Rubicon: Aurora Resonant Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 8) Read online

  “No….” He dropped to his knees beside the wreckage to drag a finger across the seeping liquid and lick it off his finger in desperation. A hint of the rush hit him instantly. But it was merely a tease, so he followed the trail of liquid under the bed—

  “Ow!” His fingertip came back bloody, sliced open from a shard of broken glass.

  Laevona would stand in as a substitute. Where did it go? He glanced around while sucking on his busted fingertip. Not seeing it on the bureau or the floor, he stretched out on his chest and peered under the bed, then reached into the darkness and felt around for it.

  Now his whole palm came back bloody. He didn’t care. The tantalizing buzz from the taste of ferusom was already fading, and he had to get out of his head, now.

  “Eren?”

  He rose up in surprise, and promptly banged his skull on the bottom edge of the bed. The jolt of pain sent his bloody hand instinctively to the source, which succeeded only in getting blood in his hair. When he found a knife he’d slice it all off. Easier that way.

  “Gods, Eren.” Cosime hurried into his room and knelt beside him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He shrank away from her, extracting himself from beneath the bed to press against the bureau while he remained focused on the floor. “Go away, Cosime.”

  “No. What’s wrong? You look a wreck. You’re bleeding and…there’s sharp glass everywhere. What broke? Hold on.” There was the sound of movement out of his field of vision, then a towel was thrust in front of him. “Here. At least hold this over the cut. Assuming there’s only one….”

  Her voice dropped as she finally took in the full state of his room. “Are these all hypnols?”

  “Just go. Leave me, please.”

  “What is—”

  “Permanently, in fact. You don’t want to be around me any longer. I’ll poison your life.” A glint of light flashed off to his left; it was reflecting off the vial of laevona that had rolled under the bureau. He retrieved it and hurriedly turned it up, dumping the contents onto his tongue unfiltered.

  There. Soon enough he wouldn’t even be aware of her bright emerald eyes gazing at him in naïve concern. She didn’t know, and soon he wouldn’t care.

  She reached out and snatched the vial away while it was still a third full.

  He shot her a glare and grabbed at her hand, but she held it out of the way. “I think I get to decide if I want to be around you.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Leave and don’t look back.”

  “Eren, what is wrong? Xanne commed me because she was worried about you. What happened?”

  “I can’t….” She’d drawn closer to him as she talked, and his hand again darted out for the vial she held. But she was so damn agile, and in a flash she’d rolled away and stood. Next she proceeded to glide around the room, picking up even the unbroken vials and tossing them into the garbage chute.

  He groaned in desperation—but then he spotted one lonely vial lodged under his knee. Without checking to see what it was, he turned it up while she was too far away to steal it.

  “Dammit, Eren! You’re going to overdose if you keep this up.”

  He smiled vaguely as his vision blurred and he slumped farther down, closer to the floor. “Good. The point.”

  The sliding whoosh of the door closing sounded echoey and distant. It took a long time to close. Minutes, probably.

  Sometime later she appeared beside his head, sitting with her legs wound beneath her among the spilt hypnols and random stains of blood. Her hands took hold of his shoulders. She guided his head into her lap. Soft fingers coaxed sticky strands of hair out of his face.

  Glittering eyes stared down at him. Infinite facets reflected emerald light over and over and over…. “Let me help you.”

  He shook his head, he thought. “Can’t. I’m a fiend, Cosime, fit for Tartarus. You should run.”

  “No, you’re not, Eren. You’re a good man with a few occasionally fiendish tendencies.”

  “What? Why do you…?” He squinted up at her, but it didn’t help bring her features into focus.

  “You think I don’t know you have a dark side? In that case, you’re also a very silly man.” She bent down and kissed his forehead. “My dear, sweet, mad, broken Eren.”

  He blinked away a new bleariness. Was he crying? No, ridiculous. Must’ve gotten a hypnol in his eyes. Not the kind meant to go there.

