Page 25 of Sixth
Chapter 7
A MUSCLEjumped in Emmy’s throat. “You make it sound like a choice I can’t refuse.”
“It is a promise I will not break.” Quiet words, silk over steel. He let them lie between them like a blade laid flat, not yet pressed. Her throat moved. Light skimmed her mouth and the small beat at the hollow above her collar. The Valenmark warmed, slow and certain, as if it recognized anoath.
“Maybe the stars didn’t get the message,” she whispered.
Control eased. Hunger stepped to the surface and looked through his eyes without disguise. The Valenmark pulsed once again as if pleased by her defiance.
He rose without hurry. He crossed the narrow space like weather. He stopped in front of her and offered his hand. She put her wrist in it before he asked. The soft cloth he’d given her to brush the light-snow slipped to her lap. Lume murmured and tucked deeper, undisturbed.
He turned Emmy’s hand and studied the band. Silver-blue lines blazed through her skin as if lit from beneath. His thumb traced the outer curve. Heat rolled through her, low and deep. He lifted her hand and set the faintest pressure of his mouth against the brightest edge. The breath he drew tasted of her skin and the planet’s faint sweetness. Sound left him that was more exhale than voice.
“I was raised to believe the Valenmark would be a weapon against me and other Intergalactic Warriors,” he said. “I would resist it. Iwould bend it. Iwould never let it decide.” He raised his eyes. “But I do not want to resist you.”
She stared at his mouth as if that were the only language left. “Then don’t.”
He let her wrist go and the absence cut. He gave her more instead. He slid his hand along the underside of her forearm to the bend of her elbow and higher until his palm rested open against the side of her neck. He held her without pressure, thumb steady along her throat where her pulse beat. He didn’t pull. He didn’t push. He let her choose.
She leaned the distance of a breath.
He met her. Not with his mouth. With his forehead. He set it to hers and everything inside them tightened and then went soft. The mark flared and settled like a sigh. Light-snow drifted and gathered and slid, too gentle to interrupt heat building underskin.
“I will not take you out of fear,” he said. “I will not take you because the mark demands it or because this world sings and makes you soft. Iwill take you because you ask me.”
“I’m asking.” Her voice was low and uncertain of the hour. Need didn’t keeptime.
His mouth shaped against her temple without touching. “Not yet. Not like this. Iwill take you when you are fully awake, unafraid, and asking.”
Anger didn’t come. Hunger grew. Stronger for refusal. Cleaner. He rested there with her, the sound of her in his head, the smell of her in his lungs, the mark warm as a secret betweenthem.
He eased back and studied her face like terrain he’d cross in the dark without a map. “Sleep.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.” He took the folded thermal from the pack and shook it open. Light-snow pooled and slid away as if the cloth refused it. He nested it in a shallow bowl of smooth roots he’d cut from the clearing’s edge while she watched him work, missing nothing. He watched her too, noting every smalltell.
She lay because he told her to and because he’d made a place that felt like a promise kept. Lume padded from her lap to the hollow her body made and curled with a small sound. Tiny wings rose and fell with a soft, hypnotic pulsation until they matched Emmy’s breath.
He didn’t join her. He moved to the edge of firelight where glass-bright growth met shadow and took a stance that let him watch forest, ship, and the woman in oneline.
The planet hummed. Light drifted. His wounds were gone, but the memory of them lived in the way he kept himself balanced, ready to shift at any moment. Ready to kill for her. Ready to deny himself for her. Ready to break the law that made a prison of his lineage and laugh while itfell.
“Tell me something true,” she said to thedark.
He didn’t need to think. “If the Council takes you, Iwill go to war.”
She drew a slow breath, eyes steady in the falling light. “That sounds like a lot of bodies.”
“It is not a number that concerns me.”
He let the words stand. Light gathered on his shoulders and slid away. The Valenmark warmed against his wrist as if it recognized the vow. He crossed the few steps and went down on one knee beside her pallet, the movement quiet and deliberate. Her fingers had bunched in the edge of the thermal. He covered them with his palm, warm and steady, and set his thumb to the inside of her wrist.
Pulse met him fast and certain. The band at his wrist answered, heat building in a measured throb that matched her breath. He didn’t kiss her knuckles. Nor did he pull her to him. He let the contact speak, asilent strike laid and held. He watched the small beat at her throat, the soft parting of her mouth, and desire pulled tight and sure under hisskin.
Fear did not touch her. The line of her throat stayed smooth, her pulse sure beneath his thumb. “Tell me something else.”
Light drew a long bright line along his collarbone and into the notch at his throat. “When I first saw you, Idid not think of law. Idid not think of lineage. Ithought of the way your eyes cut to mine as if you already knew me, as if you had been waiting. Ido not believe in prophecy. Ibelieve in choice. Ichose you.”
