Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
The next morning, I’m on mushroom duty not far from our camp, listening to music only I can hear through the bean in my ear. That’s probably not very wise, and Mace would lecture me if he knew about it, something about being aware of my surroundings and all that.
But I really need a nice song today. It’s a distraction from the uneasy excitement I have been feeling about my magic, and the fact that information about it is somehow hidden in those external blocks.
I’m probably clutching at straws, but with the training and trying to keep up with Team Gold, I’ve stopped feeling so worthless.
I’m also afraid that, once we go back to The Citadel, I might go back to being no more than an underperforming Healer in that Quarter.
I’ve been learning to hope again, but it’s the hope that kills you, right?
I bend down to pick a scattering of non-poisonous-looking mushrooms and stuff them into the sack I’m carrying, then change the song to a more cheerful one, to dispel the constant worrying. And it works. My hips start moving and I throw my hands about, hopping in half-twirls from spot to spot.
The woods stretch around me. I’m immersed in this endlessly open landscape, untouched by humans.
And I have a painful feeling in my chest, as if it were cracking, because this world is so much larger than the walls of The Citadel I’ve been confined to for twenty-one years, where there have been few ways to see the world that stretches beyond, except the handful of movies we watch when Engineers hack into the systems of other kingdoms.
Central Command might tell us that The Citadel is the only place where we’re safe, but right now, it feels more like a cage than anything else.
But I got out of that cage, didn’t I?
So why not go all the way? I put down the sack, and change the song again to one I’m obsessed with and go full-on.
I deserve a moment for myself after days and days of hiking and training and sleeping in the wild.
I turn up the volume and really start dancing.
Shaking my bottom, dropping to my knees and back up again, because nobody is watching.
I throw my arms in the air, twirling them, giving in to the music, letting it fill me with happiness, letting the beats course through me, weaving the fabric of this day into something bright and cheerful.
But when I open my eyes again, drunk on the music, Mace is standing a few feet in front of me, his arms folded in front of his chest.
He looks like he’s trying hard to suppress a smile.
‘What are you doing?’ he says, and I can’t help but laugh because there’s no way I can hide what I was doing.
‘Gathering mushrooms,’ I say, panting, because I’ve been jumping around for minutes. He raises an eyebrow and I add, ‘Alternatively, I’m still at the Commanders’ Ball and no one has sent me away on a stupid mission, and I can dance as much as I want.’
He tssks. ‘But you’re not wearing your pretty shoes.’
‘Someone ruined them for me. Like someone ruined the night of the Ball for me.’
‘I hope you’re not suggesting that I had anything to do with that,’ he says.
‘Oh, no. You’ve made it abundantly clear you never wanted me on this mission.’
He scowls at this, though I only meant it as a joke.
‘Enough with the scowling,’ I say, and grin at him. ‘How about you try dancing, too?’
‘Fine.’ Mace starts moving his hands in a mirror image of my own, bouncing on his toes.
‘Copying me, huh?’ I decide to take up the challenge and do the most extravagant arm moves I can think of, waving them around, to the side, covering and uncovering my face. Mace tries to keep up with every single one of them. He looks ridiculous.
Within seconds, I’m nearly bent double with laughter, and so is he, his eyes full of mischief, the corners of his mouth tipped up in a bright smile. For once, he looks happy, that scowl vanishing. And I can’t stop staring at him, transfixed, because I like this version of him best.
‘What’s wrong?’ he says, a touch uncertain.
‘Nothing,’ I say, because if anything, things are being set right again.
Mace steps up closer and now we’re standing toe to toe. I look up. Sunlight slices through the trees and caresses the side of his face. His light brown stubble catches the light in golden reflections.
He lifts his hand and brushes behind my ear a rebel strand of hair that’s somehow managed to escape my ponytail.
The world around me seems to pause, and it’s just us, my increasingly quick breaths and the touch of his hand as he slides his fingers down my jaw and stops at my chin to lift it towards him.
‘You’re something else, Ellie,’ he says, and it’s too much. I take a step back. That silly song is still blaring in my ears, but it doesn’t sound right anymore.
‘Wait,’ he says, and goes on to pull his ART out of the back pocket of his trousers and taps something on it.
The music in my ear changes – same song but to a different rhythm.
A slower remix. And I start paying attention to the lyrics.
The song I’ve been enjoying so much is very sad, actually.
It’s about two lovers who meet after years, staring at each other from opposite corners of a crowded room, unable to cross the distance.
The moment I understand is electric. All the buried pain of our forced parting, all the hurt, the years of living from memories.
I realise what the song is about: a Warrior and an Engineer who loved each other and were then torn apart by The Citadel.
A cautionary tale for anyone who commits the mistake of falling in love too deeply with the wrong person.
A world of yearning and heartache waiting to happen.
How could I have let myself be blinded by a few cheery beats and miss the heart of this song?
It feels like a metaphor for so many things in my life.
But didn’t I prefer to look away from the darkness lurking beneath, and just focus on the brightness in life?
Isn’t this how I decided to live? By ignoring the rotten things I couldn’t change?
I take a step back, but Mace stretches out his hand. Like a bridge between us.
‘Will you dance with me?’ he says.
There’s only heartache waiting that way, but I nod, that dreaming core of mine flaring into life, trying to chase the shadows away.
