Page 18 of Origin (Deridia #13)

She was sitting up, waiting for him. He’d wanted to give an opportunity for some to fall asleep before he joined her, then reminded himself that was ridiculous. No one cared what they were doing. If this was a friendly visit, or even friendlier .

He caught a few glances downstairs before he made it to the stairwell, but no one said anything. A guard even saw. Just kept weaving through the halls of beds.

He’d already ensured someone saw him in his own cupboard before he left. Because he was practical like that, and he didn’t need any alarms going off that a prisoner was missing.

She tucked her legs up and gestured to the far end of the bed near her trunk. “If you want to sit,” she whispered. Did he? He wanted her to be able to lie down. To relax. To stop her eyes darting every which way, looking for threats that weren’t there.

His own instincts quieted when she was around. Not dulled—his ears were keen and his eyes had adjusted to the dark during his walk over. But they didn’t scream at him. Didn’t conjure dangers that weren’t there.

He simply got to... be.

He wanted to be that for her. A respite. Where she might be herself and not have to worry about people clobbered during their final moments.

He sat. Didn’t tuck himself up, not with his boots on. And tried not to think too much about how he was on the bed with her. He was far too old to be impressed with something so mundane.

Except a tightening in his belly said it was anything but, and he needed to behave himself and make sure she was all right, not fixated on what it might feel like to stretch out beside her. To feel her against his entire side. Maybe even to lift his arm and tuck it about her so she’d roll against him.

Put her arm about his middle and hug him to her until they were a tangle of arms and legs.

He swallowed.

That’s not why he was here.

“You feeling any better?”

Not that she’d admitted to how poorly she felt all day. Probably wouldn’t now, either. But he saw. He knew.

“You’d think I’d be used to it by now,” she groaned out. Tugged at her hair. She’d somehow secured her curls into two braids, the easier to pull at without forming any knots. It made her seem younger, somehow. A glimpse of a different girl in a different life.

He’d like to have known her, then. Maybe they might have made things better between the two of them. So they hadn’t needed to end up here at all.

“Do you need to be?” Ellion countered.

She gave him a sour look. “I’d like to be,” she clarified. “So I’m not tied up in knots all day. So I don’t see their faces when I close my eyes. Run through all the names of dead people I’ve seen since I got here.”

He nodded, because it seemed the right thing to do. He wished it bothered him more. Did not appreciate the implications of why it didn’t.

“More like you,” she added, and there it was. He closed his eyes and wrestled with what he might say. Might admit. No lies, not with her, but he wouldn’t frighten her for the world.

“I asked you how you came to be here,” he started, and watched her brow tighten in confusion. “Which doesn’t seem a fair exchange, so I’ll tell you what I’ve got. Let you decide for yourself what it means about my conviction.”

He leaned back. Wouldn’t crowd her. Would have sat on the floor against the wall except she’d wanted him to be on the bed with her. “I’m used to seeing bodies, I think. People killed. Because what upsets you...” Words failed him. He sounded monstrous. “You don’t want to be like me,” he decided at last. “To see someone dead, see them bludgeoned, and not feel much of anything at all.”

Hana stared at him for a while. He appreciated she didn’t soothe him. Offer reasons that didn’t quite fit.

“I’m probably a serial killer,” Ellion supplied because she hadn’t come up with anything.

He didn’t expect for her to snort. To shake her head.

“What? You’ve got so many running around you know their numbers off the top of your head?”

He placed his hand where his tattoo itched. Didn’t itch. But near enough that it bothered him. Lurking there, beneath the fabric. There should at least be a ledger in the office somewhere. That would be sensible.

“Yes, exactly,” Hana countered, and how she could find levity in this, he’d no idea. But he’d wanted her to feel better, hadn’t he? Not necessarily at his expense, not when he was being genuine. “Just rife with them. So I already know that’s not your number.”

She was jesting, but he wished it was true. Or would have, if that didn’t mean he’d be protecting her from a bunch of people that liked to kill one another for sport. Or pleasure. Or... why else did someone kill?

He groaned, rubbing at the back of his head. “I’m being serious.”

