The Seek (10 page)

She shrugged again. ‘Let them try.’

Jedro stood close to her again, his eyes narrowed. ‘What would Pietr say?’

Fuck you
. That was too low, too unfair. Her voice almost faltered as she responded. ‘Don’t get me wrong, General, I don’t want to leave. I wouldn’t choose it. But if you won’t let me have this, I’ll do it.’

‘So you go with them or you desert them completely?’ Jedro’s face was a furious mask.

Kyn held her ground. ‘If we don’t change tack, we’re all screwed anyway. After what you’ve just told me, this is the time to mark a line in the sand. The time for seclusion is gone. It’s time to fight.’

‘We need trainers,’ Yeo said, his voice finally showing signs of strain as he worked hard to make himself sound reasonable.

Kyn nodded. ‘Of course. But we also need our best in the field. Am I the best?’

The two men looked at each other and nodded.

‘You need me on this mission,’ she said, slowly so they’d have time to catch up. ‘And when I come back, I’ll know more. The training will be enriched.’

‘If you come back.’ Yeo was not trying to be cruel, but it was his way — his careful, methodical way — to state things as they were.

Kyn swallowed and nodded again. ‘Yes. If.’

‘What was the other thing?’ The grim set of Jedro’s face told her she had won.

Kyn had no intention of doing a victory dance. In fact, all she felt at the prospect of going back out there — where the fear and danger lit up your skin and iced your veins — was terror. But it beat the hell out of the other thought; the thought of sending her virgins out there alone, for what may be the most critical battle New Earth had ever fought. Resolve seeped through her consciousness.

‘Mirren,’ she said.

Yeo frowned and glanced quickly at Jedro.

‘The girl,’ Jedro explained, making a quick motion with his hands to Yeo. He turned back to Kyn. ‘What about her?’

‘Who will you give her to? When I go?’

Jedro’s brows creased in confusion.

‘I’d like her to have Enis,’ she prompted him. ‘It must be someone good.’ She paused, hating to admit it, and hating to ask. ‘Mirren is good, very good. You were right. But she’ll need the right Magister. You have to think about her very carefully.’

‘She has the right Magister,’ Jedro said, his voice cold and sharp.

It was Kyn’s turn to frown. ‘What do you mean?’

Jedro repeated himself, more slowly this time. ‘I said: she has the right Magister.’

Kyn’s hands bunched into fists. ‘But you said we’re leaving tomorrow? I’ve had no time to train her, or to work with the group.’

Jedro grimaced. ‘Train her today, introduce her to the group tomorrow. You leave tomorrow night.’

‘I won’t do it.’

Kyn knew Jedro. She knew, perhaps better than anyone, all the moods of his body. And right now she knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that she had pushed him too far. He came up very close to her face, so close she could see the angry strings of spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. ‘Then go, Captain,’ he spat at her. ‘Run, go to whichever hole in the universe you plan to bolt to, and don’t ever come back. Because I swear if you do, I’ll take you down myself.’

‘You could try, old man.’ It hurt to say the words, but not as much as the blow hurt when it came, hard and poisonous across her cheek. Jedro had always had the best right hook in the business.

‘Jedro.’ Yeo’s voice was suddenly full of colour and life, low and deadly, as Kyn’s face and brain ached. Her hand itched to return the blow, but she got it.

She brought the hand to her cheek instead. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re a fuckin’ little upstart, that’s why.’ Jedro’s cheeks were flaming red.

‘No.’ Kyn almost laughed, but the lethal fury on Jedro’s face suggested it might not be such a terribly good idea. ‘I know why you struck me, but I mean why Mirren? Why me, for Mirren? Why are you so set on this?’

Jedro took a moment before he spoke. Kyn watched him stilling his breath and calming his body. They were alike, Kyn and Jedro. Fighters to their cores. Yeo was more reasoning: a skilled warrior, but a cooler head. He was a fighter made, not born. ‘Because of what you said,’ Jedro said finally, quietly. ‘A moment ago. Because we do need our best. And I swear, I look at her and I see something. And so did Asha.’

Damn him. Did he know what the mention of her past did to her? She studied him carefully to try to decide. Maybe. Maybe he did.

