Sea of Stars (Kricket, #2)

by Amy A. Bartol

Warmth travels through my veins until I realize he’s making sure to say good-bye to me. My heart...

“Know that if this doesn’t work out, your job is to stay alive until I can bend time and manipulate the future to bring you back to me.”

“And just when I thought I couldn’t love you more . . .”

“We don’t even need a pencil to draw them in, honey.” “I love you,” he says under his breath.

“Kricket, you’re bruised and battered,” Jax replies with the kind of gentleness that I’ve never found in anyone else.

“They told me you died.” I hesitate, glancing at him. He has a hollow look. He anxiously rakes me with his eyes, as if he doesn’t believe it’s really me. “When?” I ask. I have a desert in my mouth; I try to swallow past the lump of sand in my throat. “When they took you from my cell. They taunted me with it—they told me you drowned.” “Did you believe them?” I ask. He grimaces. “No. Yes. No. I went back and forth. I don’t know which was worse.”

“I knew what could happen to you if you survived.” Now his look is sorrowful. “Nothing happened,”

“Despite their best efforts, I’ve managed to outlive my expiration date. If it’s any consolation, most of them are getting pounded by the Alameeda now.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. Trey pauses. He scans my face, trying to read it. “If it weren’t for me, this would never have happened to you. It’s because of me—I was never welcome here,”

“We were never welcome here—” “It’s because of what I am. There’s too much history for some of them—people like Telek. To him, I’ll only ever be Alameeda—his enemy.” “Then I’m their enemy,” he growls. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you again.”

“I thought I’d never see you again.” He uses both his hands to cup my face. When he looks in my eyes again, his thumb traces my bottom lip. His other hand draws a path over my cheek, then skims down my body as he bends and kisses me again.

“Do you know what I thought about after they took you away?” “No.” “I thought about all the opportunities I allowed to pass without showing you what you mean to me. I’m not going to make that mistake anymore.” “You’re not?” I rest my forehead to his lips. He murmurs against my skin. “No, I’m not.” He moves; his nose skims down against mine in an intimate caress. “I can’t ever feel that way again.” “What way?” “The way I felt when I thought you were gone forever,” he answers harshly. “I’ll do whatever I have to do so that never happens again.” He kisses me. When he stops, I feel needy, burning for their return.

“My little savage,” Kyon murmurs, raising his mirrored visor so that I see the wicked gleam in his eyes, “have I finally brought you to heel?”

Kyon lifts me from my knees, pulling me to him. I look up; the dark tattoo circles on his neck wink at me, watching me like a many-eyed beast within. I can’t answer him; I’m incapable of speech. His eyes darken at my expression. I must be very pale; my heart hardly beats. He clutches me tighter.

“If you’d learn to obey me, you wouldn’t have to witness this. I’d have protected you from it.”

“Is she the rogue priestess? The one we’ve come to rescue?” “She is. She’s also my intended consort,” Kyon says between his teeth. “If she dies, I will make sure you follow not far behind her.”

His touch is feather-light, almost wistful. “We’ll be home soon. It’s peaceful there—on the Loch of Cerulean. You’ll be safe. I’ll train you to obey me so this never happens again.”

“Did you try the znous? They taste lovely.” Kyon reaches out and gently rubs my cheek with the back of his fingers. He has an unguarded look, one I’ve never seen from him before as he murmurs, “And you are very lovely in your madness.”

Unfocusing my eyes, I give him a lunatic grin as I mirror his action: rubbing the back of my fingers over his cheek. “You should start a blog.” His enormous hand covers mine, warming my cold fingers as he closes his eyes for just a moment. I lie still while attempting not to show my surprise at his reaction. A moment later he gently pulls my hand from his cheek and lets go of it. He gets to his feet, saying gruffly to the medic, “Monitor her. I won’t be long.”

“Call it the electricity between us both,” he replies in a softer tone, like the one he’d used with me earlier when he’d called me lovely. “I know the light sound of your breath—it falls heavy on me.”

“Why do you want to hold on to me? Find someone else—just let me go.”

“I don’t want another for my consort; I only want you. I’ll be your first lover—” “No you won’t, because even if you are, I’ll never love you,” I retort. “There’ll be no martyrs here, Kricket. I’ll tear your heart off your sleeve and bury it deep in my chest. Your savage heart will beat for me. Run if you think you can—I’ll hunt you down.”

“I’ll have my finger on the trigger when you get here.” “You best have more than that—have a bullet with my name on it. It’ll make no difference. I won’t allow you to deny me anything—your mind, your heart, your body—”

He doesn’t pull out his gun; he doesn’t need it. He’s bigger than all the other soldiers near him—physically perfect—and a hell of a lot stronger than me.

I can see the intimidation on the faces of the other Strikers. It’s not his rank that does it either; it’s the fact that he exudes raw power. I’d bet most people in his life do exactly what he tells them to do when he tells them to do it. I’m probably the only one who doesn’t.

Kyon’s cold blue eyes warm the longer he looks at me. He scares me like no one ever has. I know he’s capable of anything. He was very gentle with me when he thought I was sick . . . Would I have loved you if you’d managed to keep me in the beginning...