She sobered, but not entirely. “I know you are,” Hana assured him, reaching out, not with her hand, but nudging her foot against his thigh. “I feel too much when I see something bad happen. You feel too little. I don’t think someone who made murdering people their life’s work feels that. They’d like it. Or... want to do it. When,” she paused. Had to work to get her mouth moving again. “When the guard ended that man, did you want to be the one to do it?”

His eyes widened. Turned his face so she could see him clearly. “No.”

She smiled at him. Dim, but present. “You sound more like a soldier to me,” she offered. “Seeing too much, too often. And you just can’t be sorry about it anymore.”

He sat with that. Turned it over in his head. A soldier. A killer, maybe, but one with purpose. Orders. “Then why am I here?”

She moved, then. Left her spot at the head of the bed and came to sit beside him. Even grabbed hold of his arm and hug it to her, twining their fingers together.

She was warm, but not in the stuffy, unbearable way of his dormitory. Comforting.

Peaceful. If being a with a person could mean that. As if he didn’t have to be afraid of himself, because she clearly wasn’t. He could just sit here. Could even lean closer to her. Rest his head against hers, and breathe deeply. Feel the tension seep out of him because he’d told her his worries. Told her the worst of it, and she was still here. Still holding his hand. Had let him sit on her bed.

Hadn’t kicked him out.

“Maybe it’s an assignment,” she murmured quietly. “Maybe they knew I was falling apart, and they felt sorry for me, so they took their very best soldier and dropped him out of the sky, just for me. But he hit his head along the way, and he doesn’t remember what his task was, but thankfully it was so deeply ingrained, he knew to do it, anyway.”

She canted her head. Caught his eye.

And he was supposed to press her to tell him what she’d done.

But he had to kiss her. Had to. When she was looking at him like that. When she spoke too softly, so gently about him. Made him seem some sort of hero, if only to her.

He didn’t reach for her. Grab at her. Pull her to him. Just leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. Felt her lean forward, encouraging him to stay, to keep going, to kiss her properly. Punctuated by the squeeze of her hands about his.

She was all about him. Not physically. But he couldn’t ignore that he was in her space, her cupboard, and she was the one pressing nearer, urging him to engage all the more.

Let go of his arm so he could move it about her. To tuck behind her back and keep her close.

She was the one that made that little groan under her breath, the one that made him pull back just slightly to make sure he hadn’t bitten her or knocked teeth or done anything he shouldn’t.

She was the one who blinked at him, mouth slightly parted. Looking as if...

As if he was hers.

Which he very much wanted to be.

He brought his hand to her cheek. Held it there, cupping her jaw. “What are we doing?”

Her eyes fluttered. Her brow furrowed. And maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say. Or maybe it was. To clarify intentions.

Except his body was thrumming, pulling tight and growing in enthusiasm that he shut his foolish mouth and use it for better things.

Maybe even see if she would be amiable to lying down with him. What it might be like to pull her on top of him. Would she startle? Or look like she belonged there.

He shook his head to clear it.

She nuzzled at his hand, tilting her head so she could place a kiss to his palm. “I thought we were kissing,” she reminded him. As if he could possibly have forgotten.

He placed another, this time on her cheek. Her jaw. Then one to her mouth just because. “You’re trying to distract me,” he accused, but it was gentle. Playful. “Got my story out of me, and now you’re going to kiss me rather than tell yours.”

Her eyes were wide and sincere as she pulled back ever so slightly. “You started it!”

Her indignation made it less than the whisper they’d shared, and he darted a look to the entrance of her cupboard lest anyone come to complain.

She chastened, giving a guilty look and whispered a sorry in case anyone cared to accept it. “Well, you did,” she added, a hint of petulance in her voice.

He hummed.

Didn’t kiss her again. This time, he wrapped his arms about her and brought her in close. Waited for her to soften, to ease into his embrace. To let him hold her as he’d wanted to do all day.

He did not have to wait long. He hadn’t expected her arms to settle about his middle in return. To hold on with as much strength as he did her.

