Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Marco: Death Between Us
We lie together on the lounge. His hand has never once stilled in my hair, drawing gentle trails with his fingertips. My own hand, reaching back over my shoulder, traces small circles at the base of his hairline, along the back of his neck.
We can’t move.
I think he knows it too.
If we move, if we break the moment, we’re trapped men, and it’s all over.
If we let the world back in, it tears us all to pieces.
It’s one week until his match. There’s a very good chance he’ll die.
And if he doesn’t… If our two names appear on the next fixture sheet, side by side, I’ll have to smash his head in with the Deathball.
I don’t know which to hope for. That he’s taken from me sooner, next week, just when he’s discovered who I am, right after we’ve shared this.
Or is it better we make it through the first stage, round after brutal round, all the way through variety season, maybe spend months together, and then I kill him.
I can’t kill him.
I have to get home.
I will kill him if I have to.
My hand flinches away of its own accord, his beautiful form suddenly like a dead thing to me.
Until he catches it, takes it to his lips, and I melt all over again.
“You should go. The sun will soon rise.”
“The sun’s hours away.”
“You need to sleep. To train tomorrow. You have work to—”
“Marco.” His fingers trailing through my hair again, gathering the frayed edges of my soul into the palm of his hand, smoothing them over. “Not yet.”
He knows. One wrong move, the illusion shatters.
His lips brush the back of my neck, then the fresh stubble of his cheek works against my jaw, spreading warmth all through me. How I crave the scent of him. I’ll remember this far too well, for far too long. I have never been held this way.
“When I get home, I’ll tell them,” I promise him, the words coming out of nowhere, surprising me in their earnestness. It’s all I can give him. “They’ll know to wait for you. Or, if you die here, I won’t let you be forgotten.”
His head turns down, a long breath gliding over my shoulder. “There is only my sister to tell.”
“She’ll be eighteen when you return home.”
His movements slow, his face turning a little closer toward me.
Of course I remember her age. She’s the same age Lucas was when I was taken. My baby brother, a thorn in my side until I had him no more. But he lives on. And he knows I didn’t choose to leave them.
I roll over to face him, meeting his gaze. “I will find her for you. And I’ll make sure she knows you’re coming. You just have to hold out. They’ll make you free one day.”
There’s a soft tremble to his eyelashes as he looks down. A silent movement of his lips, before he settles on, “I don’t know if they found her. She could be anywhere right now.”
I draw his eyes back with a hand on his cheek. “So long as my father lives, know she’s safe. He would fight to his dying breath to protect her. Her and all of Atrea.”
“Your father…” The tip of his tongue wets his beautiful lips. “I believe he would try. But I was taken, Marco. And I don’t know who else was.”
“How…” I don’t want to ask. I’m sustained by the hope he’s given me.
He said they’re alive. I want to leave that as the last word spoken about it.
As though it were a sacred vow, untouchable.
But as if I’m not even in my body, as though it speaks automatically, despite my fear, I hear the words on my lips. “How did it happen?”
His eyes widen, a touch of panic about them. And why wouldn’t it be there? No one is taken by Victora’s army without suffering.
“They came at dawn,” he says softly. “Woke us from our beds. I hid Esme—forced her to hide. She wanted to fight. I told her no. She’s so small.”
“She would have fought well,” I tell him, as certain of her Atrean blood as I am that the sun will rise. “She would have protected herself if they found her later.”
“There were so many of them. There were hundreds. There must have been.”
“Hundreds?” An ice-cold hand crawls deep into my chest, makes its home there as his eyes turn distant. “What do you mean?” A sickness rips through me, and I push myself up on one arm.
He follows the movement, a mirror to me. “There were so many. They came over the beach. And we fought. I fought as hard as I could. But they had guns. I’ve never seen so many guns.”
His voice seems to come from far away. I can barely process it over the pulsing in my ears. “You said they were safe.”
His eyes flick up to mine. “No, I didn’t. I never said that.”
“You did. You said they live.”
“I told you…” Why won’t he look at me now? “I told you I saw them alive. That I saw them alive before I was taken.”
“You didn’t tell me there were hundreds of them. Robin, that’s not a raiding trip. That’s an invasion.”
“So maybe it is,” he snaps.
