Chapter 9
NINE
KAI
“Kai?”
The voice scares the shit out of me, and I drop my wrench. “Jesus.”
I guess that’s what happens when nobody else seems to want to come to the salle anymore. You get too used to the silence.
“Just me.” Gwenna, looking apologetic, steps out from the stairwell. She frowns. “Where are you?”
“Here.” I step out more definitively from the side alcove where I’ve been fitting and soldering and assembling since before sunrise, ducking to pick up the wrench as I do. I wave. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she echoes. She’s in a T-shirt, I notice.
V-neck. Which is unusual not just because it’s this polar vortex of a spring day, but because it doesn’t cover her up.
And yes, I probably just notice because I’m probably always going to notice an outfit that shows off Gwenna’s tits, but also notice what else it reveals.
The little white marks of that scar on her chest.
“Hey,” I say again, twirling the wrench just to give my hands something to do. “Can I help you? Need a weapon assembled or something?”
Gwenna shakes her head. “No. I actually wondered if I could to talk to you about, um, them. The White Brothers.”
“Talk to me?” I say. “Don’t you mean Kingston?”
“I thought you were in charge of that now.”
In charge. I don’t know about in charge. Of that, or of anything.
“You wrote to them, right?” Gwenna asks.
I nod.
“So you were the one who told them about me.”
I pause. Shake my head.
Something in her face shifts. “Okay. So…it was Kingston, then?”
I shake my head again.
Gwenna frowns. “What?”
“They haven’t been told,” I explain.
She folds her arms. “Why?”
I have no reason not to tell her the truth. “Because I don’t think we should.”
It was one thing when this was just some quest for a thing.
The White Brothers are weird, don’t get me wrong.
The way they live, the way they train, all the sleep deprivation and bread-and-water and hairshirt shit they put us through as oblates—it’s the far tip of fringe Catholicism.
But the mission of it all, the greater good they said we could achieve, that only we could achieve—it got me.
Got me enough to commit, even though my back was admittedly to a wall given the years of room and board and coaching I’d gotten from Daddy Pendragon.
But now it’s different. Now that we know it’s a person, now that we know it’s this person, this girl in front of me…I don’t want those blank-faced fucks to have anything to do with her.
“I’m confused,” Gwenna says. “I thought that was what you were sworn to do.”
“Yeah, well, we were sworn to do a lot of things,” I point out. “Or not do them. And look at us now.”
Her cheeks flush a tiny bit. Did I cross a line there?
“Point is,” I finish quickly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“And it’s your call?”
Now my face feels hot. I still have the key to Luther’s office—around my neck, actually. Kingston hasn’t asked for it back.
And if he does, I’ll fight him for it.
“It’s the right call,” I say out loud. “Whether the others realize or not.”
Gwenna stands, studying me. Not speaking. And that makes me antsy.
“That all you needed?” I step back to the weaponry, grab the epee I was working on, and jab the wrench back into place.
“Jeez.” When I look up, Gwenna’s eyes are wide. “Sorry for the imposition, Kai.”
Shit. “No, Gwenna, wait. I…”
I haven’t spent more than like five minutes with you in weeks.
“Stay,” I say. “Hang out.” I shrug. “We’ll catch up. What've you been up to?"
Gwenna pauses, like she’s considering whether or not I’m full of shit. But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she steps closer, her boots echoing in the empty expanse of the salle.
“Today?” She shrugs. “Just hanging with Morgan. She says hi, by the way.”
“Pfft. Liar.” Morgan wouldn’t say hi to the corpse at my funeral. Just because I have the nerve to point out that magic is, in fact, dangerous shit to play around with.
I look back at the epee, flick the wrench around another time.
“What are you doing?” Gwenna asks.
Now it’s overtight. Damn. I winch it back a little, test, and drop the blade.
“Oh, you know,” I say airily. “Trying this new thing where I actively work on solving my problems instead of just sulking about them.” I push off my thighs and rise to stand. “Or picking fights.”
I glance over in time to see Gwenna’s eyes narrow. “How’s that going for you?”
I shrug. “Too soon to tell. But hey, at least we’ve got a lot of weapons assembled.” I give a little showman’s sweep of the arm at the half-populated rack behind me.
“Nice.” Gwenna nods approval. “You did all that today?”
“Yeah.” I kick at the edge of the piste line, a stupid little spark of pride in my chest. “Got up early.”
“Impressive.”
“Eh.” I shrug. “I’ve always been good with weapon maintenance. Kinda—”
“I meant the getting up early part,” she interrupts, eyes flashing. “Didn’t think you were the type.”
Fuck. Kingston’s words from the other day are pounding in my head—and although I usually loathe when he’s in my head, I can’t deny that this time he’s kind of right.
I need to apologize.
