Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sana’a’s entire body thrummed, every neuron firing as she moved towards her mark, the anticipation, the sharp clarity of her mission taking over each atom.

So focused was she on him that she almost fell, bouncing against a boulder-like physique.

She levered her head up into a pair of dark, glittering eyes.

One of the oversized companions of the silver-haired Katánian was blocking her passage.

He was the more polished falcon of the two. Suave, distinguished, even elegant, eyes warm and twinkling.

His sidekick, however, was the more formidable of the pair. He had a sinister eagle-like alertness that gave off intense gryphon energy.

He smouldered at her from a few feet away where he stood, arms crossed over his massive chest, keeping a silent vigil.

‘May I help you, beautiful?’ the sleek sentinel’s deep rasp cut through her dreamlike reverie.

Clenching her jaw, she pulled herself together. ‘Just wondered if you want some company?’

It wasn’t a hardship to keep her voice husky and sensual; she’d used it often with solid results.

His lips twitched as he stared down at her, his eyes aglimmer. ‘What kind?’

She turned her eyes toward her mark. ‘The kind he needs.’

The sleek guard cocked his head. ‘Fokk, why do y’all women go for the lone drifter types? Pick me, name’s Kione.’

Sana’a gazed up at the striking, fair-haired giant with his chiselled jawline, shaven hair, and a pulsing jewel on his temple.

These Katánians were something else, she conceded; up close, they gave off significant celestial deity energy.

‘Fine, you can have him,’ Kione rumbled, faking his hurt at her lack of attention. He leaned in with a grin, turning him into an even more handsome devil. ‘But I’m just warning you. He’s intense. The man prefers his privacy and loses himself in his rich inner world. If two people are talking, and one looks bored, he’s the other. That said, let’s see if he takes to you.’

Kione took a fluid step to the side, jerking his chin at the long-hared Leviathan.

Her mark stared into the distance, studying the far-off expanse of stars and celestial bodies.

‘Kill, want some company?’

The silver giant moved his head slowly toward them.

When his eyes met hers, they cast over her in a wash of unimpressed aloofness.

He lowered his mountain mist and icy lake gaze, raking it with leisure over Sana’a’s body. ‘What makes her deserving of my intimacy?’

She bristled at his bass rumble.

Arrogant dickprick,she thought with some savagery, angered by his foppishness and equal measure of derision.

Was this the man who’d conspired to bring down a Shotelai King? Was he truly capable of looking beyond his navel-gazing disdain long enough to plan the downfall of an entire race?

Still, she shivered at his deep, reverberating timbre, which was more suited to a grand orator or mystical griot.

His companion caught the fleeting annoyance on her face. ‘Excuse our friend. He’d rather not be here.’

Then why is he?

‘Am I being annoying?’ the silver giant drawled, his tongue still playing with the wad in his mouth. ‘Because, like Kione said, I’d prefer not to be here.’

Sana’a served him with a saccharine, sweet smile. ‘I think you’re a fount of pleasure. I can’t wait to love you, long time.’

He ran his eyes over her once more, lips twitching. ‘I like her. Sassy. Not like the other witless ones. Let her through.’

With a chin jerk, he slid his oversized frame along the couch. He patted the empty spot he left behind as his leonine sentinel allowed her passage. ‘Sit with me. Help me forget my tedious obligations and endless mind spin.’

Keeping a close eye on him, she stepped in and sat beside him.

A sharp, earthy aroma wafted through the air around him, tinged with a hint of mint and a subtle smokiness.

She realised it came from what he was chewing, his jaw moving in a slow, steady rhythm.

He waved a lean, long-fingered hand at the table packed with bottles, glasses and vintages. ‘May I offer you a drink?’ he rasped, lifting a tankard from the surface. ‘Perhaps, this fine brew?’

Sana’a focused on the brand name stamped on the plex glass. ‘That’s Falasian hogswill. It’s piss poor ‘hol. Anyone who drinks it hasn’t gone out much.’

