“Let me go. He’s going to kill me.”
“No, he’s not,” Roarke says.
Killian grabs a handful of mud and tosses it at Seth, not chasing me, not even paying any attention to me, as he grabs another and takes aim again.
“Vexy,” Seth calls, ducking and dodging. “What did you do that for!”
Seth rolls, springs to his feet, and tackles Killian in return.
Roarke hooks a finger against my chin and turns my face. “What happened back there?”
I stop trying to watch the other two, following the distressed tones of Roarke’s voice.
“Back where?”
“With Rose.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean to, you know. I just wanted to take care of it, but you guys –”
“Don’t worry about us. I’m worried about you.”
“Me? I’m fine.” Getting four exact same versions of the interrogate-Shade song, played back to back, is pushing my patience.
I’m pretty sure we covered everything in the trees, except Roarke wasn’t in the trees.
“Rose is Elite,” he says.
I nod.
“She kissed you.”
“No, I kissed her. Barely. I leaned forward, and she toppled back – that’s almost exactly how it happened.”
“Her eyes turned red, and she kissed you back.”
“What are you talking about?” I demand.
“Rose is a BloodSeed. Technically, I guess, her eyes could turn red just from brushing against strong power, but you have the equivalent power to a mortal – so my guess is her eyes turned red from desire.”
I sure didn’t see red eyes – and I would remember something like that. But I had my lids closed. I felt with my feet until they settled securely onto Rose’s hips then I propelled off of her. Somewhere in mid-air I kind of freaked out and realized that having my eyes open was necessary for figuring out where the ground was, but by then Killian had caught me, and Rose was already on the ground.
That’s all that happened, but as I think that I run my tongue over my lips.
Honestly, Rose tasted good.
Roarke nods, like my silence has finalized something. I can’t even remember what we were arguing about – exactly. Aside from Rose’s eyes, which may or may not have turned red.
“And just now?” Roarke asks, his tone softer.
“Now?” I press. Maybe I need to explain that this whole conversation has lost me.
“When I approached.”
My cheeks warm, and I straighten away from him. “You know you’re hot – right?”
He chuckles a little weakly. “Not on my own, I’m not. You can’t go hunting out my power like that. I have to keep a tight grip on myself – and so do you.”
I ignore everything but the first six words. “What the chuck are you talking about?”
“You have to stop yourself from pulling at my power.” As he talks, he reaches out and brushes a stray strand of fringe from my forehead. “We’re in this delicate dance, you and I. You can use a little power for a little while, but any more or any longer than that, and you start to hurt yourself.”
I swat his hand away.
“No, that other bit. Say that other bit again.” He’s just frowning at me so I add, “The bit about you not being hot.”
“Sabers are our Seeds. If I’d been born a FaunaSeed, you would never react to me that way.”
Yep, exactly what I thought he’d said. So I do what comes naturally. Mostly thanks to Killian.
I knee him in the balls.
And he drops like a rock.
“I know you’re hot, and I know what your power feels like, and I’d still think you were hot even if you were mortal. So don’t try to tell me your power is controlling the way I feel, or your damn power better get to controlling my knees too.”
I turn to march away. Five whole steps.
Then my foot connects with an invisible wall, and chuck it hurts.
By the time I stop jumping around and holding my throbbing toes like an idiot, he’s on his feet and catching up to me. Sabers, even their balls are stronger than I am.
“Count them,” he orders, moving in close behind me.
So I obey. “One, two, three, four, five.”
Everything, his sharp movements, his lips pressed thin, the way his jaw is clenched so tight teeth could break at any minute, it all looks like anger. But it feels like fear. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know!”
He opens his mouth to ask another question, but pauses just before the sounds come out – thinking. “Did you count them after you slept?”
I shake my head.
“Have you counted them at all today?”
Another shake.
“Have you had any pain today?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Any pain that feels similar to using one of our powers?”
“I don’t think so,” I say, but only because there is no good non-verbal way of responding to that.
“It has to be sleep,” he murmurs.
“But why all of a sudden? I mean, I’ve slept every night since the bubble but it’s only been shrinking recently.”
“I don’t know,” he admits, grabbing his hair and yanking it back into a band.
But, rather naturally, I dive at him and snatch it.
“Thank you,” I say, moving back so I can tie my own hair up and hopefully keep out of his reach. “And don’t argue with me. This is probably my band anyway, and if I can’t put my hair up, I’m going to cut it off.”
“You can’t,” he almost gasps.
“If it would mean not having to deal with this mess,” I taunt, waving a hand through the end of my ponytail to highlight my issue.
He pulls another band out of his pocket and restrains his hair – okay, so that might be my band, not sure.
Then he walks past me saying, “Come on.”
I turn to follow him because if I don’t the other side of the bubble will hit me. I hadn’t even noticed the constant clang and thump of Killian and Seth starting to beat the shit out of each other.
I’d seen these guys in a tournament once, and their training is just as