My voice rises sharply. “So maybe they’d kill the governor first thing if their intention is to rule our people.”
“So maybe they won’t!” he shouts back at me.
“And—and maybe Esme’s safe. Maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn’t.
And maybe you’re in exactly the same place you were yesterday before I ever told you any of this.
Maybe you’re like me, and you’re just pushing through each hour, and hoping, hoping…
” Moisture rushes to his eyes, and his voice cracks.
“Fuck! Fuck, Marco, I don’t have any answers for you!
I’m just fucking…” I pull his head against my shoulder, letting the tears break out of him where I can’t see them, letting them slide over my arm, letting him get it out.
“I’m trapped here. I can’t do anything. I don’t know anything. ”
“We’ll get home.” That same shield protects us both, and I stroke his hair. “We’ll get home.”
He stays there for a time until he gathers himself, when he asks quietly, “What would they have done with her?” Pulling back to look at me, eyes pleading, “You know this city. These people. If they found her…”
The cruel truth is, it depends who found her. There’s every chance she was just a plaything for them, torn apart on the spot, pieces of her left for the ravens.
“She’s a precious commodity,” I tell him, a half-truth.
“A young and capable girl, healthy, not infected. One who’s strong, who can be trained, would make a good slave.
It’s the very path my own housekeeper trod, taken and enslaved at twelve.
” He searches me, assessing me. “I keep her safe. She’s like family to me.
When I go, I will buy her. If they’ll let me. I will set her free.”
Eying me steadily, “How long has she been here?”
“Twenty years.”
He turns his face away, but I catch him. “If your sister is beautiful like you, if they caught her, they would bring her to the city. She can earn them more that way. Is she…”
I don’t want to say the words. It makes me sick all over to refer to this child as ‘desirable’. But that’s why he’s here. That’s why I’m here. Decoration for their great empire.
He understands without me having to say it. He nods once.
“I will look for her. Esme is her name?”
“Esme.” He breathes it on a broken breath, his chest swelling large when he tries to shut the emotion out.
“Esme,” I repeat, burning the name into my memory. “Does she look like you?”
“Every part. My eyes and my hair. My smile. All of it.”
“Then I will recognize her.” I take his hand.
“But Robin, Atrea…” A smile cuts across my face, unsteady, a touch of madness sending a treacherous shock of hope into me.
“They’re warriors. What could defeat them?
Victora? On Atrean soil? No. Never.” I press a kiss to his lips.
“No. After you were taken… were they still fighting?”
“They were fighting till the end. Until I was knocked out.”
“Then there you have it. My father would have led them, kept them fighting. He’d never have let a hand touch your sister if she was out of the way until after the battle.
And they could never have taken him. He’s a fearsome fighter.
The bravest. My mother too. And my brother…
” A vision of the boy I left behind. “He must have grown into a strong man.”
“He did,” Robin says softly. “Tall and strong. Just like you.”
The words fill me with more warmth than I’ve felt in so long.
I blink back the pain in my eyes. “Then there you have it. I’ll look for her, but don’t be surprised or let down when I can’t find any trace of her.
Take heart.” I kiss him once again. “All you need to do is fight and survive, and you will find your way home to her. If I get there first, I’ll keep her safe until you do. I swear it to you.”
His hand strokes slowly down my cheek, thumb running over my cheekbone, and the way he looks at me… I wonder if that’s the way I look at him. Like he’s a mirage about to slip from me before I can close my hand around him. Like this is all too fleeting and too fragile… and too good to be true.
“You’ll stay with me,” I tell him. “You’ll sleep in my bed. I’ll have them return you before the sun rises.”
Robin’s movements halt. He blinks, taking so long to react that my stomach curls in on itself.
“Sleep here?” he finally breathes out. “With you?”
With me.
In my bed.
‘Remember this moment the next time your emperor is fucking you.’
My hand shoots out, grasping my discarded, crushed robe. My words follow, as sharp as my actions. “It’s sleep. You have to train well between now and the match or you’ll die. Do you want to get back to Atrea or not?”
“Marco…”
I hate the tone of his voice, like he can see the mark he’s stabbed into me. Like he’d stick his finger in it.
“I can have the guards take you now if you’d prefer. It just seemed safer at dawn, when you can explain why you’re awake and walking around the dungeon if someone catches you returning.”