“Listen, Gwenna?” I inhale sharply through my nose, screwing up my mouth. God, this is hard. It’s like fighting left-handed; I have the muscle memory all backwards.
“About the other day. What I said—I’m sorry. About how you guys were…” I wince, look at the ceiling, and hope I don’t have to repeat what I said verbatim for this to all count. “That was…that was really out of line.” I exhale at last. “I’m sorry.”
When she doesn’t react in the split second that follows, I rush onward.
“I was just trying to dig at King, you know, and he’s—you know how he is. I mean, obviously, you do, if you two are—but I didn’t mean that if you are, then that’s, it’s…”
What the fuck am I talking about?
“…it’s not something I need to comment on,” I finish. “What you’re doing.”
Even if I can’t help but notice what you’re doing,I think.
Because I miss her. Sorry not sorry, but I do.
“Oh,” Gwenna says. “Of course.”
There’s an eternity of a pause. Then:
“Apology accepted,” she says.
Jesus. The relief is narcotic. “Great. I’m—”
“But I wasn’t offended, for the record.” She runs a finger around the edge of a bell guard, not meeting my eyes. “You weren’t wrong.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well, okay. Sure. But—” I need this to be clear to her, need to make this clear. “You know I don’t think you’re that kind of girl, though, right?”
“That kind of girl,” she repeats. Each word heavy. Now she meets my eyes.
Oh, no.
“What kind of girl?” she asks. Suddenly light and innocent.
Oh, no. Fuck. This is a trap.
“The kind of girl that has sex, I’m assuming,” Gwenna goes on, jumping her fingers to the next sword in line. “Because if a girl likes sex, that’s a bad thing?” She takes a step towards me, like she’s trying to corner me.
“No,” I say quickly. “No, no, no.” Quite the opposite, I think. It’s a good thing. The ideal thing. A dream come true.
Especially if said girl is you.
“Good,” she says. “I’d hate to be a problem.”
When did she get her fingers in my belt loops?
My back hits the wall.
“Gwenna…”
She pulls me to her by the hips and kisses me. Hard. Rough. With tongue.
And surprisingly fast. Because next thing I know, Gwenna drops to her knees.
“Whoa,” I say. “Whoa, whoa—hey!”
We’re not not alone, but the salle is huge, huge and echoey, and I am not…
She looks up. And damn, but that’s a nice angle.
One I haven’t seen her from before.
I swallow.
“C’mere,” I say, softer, extending my hand. “Get up.”
“Why?”
“Just…come on.” I offer my hand again. “You don’t have to.”
Her eyes narrow again. Her lips all scrunched. Pouting? “I know I don’t have to.”
She fingers my fly.
Christ. I clamp my fingers over my mouth, adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream as I watch her undo the button, tug down the zipper.
Because a sexually liberated Gwenna Vale is not something I’m prepared to handle.
Not something I really deserve.
“Hey,” I say—shout, as she’s pushing down the waist of my jeans. “Hey!”
Now she pulls back. “You want me to stop?” Her tone is serious now—like she’ll call it off.
No, I think. No, no, of course I don’t.
I shake my head. “Not—it’s not that. It’s just—”
“Oh.” Her eyes flash. “It’s just that you’ll lose all respect for me if I do this.”
Goddammit. I vigorously shake my head, swiping an arm through the air for good measure. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Then?” She runs a fingertip down my hip. Towards my inner thigh. “What?”
I have lost the faculty of speech. “Um…”
You can’t want to do this, Gwenna.
Not for me.
That’s what.
“Kai.” Her voice goes soft. Dangerous. And just a little too curious. “When was the last time someone did something nice for you?”
“Uh.” You want me to round up to the nearest decade? I think. I have no idea. Not recently. I hedge. “I mean, I’m here, aren’t I? Fancy shit, fancy life.”
“Not like that.” There’s a tiny edge of exasperation in her voice now. And god damn, those eyes of hers. “Not with strings attached. Just…you know. Because.”
She lifts up on her knees just enough to kiss the edge of my hip.
Fuck.
“I can’t…” I manage aloud. Can’t what? Can’t remember? Can’t do this?
It doesn’t matter. Because even as I’m saying it, my fingers are tightening in her hair, dragging her into me with one hand as I shove all the stupid denim and cotton to my knees with the other.
I feel the hot, wet little presses of her mouth down my hip, feel the tips of her long fingers pull out my cock, feel her thumb brush just under the head—fuck—and then stop.
I look down, to where Gwenna’s blinking. Once, twice.
Oh. My…jewelry. Guess she never got a close look before. Well, no time like the present.
“You like?” I tilt a smile down at her.
She rolls her eyes. Doesn’t let go of my cock, though. And she then smiles.
“Let me see…”
Eyes closed, she runs her tongue over the little rungs of metal, inch by agonizing inch.