by Jaye McKenna
He edged out of her office without another word; anything he said now would be wrong. Later, maybe, he’d be able to explain it to her. Right now… hell, he couldn’t even explain it to himself.
Waking up with Draven in his arms had somehow shoved it out of the realm of a duty or a favor to Miko and right into something far more personal, something he was still trying to wrap his brain around.
He hadn’t even covered half the distance to the patient rooms when he sensed something — someone — he hadn’t felt in years.
Kyn.
It was a faint, muffled feeling, suggesting Kyn was either asleep or unconscious, but there was no question that it was him. Cam would never forget the feel of his foster brother’s mind.
He quickened his step, pausing outside the door for a moment to steel himself. Pat was with him, of course, and when he stepped inside, he was pinned by a pair of dark eyes narrowed in a frown.
“Cam.” Pat rose to his feet.
“How’s he doing?” Cam glanced at the figure on the bed. The monitor lights were all in the green, at least.
“Jaana says he’s fine, but I’m not going to believe it until he wakes up and starts talking sense.” Pat fixed him with a hard look. “What the hell happened? Why did Draven attack him?”
“It wasn’t an attack,” Cam said. “Draven was only doing what Kyn asked him to. I can swear to that. I was in his mind.”
“You were…” Pat shook his head, frown deepening. “That’s a pretty blatant misuse of psi to admit to. Especially to me. Why the hell would you risk—”
“Because I had to know if he was lying to me. He wasn’t. When he told Kyn he could sense flashes of emotion from him, Kyn asked him to try to break through. He wanted to know if there was any hope of ever getting his psi back.”
Pat digested that in silence. Finally, he said, “I’m going to need to hear that from Kyn.”
“Or what?” Cam asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” Pat sank back down in the chair beside the bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared up at him. “You have me pinned in a pretty neat little trap.”
“Oh?”
“If I arrest Draven, he’ll be questioned, and you’ll be implicated.”
“Probably.” Cam’s stomach lurched, and he took a step back to lean against the door frame for support.
“The Command Council would bury you.” Pat stared at the floor.
“They’d certainly like to.” Every muscle in Cam’s body twitched in response to an adrenaline dump he couldn’t use. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
“And Kyn would end up in charge of the Institute,” Pat said flatly. Cam sensed the doubt flickering through him, and held his breath. “I talked to Miko.”
“What… what did Miko say?” Cam was almost shaking with the need to flee, but he pressed his back up against the door and made himself look at Pat.
“Said if I cage Draven, you’ll die.” Pat looked up at him again and held his gaze. “He sounded very certain of that. But you and I both know Miko would say anything to protect Draven. And you, for that matter.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Tell me you know what you’re doing, Cam. Tell me you have some kind of plan. Because from where I’m sitting, this whole thing looks pretty bad.”
A sound from the bed had both of them turning to look. Kyn was stirring. His eyes fluttered open, and he stared at each of them in turn. “Holy shit,” he murmured.
“Kyn?” Pat was on his feet and leaning over him in a second.
Kyn’s eyes widened as he stared up at Pat. “I can feel you…” he whispered.
“You can?” A wide smile broke out on Pat’s face, and the spike of excitement piercing through his concern was like a ray of pure, brilliant sunlight. “When I realized I could sense you again, I hoped… and Jaana said maybe, but…” He stopped and glanced at Cam. “You want to call Eleni? She’ll want to know he’s awake.”
Cam fished his phone out, but before he could send a message, the door opened and Eleni came in. “Good to see you awake, Kyn,” she said with a tired smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, except…” Kyn gestured to his head. “I… I can feel you. I can feel… everyone.” He sat up slowly, and Pat wrapped his arms around him, hugging him hard.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Pat whispered.
“Sorry,” Kyn said, hugging him back. “I was… I didn’t mean to.”
Cam started to edge out, but Pat pinned him with a glare. “Not so fast, Asada.”
Kyn winced, glancing from Cam to Pat and back again. “Jesus. The tension in here is…”
“Out, both of you,” Eleni ordered. “Go get coffee or slug it out in the gym. I need to run some tests. You can come back in half an hour or so.”
As Cam and Pat made their way to the lobby, Pat said, “You never told me what you’re planning to do with Draven.”
Cam glanced around the lobby. It was empty, so he said quietly, “I… might be able to put him to work.”
“As what?”
“He has a… a unique skill set.”
“He’s a professional killer. Is that the skill set you’re referring to? What the fuck, Cam? You’re going to hire him on as your personal shooter?”
“I… I don’t know. I’m not sure where he’s going to fit in, but his loyalty is mine. Given the things I’ve seen happening on Alpha and Indigo, I’d like to keep my options open.”
“What the hell makes you think you can trust him?”
“I’ve been inside his head, Pat. I know I can trust him.”
“With your life?” Pat asked in a low voice.
“Yes.”
Pat met his gaze for a long moment, then muttered a blistering curse before heading out of the lobby. Cam took a seat, pulled out his phone, and checked Aurora News Net.
