Beyond the Shadows (19 page)

“Maxen, the leader of the Circle on Gansai, got some interesting information about Azralen’s political situation out of his
guests
. Don’t worry, Yara. Your planet hasn’t fallen apart yet.” He chuckled. She wasn’t sure she understood the joke so she huffed at him.

“Oriana’s pretty diverse. I’ve met a couple of Lilkia-Orianalen, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a Touscari-Orianalen.” Yara shivered. The deep feeling of cold seemed to clench around her ribs and hold her in a terrible grip. She had never been so sick or wounded in her life. It shocked and frightened her. She didn’t know what to do to feel better.

Cyrus strolled to the far side of the room and lifted a thick blanket off a rack of reedy sticks tied together with twine. He carried it back to her bed, carefully inspected the outside of the net, then unzipped a long seam and stepped within it before closing it behind him.

Yara scooted backward on the bed, feeling very vulnerable. The world closed in around her until it was just her, him, and the soft bed between them.

He spread out the blanket and tucked it in around her feet. The secure pressure of the blanket helped infuse her body with warmth. She clung to the edge of it as he reached for the seam to let himself out.

“Wait.”

He paused and looked down at her. His eyes still shone bright green. A shiver ran down her spine and a different kind of warmth spread into a sweet throb.

“I don’t want to be in here by myself. I feel like I’m in a cage.”

He smiled and sat at the foot of the bed. “In that case, I should’ve grabbed my guitar, too.”

“The instrument you were playing?”

“Yeah, I needed something to pass the time. I’m always surprised by what I find in the marketplace here.” He lifted one shoulder in a lazy sort of shrug. Yara felt her skin warm.

“You play beautifully. I’ve never heard anything like it. How long did it take you to learn?”

“I learned on Earth when I was young.” He shifted, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. The gauzy, white walls of their tiny room seemed to press in. She felt it, too, the growing sense that they were too close, too confined for comfort. She just couldn’t bear to be alone in her pure white cage.

“And you’re already a master,” she teased.

The skin at the edges of his jewel-like eyes crinkled slightly as he chuckled. She was glad he’d kept the green contacts. They fit him. “I like a challenge.”

“The music suits you,” she offered. “It’s very passionate.” As soon as she said the word she felt her face flush hot. Instinctively she grasped the sheet and pulled it higher on her chest to shield herself from his amused smile.

“I relate to it.” Again he half shrugged, letting her off the hook.

“You saved my life,” she mumbled. “I guess I should thank you.”

“Yeah.” He smoothed the blanket near her hip. The gentle tug of the fabric on her skin sent a shiver of pleasure down the backs of her legs. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. With the still silence and the protective shelter of the clean white cloth all around her, she couldn’t shake the images of the slaves out of her head. Their eyes, she couldn’t erase them from her thoughts. They chilled her. “I can’t stop thinking.”

“I know how that feels.” Cyrus reached for her hand, and gently lifted it. With skillful hands, he massaged her palm, then stroked her fingers. The tender touch brought all her focus to him, and the horrors she’d witnessed receded into her mind, while something else came to the forefront.

“Why are you still wearing your contacts?” She had to stop thinking about him. Every time she looked into those green eyes, she remembered how it felt to have her body exposed to him. She trusted him. He took that trust and saved her life.

“What?” A strange expression flashed across his face.

“Your eyes are still green. Why are you wearing the contacts that made you look Ankarlen?”

He seemed confused, like he was searching for an answer.

“You said you liked them,” he murmured, then stroked the back of her hand again.

She felt a soft melting somewhere deep in her chest.

“Will you be able to get your ship back?” her voice sounded deeper, husky. She tried to clear her throat, but couldn’t.

“No.” He looked out the window for a moment, his expression unreadable.

“Why not? Aren’t the pirates going to arrest that Kronalen mudsucker?”

“They’ll execute him.”

