The Master and The Marionette (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 2)

Standing in the center of the symphony of crickets and the howling winds, my friends are smiling, wiping their tears. It all feels like a dream.

“I want you all to officially meet Kane.” My eyes burn with exhaustion, but I nod him over. He’s been leaning against a tree, watching us with a look of peace and relief.

“We already met,” Kane assures me.

Niles laughs. “If you call that a meeting.” He struts over to me to stand between us.

“Hey ugly, you’re coming with me,” Niles mocks. “Then skip ahead to us watching him slaughter soldiers next to the black beast who likes to chew on human brains like they’re a toy you can buy at the market!” He looks at the group then huffs. “It truly was a pleasure.”

Ruth chokes out a laugh that comes from deep in her chest. Chekiss rolls his eyes.

“I did not call him ugly,” Kane corrects.

I can’t help but laugh at that.

“You didn’t. But your evil twin did.” Niles crosses his arms.

“Niles…” Chekiss warns, using the authoritative voice of a father. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

Kane pushes off the tree and takes three confident strides up to Niles who is still pouting in front of the group. “The man you met was Dessin. He doesn’t have the best bedside manner.”

Niles cocks his head back awkwardly, like he’s preparing to be hit in the face.

“No murderous rages?” Niles asks cautiously.

“No.”

“Affinity for gutting the male anatomy?”

“Nope.”

“Maniacal needs for vengeance for those who’ve wronged Skylenna?”

Kane sighs. “No.”

“Not even when I do this?” Niles holds unblinking eye contact with Kane as he reaches to his left, flicking me in the arm.

“Hey!” I hiss, rubbing the stinging area with my other hand.

“You’re pushing it,” Kane says, unamused.

“Niles!” Chekiss barks from behind him. A thick hand smacks Niles in the back of the head, hard enough to hear his teeth clack together.

“Alright! God, I was merely testing his patience with me.”

“You’re lucky he has a lot of that,” I tell him.

Niles nods slowly, narrowing his eyes into small childlike slits. “And how often are we going to have the pleasure of enjoying Dessin’s lack of manners?”

“He only surfaces when there’s danger. And when those times come, you’ll be glad for it. He might be a dick, but he’s a dick that’ll keep you alive.”

“Mmm, yeah that part was kind of nice.” Niles shrugs.

Ruth greets Kane with a rosy-cheeked smile. “You’re very tall,” she blurts out. “I met Dessin the first night I met Skylenna.”

Smooth, Ruth.

“And you’re very short.” Kane smiles back.

Chekiss then approaches Kane with his hand extended. “Thank you for saving us. And thank you for taking care of her.”

“And thank you for getting her to leave that prick, Aurick!” The inappropriate remark comes from Niles… again.

Before I can flick Niles for not keeping his mouth shut, Kane laughs. Unlike any other noise, it fills me with blind rhapsody. He’s chuckling at Niles, squeezing his eyes shut like he was taken off guard by that comment. I look around and Ruth is giggling with her fingers covering her mouth.

“I’m thankful for that as well.” Kane winks at me. A surge of galvanic energy takes me by surprise, galloping through my bones.
“I think we should have a group hug!” Ruth suggests.

“I don’t think so.” Chekiss swats Niles away from trying to pull him in.

“Me too,” I agree, reaching for Chekiss to join. He sighs dramatically and closes half a circle with Niles on his other side.

I look back at Kane, showing him the empty space between me and Ruth.

Kane raises his eyebrows. “I don’t really do hugs.”

Pfft. That’s a lie. We hug all the time.

“Ohhh, just get in here! You deserve some love after all you’ve done today,” Ruth coos at Kane, then snickers at Niles who is tickling her side as he tugs her closer to him.

Kane glances back at me as I mouth the word, please. He looks away and laughs.

“Okay, but this is the first and last group hug we do, agreed?” Kane looks around at the group, everyone nods in agreement. He closes the gap between me and Ruth, placing his large arm over her tiny shoulders.

My breath hitches. A familiar chill of terror crawling up my back. I’m reminded of the cage, the blinding darkness. And this close contact triggers me. My pulse races under my skin, pounding like a waterfall in my ears. I fight like hell to keep my breathing less than noticeable. This is a trauma response. Hide it. Put it on a leash and lock it away.

