Merc concentrated on keeping his breathing even, on keeping his movements relaxed and easy. She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she just gave away with that statement. He put a bite of food to his mouth, chewing to himself some time, to make sure he let nothing slip. After he swallowed, he said, “Those can stop you?”
She kept her face down, chagrin etched into the features he could see. “Honestly, I don’t know what I can do. I first found out–”
She shut down, bit off whatever else she was going to expose. A quick glance showed her hunched over, looking at her plate as if she could find escape if she just studied it hard enough. He pushed, wanting whatever little piece of more he could get. “You found out when?”
“Under not-good circumstances, which I never want to experience again.” With that, Amana grabbed her cup from the table and rose, taking the dishes to the sink, only coming back to grab a book and go in front of the fire to read.
Merc watched in silence, letting her without comment. The revelation of the discovery of her power was nothing more than he suspected, and curiosity clawed at him to try to drag out why she was so terrified of using her power. Only terror would explain someone holding the keys to a great treasure but never unlocking the door.
Beneath the curiosity, though, satisfaction crept up, inserting itself into his mind, because she didn’t know what she had exposed to him tonight.
With his intimate experience of her power, of what she was capable of, there would be few places that could keep her out. The few places he could think of were either natural dead zones or top-level containment areas.
From the language she used her brother had to be a prisoner of some type. If the Guild weren’t lying and could somehow free him, chances were that meant he was in the system.
And Merc had a name – Nakoa. Raised on an island, and a few years younger than Amana, who he’d guess was in the mid-twenties range.
Bringing the bottled water to his lips, he took a long swig, finishing off the liquid before rising to clear the dishes. Tonight, he’d begin the search and start unravelling the questions surrounding her.
*
By her best guess, Merc hadn’t slept since that short nap two days ago, and it was almost physically painful to see the drawn lines and dark circles that testified to the exhaustion. “How can I convince you to get some sleep?”
Her words turned his attention from the book he was reading, and he looked up to where she was standing above him. “I’m not sure there’s a way.”
How matter-of-fact he was being was a good sign. Bombastic would be hard to work around, but low-key and factual meant there was the possibility of convincing him. “I understand your worries about me, but we both know you’re not at full-power right now. If we were attacked, I’m not sure you’d be able to get us away.”
He absorbed her words, his bangs shielding his eyes from her, the deep red streaks beckoning her to run her hands through the thick mass.
After long moments where he still hadn’t said anything, she motioned to the tattoos on his arms. “Isn’t there anything those can do? You’ve used them before.”
Merc looked up from underneath a chunk of hair, his voice taking on that wicked, playful tone she hadn’t heard since the dreams. “Are you telling me you like when I tie you up?”
Heat pulsed through her body full throttle, his words unleashing a tsunami of feeling she’d been pushing back against since this afternoon, as he crowded against her during the fight training, his big body surrounding her.
“Why don’t you tie me up and see?” As the words fell from her mouth in a rough, desperate tone she didn’t recognize, his lazy, satisfied expression disappeared as he took her in, turning into something fierce and wild, the honey color of his eyes thinning to a small ring around the widening pupil.
“Don’t tempt me.” His voice was a rough whisper, rasping against her skin and bringing goosebumps to the surface.
If he was trying to warn her away, it wasn’t working. “No. I think I want to.” Amana brought her knees to straddle either side of his legs, settling down on his lap and feeling the bunching muscles of his body underneath the back of her thighs.
“This isn’t a good idea.” His face was turned up, his gaze locked on hers. The part of him that had only ever been visible to her in dreams was here. Because of tiredness or from the sharing they’d been doing since he saved her from being kidnapped, that Merc was back now, in her reach, and this time, it was real.
“No, it isn’t,” she replied, pushing his hair back, wrapping the silken strands around her fingers.