Yara felt like his words punched her in the chest. She shuddered as she thought about the stark terror the slaver had inflicted on her. He deserved to die, but Cyrus’s certainty felt so hard, so final. “So what happens to your ship?”

“Since it’s the property of a pirate criminal, as soon as he’s dead, it will become salvage for the Circle. Those in rotation will bid on it.”

Yara remained silent for a long time.

She didn’t invoke her own bloodline often, but nothing else seemed to fit. “I’m sorry,” she finally admitted.

He squeezed her hand. He couldn’t just brush this off as nothing.

“It was your home.” She thought about the quilts, the broken-in warmth and comfort there.

“I sent Bug with Xan to help strip the ship of my things. I’m not sorry, Yara. It’s just a ship. I’m just thankful you survived.” He reached up and brushed his fingertips over the sensitive skin of her cheek. She turned toward his touch as if pulled to it. Her eyes drifted closed for a moment and she sighed.

“It wasn’t just a ship. It was more than that.” She pulled her face away from his touch and leaned back on the pillow. It reminded her of her one treasured childhood possession—the gift from a friend she wasn’t allowed to keep. “I should know. I haven’t exactly had a home.”

“What about Azra?”

She looked him in the eye. With his eyes green, his whole face seemed more Azralen to her. “Azra isn’t a place to me, it’s a purpose.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” he admitted.

“I look back on my time on Azra, and my only memories are of instruction. Someone was always there to tell me what to do, where to go, what to be.” She shivered. “No laughter. No—I don’t know. I don’t even know.”

He placed a hand on her knee. “Home is more than a place.”

Damn it, she knew that. That was the point. She had a place. She didn’t have anything else.

“You must feel very lost.” No,
she
felt lost. The truth hit her hard. In one week, his ship had been more of a home to her than she had ever had. Now it was gone.

“I don’t get lost easily.” He smiled at her, but it didn’t seem to lighten her mood. She stared at the light pouring in through the open window.

“I’m lost,” she whispered. She felt as if everything that was certain in her life had been turned upside down.

In the dark moments on the Kronalen ship, she had gone from a woman of comfort and security to an object, a thing, hopeless and scratching for any means of survival. Before this journey, she had been so certain of who she was. After all, she’d been told who she was, what she should be, from the time she was a small child. But on that Kronalen ship, she felt like she had been honest with herself for the first time in her life. Naked and tied in the dark, helpless, she discovered the depth of her strength. She had trusted another with her life and her body.

She blinked at him, her eyes stinging.

“I’m sorry for what happened on the Kronalen ship,” Cyrus admitted, as if the incident had been playing through his thoughts as well. “I had no choice.”

“Don’t apologize. Please.” By Ona, she didn’t want to hear his regrets.

“You were . . . I shouldn’t have touched . . .” He paused as his jaw tightened. “I shouldn’t have felt . . .”

He shouldn’t have felt what? Desire?
Shakt!
She was the one who shouldn’t have felt like her whole body burned for him. She had no control, she had put her trust in him, and he had woken something in her.

“I’m a hypocrite,” she admitted.

His burning gaze met hers.

He shouldn’t feel like he compromised anything. She compromised her own beliefs long ago trying to find something she could cling to as her own.

“No, you’re not,” Cyrus stated with a conviction she couldn’t feel.

“Yes, I am.” She tried to keep her voice from cracking as she crossed her arms over the blanket. “I’m no saint for the temple. I took my vows for granted.”

She looked at him, searching for his understanding. She didn’t want to state the depth of her recklessness out loud. It hurt her. But he didn’t say anything. He just waited.

“I took my body for granted.” She couldn’t look at him. Instead she stared at her knees. “I’m no virgin.”

“You think I am?” Even though his eyes were green, they still looked dark, hidden beneath the thick fringe of his lashes.

Her mouth went dry.

She huffed at him. “I’m trying to be serious. You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.”

“I’ve done plenty to be sorry for,” he countered.