A few minutes later, he was wishing he hadn’t. A woman in the nearby city of Aberdeen had been shot by her husband, who claimed she was a psion and had been controlling his mind. There were more reports of violent protests on both Alpha and Indigo, and there had been no word yet on the Federation Senate’s emergency session.
To top it off, the weather report was about as bad as it could get this time of year. A storm was moving in, and the forecasters were gleefully predicting heavy snow and high winds for the next three days, with the possibility of over a meter of snow being dumped north of Iral. If Cam didn’t leave the campus soon, he wouldn’t be leaving until the storm blew out.
While the cabin was well-stocked, and he was certain Draven was strong enough to take care of himself, the thought of leaving him stranded out there in a strange place in the middle of nowhere didn’t sit well. Especially with things feeling so precarious and uncertain between them.
And then there was that heavy heat simmering low in his belly whenever he thought about how Draven had responded to his touch this morning.
God, he wanted that again.
But not like last night. He’d taken advantage last night, and he wasn’t going to do that again. It might have been hot as hell, but it had left a bad taste in his mouth. Arranging to be stranded at the cabin for a couple of days would give him the chance to make it up to Draven.
Stupid? Yes.
Dangerous? Hell yes.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Everything he tried to focus on melted into a vision of Draven lying on the bed with his head thrown back, strangled whimpers catching in his throat.
Pat and Eleni would both cheerfully gut him if they had any idea what kind of fantasies were spinning around in his head.
He waited the half hour Eleni had requested, and was just getting to his feet when Pat returned. They walked to Kyn’s room in silence, and found Eleni just finishing up.
Kyn flashed them both a grin. “Doc says I look good. I’m just waiting for her to cut me loose.”
Eleni glanced up from her slate, where she was making notes with a stylus. �
�Which isn’t going to happen until Jaana’s had another look at you.”
“I’m fine, Eleni,” Kyn said with a scowl. “You said I passed the neuro test with flying colors.”
“Indulge me,” she said drily. “She won’t be long. She’s just finishing up an evaluation.”
Eleni left and Cam took up his position by the door.
“So what happened?” Pat asked.
“I was… watching the news report from Indigo,” Kyn said slowly. “Draven said… he said he could sense me. I… asked him to…” He stopped, an expression of alarm on his face, and Cam sensed the spike of panic. “You didn’t… you didn’t hurt him, did you? He didn’t do anything. I mean, I asked him to break through the shield. He didn’t want to.” Kyn looked at Cam. “He said you wouldn’t like it.”
“Why?” Pat demanded. “What the hell were you thinking? He could have killed you. Or put you right back where you were after the accident. Do you have any idea how it felt getting that call from Eleni? Do you?”
Kyn winced. “Judging from the tension flying around in here, I can imagine. I wasn’t thinking, okay? He said he could sense me. He could see a shield, but it wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before. He said he thought he could break through it, see if I had anything left. I’m sorry, but when he said that, I grabbed onto it. You don’t know what it’s like, living with psi for almost half your life and then suddenly it’s gone.”
“You should have asked,” Cam said. “We could have arranged—”
“You wouldn’t have,” Kyn cut him off. “No one in their right mind would. Not with him. Jaana and Eleni would never have gone for it. And Pat wouldn’t have let me take the risk.”
“Damn right, I wouldn’t,” Pat muttered, and Kyn shot him a dark look.
Time to retreat before this degenerated into something that wasn’t his business. “Do you need me for anything else, Pat?” Cam asked pointedly.
“Yeah, I do.” Pat’s tone was terse. “Did you see the report from Aberdeen?”
“Yeah. Just caught it. Too damn close to home.”
“More violence?” Kyn asked.
“Woman was shot by her husband last night,” Pat said grimly. “He claimed she was a psion and was controlling his mind.” He turned to Cam. “The Command Council wants the Department of Psionic Ops to issue a statement of some kind. With Neil off-world, that means you or me.”
“I’m heading up to my office right now,” Cam said. “Come on up when you’re done here. We’ll hammer something out. Maybe get an interview set up with Aurora News Net?”
Pat ran a hand through his hair. “Much as I hate PR bullshit, yeah.”
Cam sighed. It would be hours before he could get back to Draven.
* * *
Cameron didn’t come back until late, and by that time it had been snowing for a couple of hours. The wind had picked up, and Draven had given up on him returning. He was standing at the kitchen counter debating the relative merits of Creamy Pork Hash and Spring Vegetable Surprise when the cabin door banged open.
Draven whipped his head around. Cameron stood in the doorway, stomping on the mat to bang the snow off his boots. His dark auburn hair was covered with snow, and fluffy flakes had gathered on his eyelashes. Cameron said nothing as he put away his coat and boots. He pulled a slate from his backpack, set it on the table, then padded across the floor to stand beside Draven at the counter.
“So it’s come to this, has it?”
Draven sensed Cameron’s amusement clearly, and the tension underneath it. Was Cameron thinking about this morning, too? He licked his lips. “I was trying to decide which would be the least painful way to die.”
“I’d go with the Spring Vegetable Surprise, if you’re bent on minimizing the pain,” Cameron said with a grin that looked forced. “Good thing I got here in time. Death by meal-pak is never pretty, and I have it on good authority that Creamy Pork Hash is a particularly gruesome way to go. Put those away. As far back in the cupboard as they’ll go. I’ll fix us some dinner.”