  She stroked his hair, surely getting blood all over herself, and he felt himself giving in. To her, and to the blissful oblivion.

  A whisper hovered in his mind, and maybe on his lips. “Then help me, if you would. If you dare….”

  The darkness closed in.

  Eren awoke to a sharp pain behind his skull and an unexpected softness beneath his back. Vague recollections drifted in and out of his mind, but he wasn’t able to tell which were real and which were hallucinations.

  He opened his eyes and blinked several times. He was on his bed, or a bed anyway. The lighting was dimmed, thankfully, because oh dear gods did his head hurt.

  Cosime sat beside him, one leg curled beneath her and the other dancing off the edge.

  He licked his lips. They tasted like spoiled hypnols and sour wine. “How did I get in the bed?”

  “The long way. Have some water.” She thrust a glass in his face.

  He was too thirsty to argue, so he struggled up to a lounging position then guzzled it down. His shredded palm had been cleaned up and treated, and the cuts were almost healed. How long had he been out? He was afraid to ask.

  He handed the glass to her and began studying the matted tips of his hair. Two hours in the shower, or slice it off? “I don’t…I don’t know what to say. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

  “Because if I didn’t see it, then I would go on thinking of you as daring, dashing, daemons-better-not-care Eren?”

  He risked a sideways peek at her. “…Yes?”

  She laughed. It was delightful, if brief. “Why don’t you start by telling me what happened to set this crisis off?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Her hand folded over his. “Eren, I’m your partner. I’m your friend. I’m your….” For the briefest moment, her incessant movement ceased, and she stilled. “I want to know.”

  He slid back down until his head found the pillow. He was so tired…and in the aftermath of the epic tantrum he realized he couldn’t keep up the charade any longer. Not if he wanted to live. And since Xanne wouldn’t let him die, living was the only option.

  Possibly even the better one.

  He didn’t know if true redemption existed out there or if he could ever find it. But when Cosime looked at him like this, full of trust and belief in him that wasn’t so naïve as he’d thought, maybe he could find the strength to try again.

  Only this time he couldn’t run from the monsters in his soul. He’d run out of trail.

  He took a deep breath and started rambling.

  24

  EKOS-2

  MOSAIC PORTAL B-3 / ENISLE ELEVEN

  * * *

  THE LINGERING ODOR OF CHARRED GRASS marred the underlying scent of eucalyptus and honeysuckle Alex remembered. The vague melancholy in her blood made her think perhaps Akeso noticed, too, though the planet undoubtedly had larger concerns at the moment than aromas.

  On the contrary, I posit that for a lifeform who values the exquisiteness of the smallest experiences, few things hold greater importance than the scent of a budding flower at the dew-drenched sunrise.

  Damn, Valkyrie. Is there something I should know about you and Akeso’s relationship?

  I simply strive to understand it. In understanding it, I relate and empathize.

  Evidently so.

  Regardless, it was a temporary phenomenon. The warm breeze would carry the remnants of soot away soon enough, scattering them until they faded out of existence. In time, new growth would push upward through the scarred ground and return a vibrant palette to the surface. In
time, no evidence would remain of the battle fought here.

  Given the nature of the life in residence, she wouldn’t be surprised if that time was tomorrow morning.

  A visible change in Caleb’s stance forewarned her he was preparing to try a new tactic. She discreetly moved closer to him—not so close she interfered, but close enough to be able to intervene if needed.

  He removed the hilt of his blade from its sheath, activated the blade and swiped it across his open palm. He didn’t flinch as blood flowed out and between his fingers to drop to the ground; instead he reached up and ran his open palm down the vine he’d been trying to woo for the last while.

  When nothing happened, he scowled and flipped his hand over, palm up.

  The cut had completely healed. Not by Akeso’s actions, but rather by the diati, she assumed, given the frustration coloring his sigh.