And he felt something let go. Something tight and hot in his chest, that maybe was a bit of care after all, now that he knew what it was to have it loosen. “I’m going to remember today,” Ellion murmured into her hair. Her curls didn’t cling to his face, not when she’d braided them so firmly into compliance, and he could admit it was easier to place kisses to the top of her head when he had a mind. “As the day we first kissed.”

Her breath caught. She was quiet for a long moment, and he wondered if she was going to make an argument about that. It would be disrespectful for the dead. She would immortalise them, but pinning this day with a kitchen dispute and lives cut too short, and push away the rest to the shadows because surely they shouldn’t have been doing that on such a day.

And he would pretend that didn’t hurt him, and he would still hold her because that’s what she needed. He needed.

“I’m going to remember this part,” she said instead. Her grip tightening just a little. His heart along with it.

She’d carry the rest. He knew that. So did she. But it was nice to pretend they could pick out only the good parts. Set aside the rest. Pretty lies that could do no harm so long as they both knew what they were. “Not my kisses, then?” Ellion teased, skimming his lips against the ridge of her braid. Liking the way it felt, so he did it again. “I shall aim to improve them.”

She laughed, more movement than sound. It was a subtle vibration from her chest against his, and he liked how that felt, too. “Your kisses are fine,” she soothed.

Which didn’t soothe at all, because who wanted their kisses to be fine ?

“Just fine? That’s even worse than unmemorable.”

She shook her head, huffing out a breath, but even that sounded like a laugh caught back so she could seem stern and patient with him rather than amused.

“One of those, are you?” She shifted, moving from his hold so she could somehow lean closer. Over him. A little higher than she had been as she brought her hands to his face and held him there. As if he would have dared move. “Your kisses are magic,” she offered, and she was mocking him, but there was a hint of something else about the edges. That perhaps she was exaggerating, but she did like them. “Make me forget. Make my skin feel tight. Make me wish we had a room to ourselves.”

He swallowed.

His breath was too short.

His words felt suddenly very far away. That he needed to reach, to hold, to pull her down and give her more of those magic kisses so she’d forget they were in a dormitory. Others did it. Didn’t care who walked by. Who might see.

Maybe it was shameful that he suddenly saw it. So clearly. Him lying prone in her bed. Maybe his. His clothes would be in a pile on the floor. A hapless heap because he’d only cared to have them off of him.

Hers would be intermingled, because he would have far more interest in helping get hers off. To see her without a stitch on. Maybe they’d have snuck off during the daylight, and rather than dim moonlight, he’d catch the sun in her hair. Glittering of her skin. Catching the delicate ridges on her nose.

She would be glorious.

And he’d pull her on top of him, and he’d be lost in her.

And someone would walk by. And they’d see her, and it wouldn’t be beauty they’d see, but someone to mock. To threaten.

And she would be vulnerable, and he would rage at them. Wouldn’t get to finish with as he should, but instead would have to go after the one who dared witness it. Turn it into something it wasn’t.

It wouldn’t be.

“I think you’ve got that backwards,” Ellion argued. His voice was too low and too rasping, because he was finding it terribly difficult to draw a full breath. She’d intoxicated him. Needed no drug. No nip subtly slipped into his drink.

She was enough.

“Backwards,” she repeated, tilting her head.

“The magic is yours,” he insisted, and he did move then. One hand to the back of her neck. One at the waist. Pulling her close and maybe even... oh yes, she slipped just over his lap. Not all the way, and as soon as she’d done it, she made to get off, startled and mumbling something about being too heavy, and she was sorry, and that wouldn’t do, not in the least.

He wanted her to feel it, too. Wanted her heart to race, for her skin to feel suddenly so alive he thought he must burst. Unless she touched him. That was a balm. Made him crave her all over.

But then they’d be lost, wouldn’t they? They’d get so caught up in each other, he wouldn’t remember to check for onlookers. They’d sneak up behind, and it wasn’t safe. Wasn’t fair, either, he thought as he watched her settled back next to him. Looking sheepish and uncertain, and that was the last thing he wanted. He ducked down. Placed a kiss on her unhappy mouth. Not the prolonged moment of passion he’d wanted, but something sweet. Calming. Or so he hoped.