Jedro went on. ‘I want her with you, Kyntura. And not because she’s a girl. Because you’re the best. And she’s our next gen. What are we, if we can’t do this? If we can’t recognise and nurture our best?’ He answered his own question. ‘We’re screwed, of course. But then, we were anyway. This.’ He gestured to Kyn. ‘You, and Mirren. Working together. This is our only hope.’

Kyn raised an eyebrow. ‘Batman and Robin?’

Jedro smiled thinly. ‘Not literally, Kyn. I mean relationships like this. We need to learn, and fast. We need to fight, and hard. You have to teach Mirren because you’re the right one to do it. You can make her formidable. And God knows, we could really use some formidable right now.’

Kyn watched him as she spoke. Damn, but he was convincing. It was the true believer thing. He was so different from Pietr, but this they shared. The fathers of Old Earth. The front line during the Apocalypse. The founders of the new era. They just wanted Earth to survive, in whatever fragmented, fucked-up form it had taken. Kyn shook her head at their stubbornness, at their belief in the face of all the odds.

‘She won’t be ready to fight.’

Jedro nodded. ‘That’s fine.’

‘But I’ll keep her with me.’ She’d fought it, but now that she’d decided it didn’t feel so bad. She thought about Mirren last night, strapped to that frame, bloody and naked. Something about the way the girl’s eyes had zoned out when they were going to hurt her, and then the way they had lit up at the fight? What was that? What had gone on for her? Who taught her to dance, and who the hell taught her to fight?

Jesus, what was she getting herself into?

***

Sometimes the only thing for it was training. She glanced at her wrist-comms as she changed into her training kit. Two hours until she was due to meet Mirren. She’d told the girl eleven, even though the Magister in her had wanted to demand they meet at the rounds at five. Mirren needed to get that eye seen to, and there was no way the off-the-books med Kyn had referred her to would see her before ten.

So Kyn had two hours. Everything hurt already, and she wondered briefly and pointlessly if she was losing it now she was twenty eight. Her body had taken some hits over the last ten years; perhaps this was the beginning of the inevitable end. Then she thought about the last twenty-four hours: the brutal training session with Mirren where the younger woman had managed some surprising wins; the fight last night; the lack of sleep.

Maybe she was just human after all.

As she buzzed herself into the rooms, and entered her favourite round, she realised it was already taken. A long, strong figure was leaping from one side of the round to the other, working hard to get higher and longer with each ascent. Jumps were important. The creatures they danced with day to day were often bigger, faster and more powerful than humans. The ability to change levels in a moment was crucial to keeping the element of surprise, and attacking the vulnerable places in neck, head and brain. Brains tended to be farthest from the ground, whatever your species. Kyn guessed it was just something creatures of all kinds had worked out through their evolutionary chains over the millennia.

Kyn’s background in dance helped with the jumps, but this Avenger was good. The round was huge, and he was a little too far away to see accurately, but he used his body well, without a wasted movement. It was spare and beautiful to watch. And he was persistent. He went again and again. From one side of the mats to the other. Leaping from standing still, then from a run. Twisting in the air to land on feet, hands, or belly. Working through the standard catalogue of training manoeuvres and mixing them up as well. He was good, and it was so like watching ballet that Kyn was mesmerised.

But this was more than dance. The movement was so strong and brutal, so entirely male that she found herself aroused watching him. She was always fascinated by the differences between the male and female bodies. Hers was strong, at least as strong as any of the men she sparred with daily, but differently so. It could accomplish different things; she had no sense of inferiority or insecurity about it, but for her, this was a treat. Studying the length and breadth of this body as it performed feats that would have been considered acrobatics on the old earth, seventeen years ago. So young and so strong. Barefoot and clad only in the familiar black training pants.

She couldn’t help but wonder about his body close up, what it would look like, how it would feel; and the arousal washed over her again. She felt her nipples pucker and warmth race through her. And she didn’t care. She didn’t feel ashamed, or dirty. Kyn understood her body — bodies in general, really — and all the things of which they were capable. Her arousal was part of the same perfectly tuned circuitry that let this boy leap like a gazelle and land on his feet.