  “I’m not getting anything…or I don’t think I am. Truthfully, though, Akeso could be chattering away incessantly, yet I can’t hear it because it’s being drowned out by the diati whirring in my head. It won’t shut up.” He dropped the vine and wandered to the shore of the creek, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathed deeply in, then out.

  He’d been attempting to make conscious contact with Akeso for at least twenty minutes now. They’d come to their favorite tree beside their favorite creek, since it was possible familiarity meant something to Akeso, too. But so far his efforts had been to no avail.

  It was no wonder the diati was riled up, after what he’d done.

  The power required to destroy a moon, to disintegrate four thousand exagrams of metal, rock and organic matter into space dust in a matter of seconds…had it ever existed in the hands of a single individual? The Praesidis Primor, she assumed, and he used it to oppress two and a half trillion lives. Caleb used it to save a single, vast, precious life. But there was still a price to be paid.

  Alex watched him for a minute, watched him try yet again to quiet the chaos raging inside him. She didn’t need him to tell her he wasn’t having any success. She could see it in the stiffness of his neck and the rigid set of his profile.

  She’d given him his space, but now he was spiraling toward misery, and that wouldn’t do at all. It was time she helped.

  She slipped her shoes and socks off before strolling past him into the creek to let the living water dance across her toes.

  He shot her a dubious look but followed suit, leaving his shoes on the shore, rolling his pants up his calves and joining her. “Is this supposed to help me commune with Akeso?”

  “No idea.” She gave him a playful shrug—then shivered. “It’s cold.”

  “No kidding.” Together they picked their way to the shore until they reached dry grass. It was cool on the soles of her feet as blades replaced the water in tickling her toes.

  She kept her voice casual. “You said that touching me helps to quiet the noise from the diati.”

  He smiled and placed a hand on her arm. “It does.”

  She turned into him and brought a hand up to cup his jaw. Her fingertips traced down his neck. “And me touching you does as well?”

  He nodded.

  Her lips quirked as her hands dropped to the hem of his shirt. She smoothly lifted it up and over his head, let it fall to the grass, and returned a hand to his bare chest.

  His eyes twinkled in the fading light, flares of sapphire breaking through the crimson. “What are you doing?”

  “Touching you.”

  His breath hitched as her palm followed the trail of dark, curly hair down to his navel. “I can see—feel—that.”

  “Good.” One of her hands traveled leisurely across his shoulder as she circled around to his back, the other trailing behind, lower.

  She placed a soft kiss at the dip between his shoulder blades as she applied pressure with her fingertips, massaging deliberately down muscles taut with coiled tension. Lately he’d been working out more often and more intensely—less for physical health than mental, she thought—and the muscles sculpted the skin of his back into flawless ridges. “Is it working?”

  “Well…” he cleared his throat, but it didn’t clear the roughness from his voice “…it depends. The diati is quieting, but other impulses are definitely taking its place.”

  “I’m okay with that.” She briefly withdrew her hands to pull her sweater and camisole off and discard them on the ground, then quickly gripped his hips and let her chest brush across his skin.

  His sharp intake of breath forced his back more firmly against her. “Jesus, baby. Come here.”

  “In a minute.” She chuckled throatily but held his hips steady to dissuade him from turning around. When it seemed like he was willing to obey, she slid her hands along his waist and deftly unfastened his pants, then slipped her thumbs a few centimeters below the waistband and dragged them around to the small of his back. She kneaded her thumbs into the pressure point and evoked a sigh that morphed into a groan.

  Sensing the time for teasing foreplay was rapidly coming to a close, she relented and slid his pants and underwear down over his hips—

  —he wrenched around and crushed her against him. His mouth slammed into hers as one hand splayed across her jaw and the other pressed into her spine to keep her close.

  She almost gave into the passion for the briefest span of time, then had to create some space before she lost herself completely. Which would be a sublime thing to do, but she had a plan, dammit, and she would not be deterred. Not yet.