His eyes flared for a second, then returned to their former coolness. ‘Fokkin’ busted. You’ve outed me as a bumbling brute from the back and beyond of Pegasi who knows nothing about refined sophistication.

Despite his crude words, Sana’a picked up the smarts lurking behind his limpid silver eyes.

Damn.She was meant to be seducing him, not insulting him.

Her tendency to speak her mind was letting her down and could set her mission back.

She changed tack. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you, sire. I have no filter and tend to state the opposite of what I need to say when drawn to one’s aura.’

‘So you should be,’ Kione, the more jovial of the Katánian trio but still a devastatingly dangerous behemoth, quipped from a few feet away. ‘It’s pulsing off him in waves that can be seen from space. He’s just off a battlefield where he felled a great old warrior.’

‘Hush now, Kione.’ The rasped command came from the enigmatic man by her side.

Sana’a ignored her seat-mate’s play at humility. ‘Is he indeed? He seems so sanguine.’

‘Kill has the look of a dove, but he fights like a predatory eagle with zero fokks to give,’ Kione added with a smirk.

‘Kill?’

The silver colossus smirked. ‘Tis my kína, what people call me.’

‘How apt.’ Because I’m about to slay you.

Again, he sliced his gaze toward her and narrowed those eyes as if connecting to her soul and reading her mind.

Seconds later, the keen focus fell away, replaced once more by frigid distance.

She slow-blinked at him, wondering if she’d imagined the moment.

His eyes flicked over her as if unmoved by the effort she’d put into her outfit. ‘Your name?’

‘Sana’a.’ There was no need to conceal her ID, given he’d soon be floating with the ghouls of Pegasi.

‘One wistful enough to make a man sing songs and write endless reams of poetry. Where are you from, fair Sana’a?’ the giant rumbled on.

She gave him a beguiling smile. ‘Here and there. You?’

‘My home is neither here nor there, ’ he rasped. ‘Because home is not where we live -’

Sana’a interjected without thinking. ‘It is where we belong.’

She finished the sentence for him, and he raised a brow. ‘You know the old proverbs,’ he said.

‘I often draw from their deeper meaning.’

Their eyes met in another clash of heat and, more profound still, a shared understanding. Once again, she sensed his energy shift and the hint of a rare sapient spirit leak out.

It unnerved her. She bit her lip, desperate to keep any feelings out of anything she had to do that evening.

He eyed her over his massive tankard, that keen gaze settling on her. ‘You’re a curious one, Sana’a.’

‘Don’t study me. I’m not quantifiable,’ she threw back.

She swore the glowing jewel on his forehead flashed when she shot him a saucy smile.

His guards turned away from them.

The sterner-faced one crossed his large hands over his chest and continued his avid perusal for unseen ghouls and spectres.

At the same time, Kione, the more affable of the two, entertained the gaggle of laughing women still hovering nearby.

Which left Sana’a’s quarry all to herself.

Launching into a witty and cheerful monologue, she tapped into all her wiles to ease him.

She told him about her inane and fictitious life in Rhesia.

Her cover was working as a broker’s representative, and she claimed she was at a large conference of merchants on Eden II.

She turned her body towards him and sat with legs crossed, chest out – accentuating her tits and her backside.

With a smirk, she leaned in, tilting her head to share prolonged, intense eye contact.

She blushed throughout the conversation and spoke in soft, sultry tones.

She drew the line at giggling but instead caressed the border of her lips with her index finger while speaking.

‘Did you really slay a great warrior in battle?’

‘Ay,’ he admitted, his eyes clouding into a storm. ‘Twas regrettable, but that is how it needed to be.’

She tilted her head. ‘I’ve been told of you Katánians. Aren’t you ruthless marauders who steal, kill and destroy with no mercy?’

Again, his unusual silver eyes pulsed. ‘Remember not the former things, nor consider the concepts of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.’

He then shrugged. ‘Not my words but from someone more prescient than myself. Yet the idea remains. A fresh vision awaits Katánē.’

‘And you’re the man to deliver it?’

