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“See you later Cherub,” he said with reverence, the nickname flowing from his tongue so effortlessly.
I would have scoffed had I not felt the pain beating within her chest. This was new - an ache so deeply embedded in her mind that it physically pained her right at her breastbone. It was a bittersweet moment, as I felt the first tendrils of real connection click into place between us. I could then draw some of her pain into myself to relieve it for reasons I didn’t completely understand. I had never been inclined to relieve sympathetic pain for any of my bonded emissaries before, save for after battles. My Emissaries were the closest beings to me, the only true friends I’d ever had, and she was quickly surpassing them in my thoughts. She must have felt it too, as she relaxed even deeper into my embrace, turning her head slightly to rest more of it against me.
“Laters Z.”
And with that we disappeared, the shrouds of mist surrounding us as we disappeared into the shadows.
Chapter Eighteen - Mature Conversations
Aeryn
I didn’t think I would ever get used to the feeling of vanishing into smoke. When we materialized, I coughed and gagged - the dryness in my throat a tangible thing as I sought to swallow whatever moisture I could get from my mouth.
Marik’s rough hand guided me onto my dorm room bed before he forced a bottle of water he’d collected from my desk into my hand. I gulped it down greedily, swallowing it all before coming up for air. He took the empty bottle from me, crushing it between his fingers before flinging it into the trash can across the room.
“I have recycling,” I said through my breathlessness.
“Most plastic people think they’re recycling just ends up in the ocean,” he clipped, tapping his fingers against his forearms. “Look it up.”
“I will,” I snapped back, folding my arms in front of my chest in a perfect mockery of his existing stance.
“Good.”
“Good!” This was certainly the most mature conversation I’d had in a while.
We lapsed into silence as Marik leaned back against my desk, resting his weight as he crossed his legs in front of him. I pulled my legs up to my chest and squeezed them to me, resting my cheek against the top. I had a thousand questions running through my mind like why was he here? Who was he? And most of all - why me?
But none came out. I felt drawn to him, the connection between us a palpable thing. In his presence the copper bracelet beneath my wrist no longer burned, instead, it hummed with a comforting warmth that reminded me of warm sugar cookies the late Sister Francesca had baked each Yule. It brought me peace, coaxing me to trust in a way I never would have expected. I should be angry with him - it being obvious that he held my key to freedom. All the hard work I’d ever put in was swept away when I’d left it in a truck through no fault of my own.
And he called me a thief! Yeah right.
I should have felt at the edge of a precipice about to fall into a trap that I could never hope to escape. And on some conscious level I did. But the way Marik watched me from across the room, his warm metallic eyes softening just the tiniest bit at the corners giving me the peace to quell my anxiety.
“You should not have left the keep,” he said after a few minutes of companionable silence.
“You keep saying that,” I said. “But I’ve done it a thousand times before.”
“Not at times like this you haven’t,” he said, not offering any more information. It was as if he just expected me to read his mind.
“Times like what? My selection where I will be sold off to the highest bidder with no choice for my own?”
He shook his head. “I don’t give a fuck about the selection.”
“You should, considering you claim you want to buy me.”
“You’d join me regardless,” he said flippantly, and I gaped at him.
“Not if another guild gets me I won’t.” I countered. I carried no anger in my tone, just forlorn acceptance.
“Another guild has no sway over this,” he said, crossing the room to sit beside, his weight pressing down into the wiry mattress, causing my body to tilt toward him. I didn’t move, and he did not reach to touch me, but his proximity made the warmth on my wrist grow. “Tell me, what would you have done with your savings?”
“Escaped.” I replied easily.
“Where to?” he asked, his steady eye contact comforting rather than unnerving.
I could lie, but I didn’t feel like it then, so I shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
He dropped his gaze momentarily, staring down at his hands before raising them back up. “So how do you know you’d get away?”