  His hold loosened, if reluctantly, in response to her movement away, and she took the opportunity to swiftly drop to her knees and slide his pants the rest of the way down in a single motion. With the next motion her lips were on him.

  “You—” The remaining words evaporated beneath a moan. She murmured in satisfaction, but the truth was the raw visceralness of the moan sent her own desire screaming headlong into overdrive. Her grip on his ass tightened instinctively, but she blinked and tried to concentrate on the admittedly delightful task at hand. She could wait, and it would be worth it.

  With a growl his hand fisted in her hair and tugged her head back. She looked up at him wearing a wicked grin, and he dropped to his knees in front of her. His mouth met hers as he guided her down to the pelt of grass.

  By the time her head came to rest on the ground, his tongue had grazed over her neck to dance down her chest to her abdomen. “How is a single stitch of clothing still on you and in my way?”

  She exhaled and closed her eyes. She’d lied; she couldn’t wait. “I was otherwise occupied.”

  “Yes, you were.” His lips were voracious, his hands purposeful, and her pants disappeared while she was distracted by other sensations.

  His tongue burned hot on her skin, in delicious contrast to the cool grass beneath her, as his mouth wound back up her body with agonizing slowness.

  He’d turned the tables on her…devious, crafty man, he was.

  An aeon later he hovered above her, pausing for a frozen, endless second before the full length of his body lowered to press against hers. The crimson irises deepened to a bottomless burgundy as night fell around them.

  “There’s no noise now. There’s only you.” He slipped inside her.

  She smiled as his lips brushed hers, and a final, satisfied thought lingered in her mind as she at last surrendered to the passion.

  Mission flawlessly accomplished.

  Caleb tried to smooth Alex’s hair down, wrent askew as it was by…well, mostly by him. But it was a tangled, damp mess, wild and beautiful like her, and after a few attempts he gave up, instead chuckling breathily and squeezing her tighter against him.

  She placed a sideways kiss to his sternum then rested her cheek on his chest. One of her legs stretched out next to him while the other curled over his thighs.

  Perfect moment as it was, he allowed himself to bask. To not merely acknowledge but absorb and commit to memory this idyllic confluence of sensations and sentiment.

  “You
’re my savior—you know that, right?”

  She peered up at him, crookedly as he refused to loosen his hold on her. “I’m just trying to keep up with you.”

  Perhaps they would go on like this forever, saving one another again and again in endless circles. It had already proved truer than he could have imagined that fateful night on Pandora, hadn’t it? As their insane lives veered and spun and flipped inside-out yet again—completely their own fault, admittedly—it might be the only thing in any universe they could truly count on. Each other, always there to save the other.

  She shifted languidly, molding her body more fully to his. “We should maybe think about heading back soon. War and all.”

  “Mm-hmm….” He reached beside him and felt around until he found his shirt, then draped it across their legs.

  Seconds later he felt her breath even out and her muscles slacken in slumber. He inhaled and took in the woodsy scent. He listened to the creek babble. He closed his eyes and joined her.

  Not-Alls returned to protect All.

  Of course we did. You are a part of us. We heard your plea from across the stars.

  All dared not hope Not-Alls would heed it.

  We will never fail to come to your aid. If there is a way for us to do so, we will find it and help you.

  All does not comprehend why an Other sought to destroy All.

  All was…afraid. All was…angry. All recognizes these concepts from Not-All’s memories and names them so.

  But now…All is safe? Other is gone?

  Yes, it’s gone. We made certain it can’t hurt you ever again. Are you all right? Are you well? What of the pieces of…of the Other that damaged you? Can they still infect you, or weaken you?

  All replaces, renews, replenishes.

  All cleanses the traces of Other, as it cleansed such from other Not-All before. The traces will become All.

  Good. You are stronger than any Other.

  All is All, and will always be.

  But Not-All has changed. Is More.