She touched her hand to the center of her chest. It felt so hollow, it hurt. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to make my family proud, the Elite proud, and it’s all so empty. I feel nothing.”

“You feel guilty.” His words came out as a statement, but not an accusation. He just watched her, patient and still.

She did feel guilty, guilty and vulnerable. It was so hard to admit she had failed herself. “I was only three years into the training in that stupid time when nothing could touch me and I was so reckless. A group of the other girls in training became obsessed with the old ritual of the Alkar and arranged a mock-up of it for us. I didn’t know his name, it didn’t matter. He was just a submissive thing in a girl’s twisted game. He wasn’t allowed to move, just lay there, willing, beneath us.”

Cyrus’s mouth pinched into a tight line. She shouldn’t have told him.

“So you used him.”

Yara’s eyes stung. “And I hated it.” She looked away from him. “I hated it.”

His fingers touched her chin. With gentle pressure, he lifted her face.

“We all do things we regret,” he admitted.

“I just want to be true to my blood. I want to be worthy of it.” She leaned forward and drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. He let his hand drift to her knee, and then his palm slid down the length of her shin.

Even through the thick blanket, she could feel the burn of his touch.

“Be fair, be wise, help the innocent, and you will honor your blood.” He leaned closer to her, tilting his head so he could look her in the eye. “Forget the Elite and their rules. Whether or not you’re a virgin doesn’t change the fact that you are an intelligent, strong, and
just
woman.”

Why did he always have to be right?

Her heart thundered in her chest as she slowly leaned forward. She felt a dizzy rush, heard the roar of blood in her ears as she held her breath and closed the distance between them.

She let her eyes drift shut, and in the dark, alone with herself and her terrible longing, she waited.

Finally, the warm brush of his lips met hers. So soft, she didn’t think it would be so soft. How could something so soft make her feel so much.

She caressed his lips with hers, then exhaled, shaking as she blinked. She couldn’t focus.

He brought his hand to her cheek, gently holding her face as his warm lips pressed against her forehead.

Then he stood and exited the net, leaving her alone with her torturous thoughts.

 

Cyn rubbed the back of his neck as he paced outside of her room. He could still taste the warm skin of her lips.

He’d always be able to taste her now.

How had he forgotten to replace his contacts? They were second nature. When did he have the opportunity? The only thing he had thought about for the last two and a half days was whether or not Yara would survive.

He’d have to be careful with his bracers. If he let those slip, there really would be no hiding from her.

He ignored a nagging feeling somewhere near his heart. Hiding was becoming a very tedious exercise. If she found out who he really was, she’d kill him without question.

He thought about all the things she had revealed to him. She was no cold and hardened Elite warrior. She was a real woman, with a real human heart, capable of empathy, capable of mercy.

What would Azra be like with her on the throne?

“I’m such an idiot,” he grumbled to himself. He couldn’t even let himself think such things. His course was set.

“I’m not going to argue that.”

Cyn lifted his head as Tola stepped up next to him. He wore the light-colored, loose-woven clothing of a master healer on duty for the Sanctuary. Tola’s talent level was rare among his people. While they could all heal to a certain extent, Tola had a reputation for being able to correct extremely complex disorders of the blood, including genetic disorders and cancer. He hardly seemed like the hardened soldier Cyn knew lurked inside the man. Only his short hair revealed his position with the Union.

“When do you head back to your assignment?” Cyn asked. He hoped Tola remained around long enough for Yara to get back on her feet. He didn’t want to negotiate with another healer, and to be honest, he didn’t want anyone but the best working on her.

Tola shrugged. “I have another month.” The lazy ease of his expression didn’t quite reach his hawklike eyes.

“So you’re taking a working vacation?” He hoped Tola hadn’t just been called to the Sanctuary for Yara’s emergency.

“When you have nine siblings, you do what you can to support the family when you’re home.” He smiled, then his expression cooled once more to his standard piercing seriousness. “How is she?”