Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(35)

“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.”

“You know nothing of its plan,” she says. “You are a fugitive, wanted by your own government for Interdiction breach and galactic terrorism.”

I smile, lopsided. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”

“You are charging toward your death. You are a fool.”

“Who’s the bigger fool? The fool himself, or the fool in love with him?”

Saedii scowls and turns away, and I step in front of her, press my hands to her cheeks. As I kiss her, I feel the thrill of it run through her whole body, fingertips to toes. She surges against me so hard she almost knocks me over.

I stumble back and we hit the wall, her body pressed tight into mine, fitting together like the strangest puzzle. Her curves are hard as steel and her lips are soft as clouds, and for a moment it’s all I can do to not lose myself in her again, to not close my eyes against the war around us and the shadow rising above us and just make her mine.

But then I realize she’s drawn that knife again.

Holding it just shy of my throat as she searches my eyes.

“I do not know which I hate more,” she whispers, the blade brushing my skin. “Pulling you close or pushing you away.”

“I know which one I prefer.”

She wavers then, just for a heartbeat. In the silence, I take hold of her hand, ease the weapon away from my throat and kiss her knuckles, searching her eyes for that warmth, that light.

“Help me, Saedii. We can do this together.”

But she looks over my shoulder, and at the sight of herself in the mirror, the iron curtain descends, that blazing fire inside her burns suddenly cold. Saedii clenches her jaw, pulls back, shaking her head.

“My first duty is to my people, Tyler Jones. Not my heart.”

I search her eyes, swallowing hard.

“Then you have to let me go.”

“To your death,” she snarls.

“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

I see defiance flare in her then. Rage. The daughter of the Starslayer unveiled. I can sense the menace in her, like a shadow rising beneath her surface, just as dark as the fire that warmed me a few moments ago. One is cast by the other, I realize. Each a part of what makes her who she is: beautiful, fierce, brilliant, ruthless.

She lifts her hands between us, the bloodstained fingers of her left entwined with mine, the right still holding the knife as she searches my eyes.

I know she could force me to stay if she wanted.