The Sharpest Blade (21 page)

“Sidhe,”
he breathes out. “You’re . . .”

He closes his eyes, shaking his head as if he can get the image of me out of his mind. That’s the last thing I want.

I grab his hand, slide it down my body until it rests over the deep bruise on my side.

His eyes open. He nods as if I’ve asked him a question, then he pulls his hand free from mine.

He drops to a knee again then focuses intently on my injury. He places his palm against it. Then I feel him shake.

Before I can ask him if he’s okay, he slides his hand around to my back and presses his mouth against the bruise.

His magic flares and, holy hell, my legs nearly buckle. I have to lock my knees to stay upright.

He moves his lips, sending his healing magic into the upper part of my injury. I’m dying to fist my hands in his hair, but I settle for his shoulders, afraid of pushing him too far, too fast. I can feel how tightly he’s coiled. He’s holding himself back, giving himself the smallest taste of me.

His lips slide to my stomach. Another taste.

His mouth moves higher. A lick, just under my breast.

I’m trying to hold myself still—I don’t want to pull him out of the moment; I don’t want him to stop—but my body gives a tiny buck, and he freezes. His breath is warm on my breast, and I want him so badly, I ache. I bite my lower lip, silently pleading for him to continue.

Suddenly, his hands leave my body. He stands, taking a half step away from me.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I wrack my brain for something to say, some way to pull him back to me, but he just stands there staring at me as if he has no fucking idea what he’s doing.

“Aren—”

He moves, his mouth taking mine in a brutal, bruising kiss.

Fire explodes through me, ricocheting in my stomach and sending a hot, molten heat downward. I grab his shoulders again because I’m not going to let him go. I dig my fingers into the muscles of his back and part my lips, inviting him to deepen the kiss.

He does, tasting me. I moan and press closer.

He grabs my hips as he pulls my lower lip between his teeth. His bite surprises me, sending a sharp jolt of pain or pleasure—I’m not sure which—through me.

I gasp a second later, not from Aren’s nip but from the alarm vibrating through my life-bond. But I can’t stifle the need building inside of me, and quickly, Kyol catches on. I feel him vanish from this world, feel a wall fall between us. I should be concerned about him, considerate of his feelings, but Aren’s scent is intoxicating, and I can only think of him.

I fist my hand in his shirt, slide it up.

“I want this off you,” I say. I slip my fingers under his weapons belt. “This, too.”

“Yes.” No hesitation. No protest. He’s mine.

He loops his arm around my waist, swinging me around. The back of my legs hit the couch. Aren pulls off his shirt, drops his belt to the floor, then moves over me. My gaze is locked on his chest, then on a bright bolt of lightning that zigzags across his perfect abs. Perfect even with a deep scar cutting between the muscles. My fingers find a new one on his shoulder, then I slide my hands to his face, pull him closer.

I can’t lose you,
I want to say, but I kiss him instead, my hips rising to press against his.

He’s still wearing his pants. I tug at them, kiss him harder.

He breaks the kiss, separating from me just enough to gaze into my eyes.

The light from his chaos lusters reflects off my skin, and my heart thunders in my chest. This is the brink, the one I’ve stood on too many times to count, and I can practically hear Aren’s thoughts demanding for him to stop.

I jerk harder on the hem of his pants, rubbing against him.

He shudders. A moment later, his pants are gone. Then my underwear, too.

His body is hard, lean, exquisite. My hands explore him while his lips explore me, trailing hot shocks of lightning down my neck, my collarbone, lower. I lurch into him when he kisses the lower swell of my breast again, then drags his tongue upward. I didn’t know I could want him more, but desire explodes through me, creating a hot ache between my legs. His hand is there the next second. Making the ache better or worse? I don’t know.

He murmurs into my ear. Something in Fae. A question. My mind is too filled with him to do anything but nod yes. Yes to everything he wants.

He watches me as he repositions himself, something akin to wonder in his silver eyes. I feel exotic. I feel treasured. Then I feel him sliding into me.

No pain. Just heat and pleasure and
Aren
. He’s experienced. I’m not, but my body reacts to his movements, matching his thrusts to bring him closer, deeper.

The ache between my legs intensifies, and I’m filled with an indescribable yearning. I wrap my legs around his hips, wanting more even though I can’t possibly take more.