I don’t want to worry them. They’ve been through hell too.

“Aw, we just started a tradition, you guys!” Niles grins.

Chekiss grunts. “No, we did not.”

“We agreed this was the first and last time,” Kane reminds him.

An unwanted thought surfaces, sticking thorns in my side, nudging me to the side of doubt. What if I didn’t escape? What if I went mad? It’s entirely possible. I hallucinated DaiSzek. I went off to a meadow. My mind could have collapsed on itself, could have shut down and stopped living.

Either way, I needed this. I don’t care if it’s real or not. I don’t care if I’ve crossed over into insanity.

Kane is gazing down at me with a look of bittersweet relief. Like he knows what’s going on in my head right now. Like he knows this is exactly what I needed after breaking out of hell. I needed a family to come home to. He drops a kiss on the top of my head.

“So, did you two have sex yet?” Niles blurts out like the little monster he is.

Our heads snap up to the pest. “Niles!” I scold. “There was the line back there. Did you see it when you crossed it?” I unhook my right arm from around Chekiss and reach across the circle to shove him, hard.

Now Chekiss is laughing. “You know what that means, Niles? Means you’re sleeping with the black beast tonight. And every other night until you learn to keep those uneducated thoughts to yourself.”

Our circle separates, and I catch Kane giving me a curious look. It’s fleeting but interested. Does he know that Dessin and I were intimate? Of course he does. But is that upsetting to him? But before I can look any deeper, he takes a step away, breaking the trance.

“There’s a spring nearby.” Kane nods his head behind me. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“I can help her.” Ruth touches my shoulder. I resist the urge to jerk away, hating myself for reacting this way after only being captive for four hours. “If you want me to.”

I smile weakly. “Thank you.”

Kane hands us towels and a soap bar, pointing us in the right direction, just down the hill, in the middle of scattered boulders.

The soothing white glow of the moon softens Ruth’s pale skin, smoothing out creases around her eyes, highlighting her freckles. She looks simply… angelic.

We remove our clothes, backs facing each other. I pull my gown off over my head, throwing it to the dirt with a huff.

Ruth holds the soap close to her bare stomach as we gawk at the black water, only a brief flicker of moonlight drifting over the ripples.

“If we go in quick, we’ll hardly feel the shock,” Ruth says.

And we go in, wading through the ice water, squishing the mushy bottom with our toes. We hiss as the chilled spring covers our stomachs and then our breasts. It’s like being in Absinthe’s ice bath, except—not horrible. I’m choosing to be here. I’m glad to be out in the open, kissed by the cool night’s breeze.

“They hurt you?” she asks, lathering soap and water in her small hands.

I throw her a quick glance with my swollen eyes and bruised cheeks.

“What about you?”

She shrugs. “No, actually. I wasn’t the one they wanted.”

At that I’m surprised. I try to hide the shock from my face but fail. I wasn’t the one they wanted either. They wanted Dessin. They tortured me to get to him, yes, but why wouldn’t they do that to Ruth? I’m relieved, of course. But their tactics just don’t make any sense.

Ruth touches my head with fingers ready to clean, but I wince, unable to protect her from seeing my reaction. She lowers her gaze and takes a deep breath. “May I?” she asks.

I nod. It seems to be when I’m caught off guard that the contact shocks me. She begins making big shiny bubbles in my hair, gently cleansing my scalp. I massage the soap down my chest and arms.

“I was mad at you, y’know,” she says.

“Me? Why?”

“You left me. You didn’t say a word. You didn’t try and get a message to me. You just left the asylum in shambles. It was bizarre. I figured… I must have not really been your friend if that was the case.”

I sigh, hanging my head. “Ruth, you have to know I’d never—”

“I know now.” She sighs, leaning my head back to rinse my hair. “I didn’t realize what was really going on. That you two were fugitives, running for your lives. The asylum concocted all sorts of lies about you. That you ran off with your patient because you two were madly in love. That you were just as sick as he was.”

Oh, goodness. They really didn’t like me there.

“I mean, unless the in-love part is also true, then this would make a little bit more sense.” A subtle smile creeps into her voice.

I groan. “No, it all happened so fast. I wanted to save his life. He was going to be executed.” Demechnef came for him. There was no warning when they swarmed his room. “We had to act fast.”

“So, there’s nothing romantic going on at all?”