Draven put the meal-paks back where he’d found them.
“The slate on the table is for you,” Cameron said as he started pulling things out of the freezer. “You can log in on the guest account to access the Institute’s entertainment library.”
Grateful to have something to do other than stand around struggling to make awkward conversation, Draven went to the table and settled himself on one of the chairs.
“Entertainment is the purple squiggle icon,” Cameron said.
“It would be, if you put Miko in charge of your network.” A small smile lifted the corners of Draven’s mouth as he remembered something Miko had said a long time ago: Purple is happy. There’s never any purple when I look at you, Diri.
While Cameron made dinner, Draven investigated the Institute’s library. Working for DeMira and then for Romani, he’d rarely had the time to worry about what to do with himself, but now… Now there was no one but Cameron to answer to, and Cameron didn’t seem inclined to put him to work yet.
It wasn’t long before Cameron brought a pot of soup and a warm loaf of bread to the table. “Eleni must have snuck some food in last time she was out here to check up on you,” he said. “She left us a batch of her chicken soup and some bread. Good for a snowy night like this.”
His awareness of the man sitting across from him was so intense, Draven barely tasted the food.
Cameron set his own slate down on the table and started checking messages. “Sorry,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “There are things going on that I need to stay on top of. There’s no such thing as a day off in this job.”
Draven offered him a tentative smile. “When your job requires you to be on all the time, it’s hard to know what to do with a day off.”
“Exactly.” Cameron’s answering smile lit his dark eyes and loosened something in Draven’s chest. “Why does no one else understand that?”
They finished the meal in silence, and while Cameron continued working on his slate, Draven took the dishes to the sink and washed them. When he turned around, Cameron was watching him.
Draven swallowed as he sensed the tension flickering around Cameron’s mythe-shadow.
Something was coming.
Something…
“This thing,” Cameron started, getting to his feet.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t name it.” Draven tore his gaze away from those intense, dark eyes. Those eyes were dangerous. He could drown in them, forget who he was, forget everything. “Whatever you think you’ll call it, I promise you, it’s not.”
“What is it, then?” Cameron asked.
Draven crossed the space between them, dropped to his knees, and started to undo Cameron’s belt. The hands that had touched him so gently this morning closed around his wrists like bands of steel.
“Draven.”
He raised his head slowly, risking a glance up at Cameron’s face.
“Not like that.” Cameron was staring down at him, a soft look in his eyes. No one had ever looked at him quite like that before, and Draven found it impossible to interpret Cameron’s expression. He didn’t understand the emotions swirling around the man, either. The whole thing left him feeling off-balance and twitchy, and he lowered his eyes.
Cameron released one of Draven’s wrists and pressed a palm to his cheek.
Draven didn’t know how to respond to a touch that gentle. He was used to humiliation, force, and pain. This was… none of those things. It was nice. It felt—
“Stand up.”
Draven got to his feet, waiting for the ground to shift beneath him. He knew what to do when he was on his knees. He could accept Cameron as his master in the bedroom, and he could accept him as his boss.
But Cameron didn’t seem to want that. The way Cameron treated him was more like the way a man treated his peers, his equals, and it unnerved Draven utterly.
Cameron moved closer, so clos
e Draven could feel the heat of his body. His first instinct was to flinch away, but the part of him that thrived on the danger that came with living on the edge pushed him closer. A moment later, Cameron leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. His lips felt soft and warm, and Draven was too surprised to respond.
No one had ever kissed him before.
“I want to make love to you,” Cameron whispered.
Draven frowned. This was making his head hurt. “Isn’t that what we did last night?”
“That was fucking. Making love is different.”
A blank look was all Draven could muster. There was a difference?
“Hasn’t anybody ever made love to you before?”
“I don’t… I mean…”
“Fucking is about release,” Cameron whispered, and leaned in again, this time to kiss his neck. “Making love is about making someone feel good because you want to. I want to make you feel good, Draven. Like I did this morning. I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to take you right to the edge and watch you go over. Can I?”
“You… you’re asking permission?”
“Yes.” Cameron drew back a little, dark eyes fixed on him. “It’s okay to say no.”
“I…” He’d never had that luxury before. Never been given the opportunity to refuse. For a moment, he considered trying it, just to see what Cameron would do, but his need for any touch Cameron would deign to give him was far more powerful. Pleasure, pain, it didn’t matter, as long as it was Cameron doing it. “I’d like you to… to make me feel good.” Draven ducked his head, suddenly feeling awkward and shy, which was ridiculous, really, after all the hot, dirty things Cameron had done to him last night and this morning.
He was completely out of his depth here. For over half his life, he’d been nothing more than a body to be used. Sex slave, assassin, bodyguard… other men had always owned his body, dictated how he used it, and their expectations had been crystal clear.
Now?
Now he was lost, and none of his past experience was any help. He had no idea how to be with someone who gave him a choice. Someone who maybe had a right to expect something more than passive acceptance and obedience from him. Someone he found himself wanting to please, not because it was his duty, but because he chose to.