“Sidhe,”
Aren gasps, then, a heartbeat later, we both cry out when an incredibly hot and potent chaos luster strikes between our connected bodies.

My eyes spring open. I’m not sure when I closed them but the media room is bright with the lightning flashing across our skin.

Our
skin. And, impossibly, it isn’t just his blue
edarratae
causing the glow. My
edarratae
, which should only appear when I’m in the Realm, are white-hot and spiraling around us.

And spiraling within us. They’re moving faster and faster, matching the intensity of the pleasure building between my legs. So hot. So heavenly. So
much
.

I dig my nails into his back. I need to be grounded, or the lightning will shatter me, I’m certain of it.

“Sidhe,”
Aren rasps out again. All his muscles are taut. He’s at the edge of his control. I’m so far beyond mine.

The ecstasy builds, current by current, and the frenzied light flashing around our bodies is almost constant. I’m not sure anything but the
edarratae
’s heat is touching us now. The lightning shoots around us like starlight, lifted inches above our glistening skin.

“Aren,” I gasp. “It’s—”

“Hold on to me.” His voice is strained. He’s moving in and out of me, his pace as frenzied as the lightning’s.

And then it happens. Our chaos lusters solidify into a disc of light that explodes outward when the rush of pleasure hits, and the release, the ecstasy. It’s indescribable.

“I
TOLD YOU
I
was the right thing,” I murmur later when I’m wrapped in Aren’s arms. I love the way his chuckle rumbles against my back.

“You were right, of course.” He presses his lips to the crook of my neck.

I close my eyes and smile, soaking in the warm simmer of his kiss. It took a few rounds, but our chaos lusters have finally settled. We can even touch, lingering in each other’s embraces, without the lightning arousing us too much.

“This is nice,” I say, the biggest understatement of the century. Lying here with him is pure bliss.

I feel him smile against my neck.

I pull the blanket up to my chest, wriggling to get just a tad more comfortable.

“Careful,” Aren says, loosening his arms enough to let me move as much as I want.

“Sorry,” I say, grinning as I turn my head to the side. He places a kiss on my cheek then rests his arm across my stomach, above the blanket. My finger slides over the hard muscle of his forearm, leaving a trail of tiny chaos lusters in its wake. Absently, I draw a random design, loops and lines that fade away after a few seconds.

“I was a fool to think I could stay away from you.” His lips dip to my neck again. This time, he slides them along the raised skin there. It’s an inch-long scar he gave me when we were enemies, and I refused to read the shadows for him in Lyechaban. It’s a small, minor blemish, but I can feel regret in the way his lips linger.

Regret is the last thing I want him to feel right now.

I press the tip of my finger into his forearm twice, then swoop a curved line under the two dots.

“Smiley face,” I say, nodding toward the flickering sparks on his arm. He laughs, squeezing me tighter as the tiny lightning bolts fade.

A few minutes pass. I close my eyes, trying to keep my mind empty. I just want to relax in Aren’s arms. I don’t want to think of anything or anyone else.

“I want to stay here forever,” I murmur.

After a long moment, he replies softly, “Me too.”

I scowl at the unspoken “but” on the end of his sentence. “But we have a false-blood to hunt down,” I say.

Another hesitation as he rests his cheek against mine. “And vigilantes to track down and question. Lena’s going to want to find everyone who knows about the serum. She’s going to want to make sure it’s destroyed and that no one has the ability to replicate it.”

The serum and the research
should
have been destroyed when we burned down the vigilantes’ compound in Boulder. The lab was there. So was a network of computers. But, apparently, Nakano was smart enough to back up the research and store some of the serum off-site.

I run my hands over my face. A minute ago, I was blissfully relaxed in Aren’s arms, but now, the stress and tension I’ve been living with for the past several months slowly seep back into my body.

“What time is it?” I ask reluctantly.

“A few hours from morning,” he says with a shrug. That was a stupid question to ask him. The days and nights in the Realm and on Earth don’t match up, so he can’t tell me the exact time. Even in the Realm, fae usually speak in terms of hours or half hours before dawn, noon, dusk, and midnight—the real midpoint of the night. Time isn’t as important to them as it is to humans.

“I contacted the vigilantes yesterday around noon,” I say, reaching for the laptop on the table beside the couch. “They might have replied.”

