Somewhere in that silence, I started to cry.
Once I started, it was difficult to stop.
...yet somehow, I am asleep.
I find him easier this time.
He seems almost to be waiting for me.
He is alone here, as he always is. Just like every time before, I feel him, but I can’t quite reach where he is. He floats like a corpse surrounded by gray curtains, and we touch one another through the morphing fabric, fighting to get closer, but we can’t.
Before I understand where we are, we are kissing, like we are most of these nights.
I feel him more once we start, but it’s not enough...it’s never enough. Our mouths are careful, hands and fingers deliberate through the same thin fabric. When I slide into his light this time it is fast, a slow groan before he opens, letting me nearer than usual, until I almost feel him, until he seems almost real. He is pulling on me then, asking me, but I can’t...
I can’t give him what he wants.
A kind of desperation grips me. He wants to give me things, too. He tries, in his own way. Images and sensations weave into his light, his legs between mine, his weight on me, until it feels like he’s inside me, like we are...
But it will only make things worse when he leaves.
I’m tired of this. Tired of fighting and losing him. Tired of looking and never being sought. He left me. He left me before he left. He enters me now like a thief, because I’m all he has.
He pauses, raising his head.
...and the man with the chocolate-brown eyes stares back, only now he isn’t smiling.
Lowering his head, he kisses me without hesitation, picking up where Revik left off. It feels different, and not only because I don’t know him. The curtain evaporates, revealing warm light...a different body, less-cautious hands, unambiguous intent.
His arms and chest are larger, his hands smaller, his lips fuller, his tongue thicker. The way he kisses is different. He doesn’t wait for me to ask, barely waits for my answer. His hand slides into the crook of my knee, fingers caressing my thigh as he pulls my leg around his waist. He is inside me, and I hear him groan. He kisses me again...
I feel him breathing hard in the dark, in another room, naked under rough skins, and I know suddenly that it’s not all a dream.
Somewhere, Revik watches. I know it’s not real, that he’s not here anymore.
He’s dead...I know that.
Yet somehow, it still feels like a betrayal.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
23
CHALLENGE
I got up before dawn.
When I left the empty sleeping quarters and wandered outside into new light, the man with the chocolate-colored eyes was the first person I saw. He sat on a wooden step, smoking a hiri, one of the seer cigarettes, a cup of chai resting by his thigh.
I’d spent the night in a sort of cottage, one of many rimming a wide courtyard just below Vash’s main house. Most of the complex lived in a hill directly beneath the main entrance through which I’d entered the day before. Before me now, the courtyard spread out on a large clearing of grass and dirt below the largest of those street-facing buildings. In the center stood a circle of flat white rocks surrounded by crab grass and white-painted stone cairns. Paths dotted with smaller shrines and shade trees radiated outwards. Even in the dawn chill, milling seers littered those same paths, talking in a mixture of languages and hand gestures.
I wondered why they bothered to speak aloud at all, and why there were so many more men than women...then noticed the man with the brown eyes staring at me.
Watching those eyes linger on my bare feet, I made up my mind.
I approached him deliberately, walking straight up to where he sat on the wooden stoop. He didn’t stand up when I reached him, and I didn’t sit, but we eyed one another silently.
Unwillings, a voice said in my mind.
I jumped a little. “What?”
You wondered why there are no women. They are sold faster. A bigger market for unwillings. You should know that, Esteemed Bridge.
He took a drag of the seer cigarette, blowing out a perfect smoke ring as he waited for me to catch up. His smile turned wry.
And we speak for the same reason all beings speak, Esteemed Bridge. To be heard.
“Do you speak English?” I said. “Aloud, I mean.”
His lips slid upwards in a perceptible smile. “Yes.”
He had an accent, but I couldn’t place it beyond Asian.
He studied my face, right before his brown eyes flickered down over the thin cotton pants I wore, pausing again on my bare feet.
“Did you...” His smile widened. “...Sleep well, Esteemed Bridge?”
I folded my arms tighter. I motioned towards his sidearm, visible under his jacket. “I take it you’re not a complete pacifist?”