As she watched, it clicked. She knew this shirtless body, these long limbs, that broad chest.

Krysto.

Suddenly she did feel like a voyeur, as she thought about the things that clever body had done to her, and the pleasure she had taken from his body, as well. She pressed back into the entryway, not deciding to relinquish her vigil, just to hide it a little. Now she really was in danger of crossing the line into lecherousness.

But not for long.

‘You going to join me, or are you just going to stand there watching the show?’ His lazy honey voice was sweet and delicious, and it stroked unspeakable things across the raw edge of her arousal.

‘Oh, it’s you?’ Kyn stepped out into the huge round and feinted surprise. ‘I thought it was a virgin.’

‘Ouch.’ But he didn’t sound offended. He didn’t even sound like he believed her. How did someone so young get so cocky, and confident? He motioned her over and she crossed to him. His body was covered in a film of sweat, even in the carefully controlled environment, and his chest was heaving lightly. He stepped aside and made an elaborate bow. ‘Care to show me how it’s done, Captain?’

Kyn was about to tick him off, order him out of her space, but the proximity to his body was warm and exciting after the brittle stress of the meeting with Jedro and Yeo. Like this, shirtless and sweating, his hair loose, he reminded Kyn of a grunge star from the old days. It was easy to imagine him with a guitar, flicking that long fringe out of his eyes as he belted the audience with that crooked smile. Kyn had only started to be interested in pop music when her world had ended, but she remembered enough.

‘Step aside, baby,’ she purred, tipping lazily away from him into a series of three forward flips and then running back towards him for a long leap. She took it high and hard, sailing over his head and landing behind him, en pointe. Her toes barely registered the assault on them. Then she dropped into a set of splits, rolled into crouching and leapt again, this time landing on his shoulders, where his hands automatically grasped her ankles. ‘Satisfied?’ she called down to him, realising too late she liked the feeling of his shoulders under her toes and the pressure of his long fingers on her ankles.

‘Not yet,’ he said, his voice low and silky. He tugged on her ankles to bring her down. She bent and offered her hands and he lifted her to the floor but didn’t let go. He drew her in against his chest, which was now heaving with an entirely different kind of excitement. She should pull away, but she didn’t want to. Her heart rate was elevated from arousal and exertion and she just wanted to feel it a little longer. Kysto pulled her hard against him and she felt that he too was aroused. He was thick and hard against her tummy, and he pulled her up so she was pressed against him.

‘That’s how it’s done,’ she said, going for nonchalant.

‘Yes, Ma’am, it is,’ he breathed, swooping down to press his lips against hers.

And by the Apocalypse he tasted good. How did such a young guy get so damned good at this? She knew Avengers were never short of women. They were like butterflies — beautiful and mesmerising for their short lives. And from what she had seen, Kyn understood that women found it hard to resist a guaranteed dose of heartbreak.

She vaguely registered that she shouldn’t be kissing him. Not because she thought he would tell tales, or be a jerk, or demand more than she had to give. More because the way he kissed her — with such sweet authority — put them both on some path that she knew was an illusion. This wasn’t going anywhere, couldn’t go anywhere. And yeah, partly because she had no intention of getting involved with anyone — she had bigger fish to fry, badder aliens to ice. And partly because even if she did choose on some random whim to get involved, it would not be with an Avenger — she’d had enough heartbreak to last a lifetime; been to enough sending-off ceremonies to see how losing your lover broke you in two. But mostly because even if she could put all those things aside and hook up with someone, it would never be a Post-Apocalypse baby.

They would never, ever get it.

Although she had to admit, as Krysto deepened the kiss and let his hands roam over her back and buttocks, her certainly got something. And right now maybe it was okay to lean against him and let a little of it rub off on her.

She really had no intention of taking it any further. Not now, not here, in the rounds.

And there was so much to do. A mission to plan. A girl to train. A class to get ready for their first real taste of war. She had no business making out like a schoolgirl when she should be doing her homework.

One more minute
.

Kyn let her hands creep up to touch his face, feeling the clean lines and light brush of that rock star hair. They slid to his firm, hard shoulders and he groaned low in his throat and pressed her up against him. Her breasts squashed against his hard chest and the sensation went straight to her sex.