It’s a sign of how tired I am that I don’t realize what I’m doing until I open the laptop and press the power button.

“Torture,
nalkin-shom
?” Aren asks at the same time that I say, “Shit. Sorry.”

I start to get up, but he laughs and pulls me back against him. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely,” he says. “Nick still has the power off, and you’ve chased away my headache.” He slides his hand, the one that’s under the blanket, over my hip, then down my leg.

“What does it say?” he whispers, letting his lips brush against my ear.

“Mmm.” I move my finger across the laptop’s touch pad, trying to concentrate on what I’m doing, not on what he’s doing. “I, um, need to log in.”

“Okay,” he says, letting his fingers skim lightly up and down my inner thigh.

I manage to get into my e-mail. I read the one new message that downloads to my in-box.

“The seller’s responded already,” I say. “He wants to know how long it will take me to get to Boulder.”

Aren’s hand stops moving. “Boulder, again?”

“Apparently, the vigilantes didn’t flee the city.”

We were there just over a month ago. That’s where Naito’s father set up his compound inside a closed-down ski resort. Naito and I and a few rebels went there to destroy the Sight serum. Normally, fae go out of their way to avoid human deaths, but the vigilantes are ruthless and cruel, and they’re a threat to the fae. We left the compound in ashes, and more than a dozen humans died. The Boulder police are calling it a cult suicide. The first part isn’t far from the truth, but the second? Aren and the rebels—and probably the remnants who eventually showed up, too—killed the vigilantes, who were waiting to spring a trap on us. Most of them were slain with swords, but Nakano wasn’t. Naito shot him twice before Trev used his magic to burn down the compound. Since it’s obvious the fae learned where the vigilantes’ base of operations was, I’m surprised any of them decided to remain in the city.

I start typing a reply.

“What are you writing?” Aren asks.

“I’m telling him I live only a few hours away and can meet him at six tonight. You can fissure me there?”

He doesn’t respond immediately. I click
SEND
, then look at him.

“Yeah,” he says, a warm smile on his lips.

“What?” I ask.

“You didn’t think twice about being the person who meets with them.”

I set the laptop aside. “Who else would do it? They would recognize Naito and Lee, and you can’t do it. They’d kill any fae who showed up.”

“They’d
try
to kill any fae who showed up,” he says. “My point is, you get hurt so often—”

“That’s not my fault. People keep trying to kill me.”

“I know,” he says with a laugh. “I know, but any normal human would say they’re done with this. They’d leave us to fight our own war. You don’t. You always pick yourself up and put your life at risk again and again.”

I tilt my head. “Are you calling me an adrenaline junky?”

His arms tighten around me. “I’m calling you brave.”

I return his smile, shifting a little in his arms. Then I rest my cheek on his chest.

“McKenzie?”

“Hmm?” I respond. His heartbeat is comforting. It could lull me to sleep.

His hand moves along my inner thigh again. “I think my headache is coming back.”

I open my eyes, grin up at him. “Is it?”

His chaos lusters, which have been on a pleasant, simmering after-buzz from our previous lovemaking, suddenly strike hotly across my skin.

“Oh, yes,” he says, pulling me higher on top of him. “It’s definitely back.”

 • • • 

SEVERAL
hours after the sun rises, Aren and I finally tear ourselves away from each other. We need to get to Boulder, so we make plans to meet at the Vegas gate. Naito and Lee will be coming with us as well. They’ll recognize the vigilantes, and it doesn’t hurt to have a little human backup.

The wind whistles through my broken window as I pull to a stop in front of a hotel on the outskirts of town. I vacuumed out the broken glass at a gas station, but I think I might have missed a few shards in the back. Lee curses as he climbs into the car.

“Sorry,” I mutter when I look into the rearview mirror and see his reflection staring down at his palm. He plucks the glass from his hand without another word.

Naito doesn’t say anything either. Not even a hello to his brother. He hasn’t said much since we left Nick’s, and as soon as I hit the road again, the silence stretches between us. He’s not the same person he was before Kelia’s death, and even though I know it’s unreasonable, I can’t help feeling a little guilty after last night. Aren and I had what he lost, and our human-fae relationship is a reminder of what he’ll never have again. I don’t know if he’ll ever love someone like he loved Kelia.