He gave her an enigmatic glance. ‘Tis my mantle and burden to bear.’

His words struck a chord.

Doubt crowded her mind for a moment.

He didn’t sound like the maniacal despotic King who’d plotted her people’s demise.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts, focusing on the task at hand.

She could not fail.

She’d never failed.

He flicked his eyes over her. ‘Why so serious, beautiful? Come, forget my earlier rudeness. Let’s have a drink and wash away our troubles for today.’

‘As you wish, handsome,’ she smiled.

It was evident from the smirk on his face he cared nothing for the endearment.

He raised a hand, and a server rushed toward them with more overflowing tankards and glassware.

They drank as their conversation turned to culture and a lengthy debate on the most seminal poem ever written.

Despite his on-and-off aloofness, the man she was about to slay revealed his mind. It was sharper than she’d thought.

He spoke with eloquence and outstanding insight.

He lost the foppish air she’d assigned to him earlier, and she glimpsed flashes of intelligent wit, free from pretension or calculation.

His humour was subtle, hidden in the shadows. When it shone through, it was like a sudden shaft of sun dappling a dark forest.

She liked it.

She didn’t fokkin’ want to.

Yet again, Sana’a began to doubt her mission, but she tamped back her hesitancy and wove her web of seduction once more.

In between their conversation, she gave Kill a few light touches on his shoulder, arm or hand.

It worked, relaxing him as he unwound from the tightness she’d sensed in him earlier.

His guards, too, eased their alertness, bantering with the admiring punters crowding them and indulging in the rounds of drinks that kept coming.

The music shifted to a slow number, and as couples around them rose to their feet, so did the giant.

‘Dance with me.’ His voice was a lush invitation.

She allowed him to tag her flush to his hard length.

‘Don’t you fight it, Sana’a,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘Just move; heed your body when it tells you it wants me to pull you close.’

She tamped back a curse at his audacity. ‘You’re cocky.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he smirked. ‘Just let the moment play, woman.’

He trailed his fingers over her back and side with a light touch.

Her hidden SHärd daggers vibrated against her skin, sending a shiver down her spine.

His hands lingered over her single blade secreted against her spine, but she was confident, given its composite kinetic nature, that he couldn’t sense it. Nor the one in the folds of her dress.

With just a command from her, they’d transform from alloyed, mirrored swords that lengthened at will to disappearing into a vapour-synth state, their current guise.

She looked into his eyes to gauge whether he’d sensed them. All she got was his essence, limpid and silver bright shining back down at her.

Heating her. Igniting her.

Fokk.

She looked away as his touch brushed her waist, and he led her with ease, swaying with her in the small sectioned-off space.

The crowd noise and sounds around them faded.

Until all that remained was him, staring down at her with those unusual eyes while the jewel on his forehead flashed.

‘Woman, isn’t this righteous, how it’s supposed to be?’ he rasped, lowering his head to speak into her ear, his heated breath sending jolts through her. ‘It’s uncanny how nothing else matters when we’re slow dancing.’

‘It’s something.’

They undulated together for a few moments as she fought off the electric arching between them, refusing to give in to its delicious pull.

Because up close, Kill was even more entrancing.

His scent was intoxicating, dark and mysterious while also refreshing and clean.

The tendrils of silver falling from his upswept hair smelt of lime, basil and mandarin, balanced by middle notes of sandalwood.

Under his flowing, half-open shirt, his muscles were strong and ropey.

His chest rumbled when he spoke.

For some uncanny reason, she wanted to shut her eyes and nuzzle into his strength until the ache of her present reality lifted.

When the song faded, he settled back into the lounge chair, his gaze again distant and walled off.

‘Woman, I’m beat. Let me rest my eyes for a moment.’

She shrugged and smiled. ‘Relax, enjoy the peace.’

When she glanced at his face, his head was thrown back against the cushions, eyes closed, and body limber. He was breathing deep, and she wondered whether he’d fallen asleep.

It was almost too easy.

This is it.

Take your time,Sika stated in Sana’a’s inner ear.

I intend to.