And then he pulls me into the heat of his solid body, and that hollow pit moves further away from me.
He turns me gently around, my back to his front, his hand settling on my waist.
‘Do you know what this is, Ellie?’ he whispers in my ear, and I shiver, because this is bliss: the heat of his body, the scrape of his stubble against the shell of my ear, his warm breath on my skin.
This is Mace and he’s real, and when he’s with me, everything else falls away.
We could be in a crowded ballroom or in the middle of the woods, and it would still feel the same.
His hand slips underneath the hem of my shirt – that ridiculous one with the zip at the front – callused fingers sliding on my heated skin, burrowing their way upwards.
A choked gasp is the only answer I give, and Mace says, ‘This is the song that was playing when I laid eyes on you at the Commanders’ Ball.’ Small shivers travel down my spine. I hadn’t paid attention to the music. I’d just been staring at Mace.
‘Just before the alarms started blaring,’ he says, his hand sliding upwards, caressing my ribs. I arch back into him, unable to stop myself. ‘I— I’ll never forget that moment, Ellie. When I caught you after your spin and then realised who you were.’
‘I wasn’t sure when you realised who I was.’
He licks at the shell of my ear and goosebumps explode on my skin. ‘Safe to say it was when I pinned you to the floor.’
A breathy laugh escapes my lips.
His hand slides even higher, cupping my breast through my thin sports bra, a finger toying with my nipple.
I grip his thigh, squeezing hard. Things are so different now.
This heat is clouding my mind, preventing me from stringing together a single coherent thought, let alone speak.
I’ve thought about Mace often – but I never imagined this.
‘Let’s pretend, Ellie. Let’s pretend the song didn’t get ruined, and we weren’t sent on a mission.’
I know what this is about: it’s because Stella confirmed there was no Pairing Link between me and Allen, but if this was what it took to put his mind at ease…
I don’t regret asking Stella to set things straight.
My hand slips higher, towards his crotch, the hardness digging in my back.
‘Dance with me, Ellie,’ he says. ‘You always loved dancing.’
I move my hips in tune with his, and with the music.
Mace strokes his hand down my throat, carving down a path, until his fingers stop on the zip of my ridiculous shirt.
He begins pulling it down slowly, revealing the top of my breasts and the stretchy, vibrant-blue sports bra underneath.
I assume he’s waiting to see if I’m going to protest, or move away, but I grind my backside harder into his crotch while we both watch the slow progress of his fingers and the zip coming down.
It unlatches all the way with a small pop and Mace groans.
‘Fuck. I’ve been meaning to do this ever since I saw you wearing this insane top,’ he murmurs. He slips his hand inside my bra, kneading my breast gently, and I arch instinctively into him.
‘Did you, now?’ I say. ‘It surely sounded like you were trying to bite my head off for wearing it. I think the exact terms were “cosplaying a Warrior—”’ I break off because Mace has bent down and is scraping his teeth down the side of my neck, and my memory is hazy.
He places a soft kiss where my neck meets my shoulder and says, ‘Of course I tried to bite your head off. I couldn’t focus, and I had to. This mission is important to me.’ To quiet him about his precious mission, I dig my hips backwards, rubbing myself against him.
He groans again in my ear, still toying with my breasts, and I throw my arm behind and around his neck, to pull him closer.
I turn my head to the side, and we kiss over my shoulder, and it’s soft and tentative and sweet.
When he pulls slightly back, his eyes are glazed with lust. ‘Is this the only way you can be real with me?’ I say.
‘Does this seem real to you, Ellie?’ he says, rolling my nipple between his finger and thumb. ‘This feels more like one of my fantasies.’
I laugh, because it’s a real-life fantasy.
It feels skin-hot and warm around my heart, and like the scrape of his stubble, the silk of his hair between my fingers.
Every sensation is enhanced ten times, and I have more clarity than ever.
It feels like meeting each other halfway and becoming more than I could ever imagine.
It feels like madness.
‘Do you want to hear something real?’ Mace says.
I half-turn, burying my nose in his neck. He smells delicious. Like a warm, banked fire and the freedom of the woods. ‘Yes.’
‘I half-suspected that Command put you on our team to distract me.’
I’m blinking, trying to make his words make sense, but Mace turns me around, unzipped top and all. He’s barely touching me now, and I’m blazing under the weight of his stare. I can almost read into his eyes what he would do, and it’s endlessly frustrating that he’s holding still.
‘We need to get moving.’ Xandra’s voice feels like a blade in my back.
Mace pulls me to his chest, and I hurry to zip up my top. When I turn around, Xandra is standing a few steps behind us, her eyes sparkling with fury.
‘What’s the problem?’ Mace asks.
‘While you were fooling around,’ Xandra says, ‘Stella cut us the overview of the Disputed Lands. We can still see the landmarks on the map, but not if something or someone is moving towards us.’
‘Oh,’ I say, goosebumps peppering my skin. This is undoubtedly bad. It was reassuring to know that, if there was a threat, we could have seen it coming.
‘We can only see moving targets within a range of about twenty feet or so. That’s only as far as the sensors on our ARTs can assess,’ Xandra says. ‘As for anything else, we can’t see a thing.’
‘Shit,’ I say.
‘Yep. You can say that again.’
Maces stiffens and steps away from me.