Naito’s the one who told me that once I’d been with a fae, I’d never want to be with a human again. After last night, I believe him. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but being in Aren’s arms, feeling him move against me, then feeling the lightning strike between us . . .

The memory brings a rush of heat to my cheeks.
That
was definitely worth waiting for. It felt earth-shattering. Literally. I’m surprised there weren’t burn marks on the walls from the explosion of the
edarratae
. We reached the point where they coalesced into a disc of light four times during the night—a feat Aren insisted wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for me and my humanness—and I thought I saw a black scorch line on the walls long after the light disappeared.

I shake the images from my head, not just because Naito’s sitting next to me, but because Kyol’s picking up on my emotions. He’s training with his swordsmen right now, trying to reinforce his mental walls. Problem is, those walls keep his feelings from me more than they keep mine from him, and last night, I was incapable of building a barrier between us.

I feel like I’ve stabbed Kyol in the back. But I wasn’t naïve. I knew Kyol would know when Aren and I were together. I knew I’d have to deal with the pain of hurting him. I guess I just hoped I wouldn’t hurt him so much.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. I need to focus on something besides Kyol and Aren.

“You going to tell him the plan?” I ask Naito.

He doesn’t respond immediately, but after I turn onto the rural road that’ll take us to the gate, he gives Lee a quick rundown of what we’re going to do in Boulder. The vigilante who responded to my e-mails didn’t give a name. I think whoever it is has watched a few too many espionage movies because he wants me to wear a red scarf and meet him at a bar.

As I pull to the side of the road, Lee says, “It’s gotta be Harper. The guy’s paranoid.”

“You’re all paranoid,” Naito tells him as he gets out of the car.

I toss my keys into the glove box—they’re useless in the Realm—and climb out just as Lee slams his door.

“
They’re
all paranoid,” he says.

Naito studies his brother over the hood of my car. After a handful of seconds, he nods once, then heads for the gate. Aren, Trev, and Nalst are there waiting for us.

“Lena wants to know if you’ve talked to Paige,” Trev says when we reach them.

My jaw clenches, and I shake my head. I tried to get in touch with Paige before we left Nick’s. Sure, my “noon” phone call might have been half an hour later than I said it would be, but it wouldn’t have killed Paige to keep her phone on and in her hand for a little while longer.

Unless, of course, Paige is already dead. If Caelar and the false-blood are working together, the false-blood may have insisted upon it. He might have . . .

I bite my lip, forcing the image of the skinned humans in London and at the
tjandel
out of my head. I’m almost certain Caelar and Tylan wouldn’t let that happen to her.

“I’ll try to call her again when we’re finished in Boulder,” I say.

Trev doesn’t look like he believes I tried at all. Whatever. He can get over it.

“Let’s go,” Aren says.

Trev and Nalst fissure out with Naito and Lee, leaving me alone with Aren. He gives me one of his sexy half grins as he reaches for me.

He leans me against a tree, kisses my neck, then says, “Naito and Lee can probably take care of the vigilante.”

He kisses my collarbone. “The vigilante’s expecting me.”

“Mmm,” he murmurs, sliding his hands under my shirt. My stomach tightens when a chaos luster skips across my ribs. “You’re telling me no, then?”

“I’m telling you later.” My voice is suddenly raspy. His hands have moved down to my waistband. His thumbs dip under it, and my legs turn molten when an unbelievably hot bolt of lightning shoots down low.

“What if the evil vigilante steals you away?” he asks, his lips brushing against my ear.

“Then you’ll come find me.” I dig my fingers into his shoulders. “Or I’ll kick his ass. Whichever is easier.”

Aren chuckles.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear.

“It’s only been an hour.”

“You didn’t miss me then?” he asks, kissing the corner of my mouth.

“I’ve missed you for the last month,” I tell him, and as soon as I say those words, I remember the other kisses we’ve shared over the last week. The reluctant kisses, the ones he tried so hard not to give me.

I take a half step away from him. His smile wavers. It’s brief—no more than half a second passes before it returns—but it’s telling.

“You haven’t told me why you tried to push me away.”

His chaos lusters are darting across my skin. It takes everything in me to stand there, not giving in to the desire to kiss him again.

His smile turns into a tantalizing half grin. “Would you believe it was because I was the Realm’s biggest fool?”