Chapter 23 #4
Xandra takes a place on the side, leaning over the edge, her palms facing downwards. ‘Here we go,’ she says.
‘Allen, hold on to Xandra, so she doesn’t fall over the edge,’ Mace barks.
Allen moves towards Xandra, but Julian elbows him aside and holds her by the waist. She sighs.
‘I’m really interested in the composition of your shield,’ Allen says, knocking on the inside of my dome. ‘I’ll have to think of a way to study its structure.’
I chuckle.
Xandra’s eyebrows knit, and a glow of red power leaves her hands, towards the ground. The dome tilts and sways, but Mace and Julian hold on tight to us girls, and we begin to float.
‘Nice and steady,’ Xandra says, her features pinching. We gain height unevenly, and slowly, and her entire body is shaking with the effort.
I’m reluctantly impressed.
‘Just hold the shield up,’ she says, as if I needed to be reminded that the broken pieces of the mattress that remain on the floor will hardly keep us from getting hurt, if I drop us.
I huff.
Her gaze meets mine, and a corner of her mouth tips up.
I smile back.
And, for one moment, I almost believe that I belong.
We make our way towards the campsite we chose for the night, in another patch of woods. We’ll have to be more careful than we usually are, since we’re so close to the borders of the Kingdom of Piken.
What we just found out about the past of our Citadel is weighing hard on all of us. Franka was murdered – and Central Command can be challenged, as a whole. This changes so much for Top Team, that I’m not even sure I want to think about it.
And the mission will soon be drawing to a close.
I shiver, rubbing my arms, after setting up my tent.
Mace’s hands settle onto my shoulders, and he kisses the side of my neck. I reach behind for him.
‘Come on,’ he says, pulling me inside the tent. ‘Allen is taking the first watch. We have time for a quickie.’ He undoes the zip on my trousers in a deft move and slips his hand into my panties. I arch towards him.
‘You don’t waste any time,’ I grind through my teeth, swallowing a moan.
With his free hand, he presses the right buttons to lift the sound-shield around my tent, so that the others won’t hear what we’re up to.
‘I have to take the next watch,’ he says, ‘so no, I’m not in the mood to waste a single second.’
It ends up not being a quickie, but a long, leisurely session of lovemaking.
I keep my eyes on his face, memorising every shift in his expression, every shade of his beautiful, green, expressive eyes.
We’re slow and tentative, as if both of us were soaking every single moment of this, and I don’t like the heavy feeling that sinks into my bones.
This feels too much like a goodbye.
Afterwards, from between the blankets in my bedroll, I dig out a grey T-shirt that Mace must have discarded and forgotten about a few nights ago. I pull it on, stuffing the hem in my shorts. Mace weaves his fingers with mine and pulls me back out, close to the fire.
‘Goodnight, you two,’ Allen says.
Mace pats him on the back and takes over his watch.
We end up sitting on a rock, with me nestled in the V of his legs, my back to his chest. He starts carding his fingers slowly through my hair and then pulls the length of it into two thick bunches, weaving from one side to the other.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask him, my body’s gone soft, my head drowsy.
‘You’ll see.’
I feel toasty and warm and at home, even if we’re still in the middle of the woods.
The heat of his body engulfs me. His fingers are slow and gentle, and I feel his touch on my scalp, on my nape, radiating a sense of cosiness from there through my entire body.
I could stay in this moment forever. And it aches.
Because home is starting to feel suspiciously like a certain person and tomorrow is full of uncertainties.
It will never be the same for us in The Citadel, where every one of our moves, of our encounters, will be subjected to scrutiny; where, sooner or later, we’ll be forbidden to see each other.
We both know it, but neither of us voices it, and those unspoken words hang heavy between us.
Mace reaches the tips of my hair and fishes something from his pocket.
When he draws it at the end of the braid, and rolls it around in my hair, I realise it’s a scrunchie.
Since when does Mace carry a scrunchie in his pocket?
Does that fall into the same category as the healing patches he carries for me?
He throws my braid gently over my shoulder, so I can examine it, and I realise two things: for one, Mace Hardfield makes the prettiest herringbone braid imaginable. I love it. I can see the lighter strands peeking out through the dark hair, and the braid is even and neat.
And two, that is my scrunchie. The purple, glittering one I lost years ago. My breath whooshes out of my chest and I struggle to blink back the tears from my eyes.
‘What do you think?’ he says, and I nestle closer to him.
‘You kept it,’ I say, my voice raw.
He kisses the top of my head. ‘Of course I did. I carried it everywhere with me. I never parted with it.’