Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(9)
About a thousand thoughts crash through my skull simultaneously. I remember this is a girl who wore the severed thumbs of former suitors around her neck for jollies. Warriorborn, bred for bloodshed, daughter of the Starslayer himself. I remind myself that the Unbroken are at war with Earth and, technically, I’m a prisoner here—she’s my captor, she’s my enemy. There’s a war for the whole galaxy being fought out there, and I’m lying here with two meters of Syldrathi warrior princess on top of me.
Problem is, there’s two meters of Syldrathi warrior princess on top of me, and all those thoughts are having trouble getting a fair hearing.
Saedii’s kiss is hungry, urgent, her fingers squeezing tight around my wrists as her body surges against mine. I find myself kissing her back, her feelings, her thoughts, her want, washing over me and fueling my own. Her braids tumble around my cheeks, hips grinding against me as she sucks my lower lip into her mouth and bites down. Hard.
“Ow!” I hiss, pulling back. “What is wr—”
She kisses me again, half laughing, half snarling. But I can taste blood now, hers and mine, pain slicing through the new split in my lip.
“Get off me!”
“Make me.”
“I mean it!”
“So do I, Tyler J—”
She gasps as I break her grip and push her off. But moving like quicksilver, she crashes into me again, hands clawing for my throat, and we struggle, hissing, bleeding, rolling on the floor. She’s strong, lean, writhing like a snake in my grip, but finally I get hold of her wrists and push them into the floor, pinning her down with my weight.
“Maker’s breath, will you calm down?” I roar.
Saedii lies underneath me, gasping, hair disheveled, eyes aflame. Wrapping her legs around me, she leans up to lick the blood off my chin. And I feel her thoughts echoing in my skull as her lips curl in a dark, playful smile.
I would if you actually wanted me to.
I gasp as she lunges for my neck, sharp teeth cutting my skin.
But you don’t want me to. Do you, Tyler Jones?
She cinches her legs, pulling me in tighter. And I know this is insane, but I also know she’s been in my head this entire time. She can literally feel my thoughts and … she’s right.
Saedii laughs, and our lips collide again, and she twists her hands free of my grip so she can slip them up under my shirt and drag her nails across my skin. She kisses me like she’s starving, hunger bleeding into me, drowning out every other thought inside my head. Our hands are all over one another, she rips my shirt off, and we’re both saved from the question of how far it might actually go by a faint vibration buzzing underneath my right palm.
“Um …”
We ease apart, my heart hammering. Eyes locked on hers, I reluctantly lift my hands away.
“I … think that’s for you.”
Sighing, Saedii slaps the silver comm badge on her chest.
“Report.”
Now, here’s the thing—I kinda lied before. I don’t speak Syldrathi nearly as fluently as Scar, but I’m good enough to follow the gist of a conversation. Catching my breath, licking my bleeding lip, I listen to the voice of her second-in-command, small and tinged with electronic reverb. I think he asks forgiveness for interrupting, but Saedii cuts him off.
“Erien,” she snaps, eyes flashing. “Speak.”
I hear a few words I know well. Message. Battle. Terra.
Saedii’s eyes meet mine then. The reminder that our people are at war rises between us, slowly suffocating the mood. Her long legs unwrap from around my waist, and I ease myself off her, sitting back on the cold metal floor. Dragging my hand through my hair, I realize my fingers are shaking.
I can taste her blood on my lips.
Saedii asks for news about her father. There’s a halting reply, and she twists up to her feet in one smooth, serpentine movement. I catch the words no patience and riddles. Again she asks about the Starslayer.
The only word I understand in the reply is gone.
My heart surges in my chest at that. Incredible. Impossible. The thought crackles between us as Saedii’s eyes widen—that maybe somehow, against all odds, the man who destroyed the Syldrathi homeworld is …
“Gone?” she hisses in Syldrathi, incredulous. “Dead?”
There’s a reply in the negative. I catch words like confusion and retreat. A rush about Terrans and Betraskans and—
“Void take you, Erien, speak!” Saedii demands.
The First Paladin asks forgiveness, speaks again. And as Saedii’s eyes meet mine, I hear three words. Words that send my thumping heart all the way down to my boots. Words that could spell the end of everything.
Starslayer.
Weapon.
Vanished.
4
TYLER
I’m sitting in a briefing room with thirteen Unbroken warriors, and the only thing I’m certain of is at least twelve want to kill me.
Honestly, I’m still not sure about Saedii.
When I insisted she bring me along to the meeting of her command staff, I thought for sure she’d tell me no. I’m technically a prisoner here, after all. An outsider. An enemy. She told me to stay in bed and rest.
“I’m half-Syldrathi myself,” I’d reminded her. “And I know more about the true enemy here than anyone. The Unbroken are being played, and I know the tune. Bed is the last place I want to be right now.”