear he wasn’t a professional assassin, however. A Shadowdweller assassin knew better than to use unblackened metal in a stealth fight. Trace himself had only recently stopped carrying a blackened blade, an effort at pulling himself away from a warlike guarding and mentality. It wasn’t good for the advisor of a peace-preaching regime to be always suspicious of attack and on his guard. He had sacrificed the mindset for the sake of his rulers and their people.
And he would be damned if some back-stabbing bituth amec was going to ruin that for him.
Trace moved like a heartbeat, only not so loudly. He was out of the shadows and on his enemy like a silent breeze, ringing him around the throat with one arm while running through his left kidney with the katana. His right arm choked off his victim’s warning cry, and he continued to hold him upright in front of himself while scanning shadows for the other operative.
“Where?” he asked the indistinguishable man he held. In the back of his mind he was already trying to fit the shape and build to someone he knew. There weren’t many such slight-figured men among ’Dwellers. “Answer,” he hissed soft as a breath, “or I show you how easily this steel cuts upward through a body.”