“Remember the last time you jumped?” he asks me. “This isn’t the same thing. You were only two stories up in your Chicago tenement—you broke your ribs and your clavicle. You wouldn’t survive this fall.” My eyes widen in shock. He knows about my past—the night I jumped from my foster father’s apartment after he’d nearly killed me. But he’s wrong about one thing. “My ribs were already broken before I jumped,” I murmur. He growls at this information, his face darkening more. “He hurt you badly,” Kyon says. He takes another step toward me, and I inch to the precipice of the skywalk. “You’ve hurt me too,” I say honestly. “I didn’t understand you before,” Kyon admits. “I’m beginning to now.” He pauses again, and then he says in a gentle tone, “Do you know what I’ve thought about since I awoke from medical stasis?” “Killing everybody?”

“No, not everybody. I thought about what you said to me—how you think I’m like your foster father, Dan. Do you remember telling me about him?”

“Yes.” “I’ve made a point, since our misunderstanding at the palace, to read every file that we’ve collected on you. I had largely ignored your past on Earth until now, thinking it wouldn’t be very important to me because I’m your future...

“I’d rather you know nothing about me. In fact, forgetting about me would be the best thing you could do.” “I’m going to find him,” Kyon says softly.

“He doesn’t get to live after what he’s done to you.” “You’ve done worse,” I reply. “Have I?” He advances toward me again, his movements stealthy. “You know you have.”

“I’ve never been in a position to betray your trust, or your love, like he has.” “I don’t want you to hurt him,”

“I mean it. I don’t want anything other than to never see either one of you again.” “I don’t believe you.” “It’s true.” “Don’t think of the consequences; there are none for us. He brought this upon himself, whatever I choose to do to him. He brought you up in the dark. I thought you couldn’t feel pain, but you do . . . you just hide it well. You need strength, someone you cannot manipulate with your intelligence, someone who gives you boundaries. It’s the only way you’ll ever feel safe.” “What?” I pale. “I want you . . . your beautiful face, your taste, your mouth full of lies, your sad, violet eyes—I hate them, but I want them.” “Kricket,” Trey’s voice says from behind me.

I get a lump in my throat. I ache; it’s a broken paradise to be in pain, but still to be in Trey’s arms.

“You hungry?” he asks me with a concerned expression. “I found some venish—I’ll share it with you.” I frown, my eyes closing involuntarily as I say, “You’re gonna share your venish with me? I must be dying.” A surprised laugh comes from Jax at my comment. “Don’t scare her like that, you knob knocker.”

My image stares back at me, but I hardly recognize her. She’s so pale and haunted—something wild and savage, but not unbeautiful—no—she may be even more so because of the lack of civility to be found there. But she looks nothing like the girl in the frame. They don’t even seem like they belong on the same planet.

I go to the mirror, wondering what it is that Trey can possibly see in me if that girl in the picture is actually Charisma, his ex-fiancée. Deep down, I know that she is. She looks like the sweetest thing ever to walk Ethar, and I broke them up. That thought doesn’t make me feel good.

“You’re in pain. You can hardly lift your arm up,” Trey observes. “It’s not that bad—really—I’m just a little stiff is all.” “How am I to know that when you minimize everything that happens to you?” “I don’t do that—” “You do,”

He believes it. He must be upset about what I asked Jax when we arrived—about whether or not I’d been raped. I look away from the mirror for a moment. Right now, I don’t want to talk about the interrogation or anything that has gone on in the last few days. I want to pretend like none of this is happening—like we’re not at war. The thought of Kyon is enough to make my stomach ache. He’s probably out there hunting for me, and there’s nothing I can do about it except hide from him.

“Your ribs are still healing—let me help you with this.” He begins to lift the fabric up when I cover his hands with mine. It’s so intimate, letting him undress me, I don’t know if I can handle it. I struggle to meet his eyes in the mirror. When I do, he says, “It’s just me, Kricket. Lift your arms.” The earnestness of his request wars with my senses. Before I met him, I never let anyone help me do anything.

I watch him in the mirror as he leans down and brushes his lips over my back. He kisses my bruises, like he’d take them from me if he could.

“It’s okay, they don’t hurt—” He pauses but doesn’t look at me when he says harshly, “It’s not okay. I will never be okay with this.”

Trey turns me around to face him. His hand reaches up to entwine in my hair; it tilts my face up to his. He kisses me softly, afraid that he’ll hurt me. When I kiss him back, my tongue stroking his, the need within him becomes increasingly apparent. His kisses become bolder, unrestrained, as i...

You can’t need him this much, my paper heart warns me. If it doesn’t last, and it can’t last—you know that—how will you survive the loss of him?

I ignore those feverish thoughts. My bare skin presses to him, rubbing against the soft fabric of his shirt. This isn’t simple infatuation that I can just ignore, hold my breath, and hope to have pass. It’s something that I can no longer protect myself against. If something happens to him now, it happens to me as well. The thought scares me to death. I’ve always been better off alone—always. That thought comes with a squeezing of my heart that is hard to ignore. I don’t want to be alone anymore, not when I can be with him.

He looks me over; his stare makes me feel bold and shy at the same time.

“Kricket.” He breathes my name like he’s blowing on tinder to start a fire.

Trey’s eyes wander over what he can see of me. I’m the dark secret that he can’t keep hidden—his crossed fingers—his hold-my-breath-to-keep-from-feeling. But I make him feel everything.

His lips are heaven, making me want him more.

The love letter he’s writing on my paper heart stutter-stops, and then riots within my chest with scribbling beats.