I wince as a pathetic, dopey smile tugs at my throbbing cheeks.

Ruth’s doe eyes widen, matching my sloppy expression of tickled-pink giddiness.

“Oh my god, is there?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. It’s strange. Things have happened, but Kane told me he didn’t feel that way about me.” Ugh, the kiss. I hate thinking about what came after it.

“He’s definitely lying.” Her face twists with suspicion.

What? “How do you know?!”

She looks behind her to make sure no one is listening, then proceeds to scrub me down gently, cleaning the grime and blood from my pruning body.

“Skylenna, that man doesn’t look at you like a friend…” She leans in closer, cupping her hands around my ear. “To me, it looks like you’re the world, and he’s the moon that revolves around you. When we were all laughing at Niles, Kane was smiling because you looked happy. It’s like that’s his only goal.”

I nudge her. “I think you’ve been spending too much time with Niles.” But a swarm of fluttering birds takes flight in my soul.

She chuckles. “That may be true, but a woman knows that look. Trust me.”

If she’s right, then why would he lie to me? My feelings for him have grown stronger every day since I met him. It’s like our bodies can’t hide the chemistry. But he is trying to with his words.

~

Ruth wishes me a good night’s sleep and finds a spot around the fire that Kane started for us. The night grows quiet with a special hum, an ambience only the trees and wind can make. I change into the clothes Kane laid out for me. Pants, one of his white shirts, and a wool coat. It’s not that cold out currently, but I appreciate finally having something to keep me warm when I sleep. It’s sad how much I took for granted. Even something as simple as a blanket to sleep with.

Kane’s legs are stretched out comfortably. He’s using a tree as a headboard to sit up and read. As I get closer to him, I recognize the label on his book. Holy Bible. I’ve never really seen him read it before. He looks as concentrated as a healer performing surgery. His left hand is holding the wooden cross that hangs around his neck, fidgeting with it, outlining its shape with his index finger. His eyes bounce up to the campfire, keeping an eye on a meat cooking over the top of the flames.

I lower myself down quietly next to him. The trunk of the tree is illuminated by the orange glimmer of our campfire and large enough to provide back support to the both of us. Reaching down to our feet, I pull up our usual sleeping blanket, but pause midstretch realizing we’re the only ones with a blanket.

“I gave them their own backpacks with blankets, clothes and necessities for the trip.” He answers the question that is taking a train route of panic around my head.

“Really?”

He nods, bookmarking his place, and setting the Bible to the side.

“Wow. That’s… kind of amazing.” I search for our friends across the fire, only now noticing them tucked peacefully under their own blankets.

He completes my paused action and pulls up the rest of the blankets, covering my arms and shoulders.

I smirk up at him. “Cuddling up with Niles all night under one blanket wasn’t appealing to you?”

He raises his eyebrows and hums a closed-mouth laugh. “That was the driving motivation behind that act of kindness, yes. And not to mention, Dessin would have a temper tantrum.”

I nod in agreement. My attention flickers over to his Bible that he set down. I reach across his body, my chest hovering over his lap, as I pick it up. Kane lowers his eyes and fixates them on my body grazing his. He doesn’t seem to care what I’m reaching for. The attraction radiating from his body is as tangible as steam from a boiling teakettle. I drop my gaze back down to the book as I get comfortable in my spot.

“May I?”

“Sure.”

I open the Bible back to his bookmark. He points to the spot on the page he left off at.

“Jeremiah 29:11-14,” he reads. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

I’m moved by the sentiment in his voice.

“Why is this passage important to you?” I ask, setting the Bible down.

He levels his gaze to look at me from under his top lashes. “Because I have to believe we’re going to find a way out of all of this.” He rubs his hand across his jaw in thought. “This chaos… it’s all I’ve known my whole life. I need to believe that we’re going to find peace one day. That God will bring us back to a good place.”

“Your whole life… that’s a long time to keep fighting.”

“Yes, it is.” Kane shifts his weight to face me with his entire body. “In all truth, this fight won’t be over for a long time. This won’t be the last of the terrors we face together.”

Together. That word creates floating feathers in my stomach.

“And how long do you expect us to stay together?” My tone suddenly turns cold. “Because let’s just say we do make it through all of these terrors in one piece. Let’s just say ten years from now, we’re free to live in peace. What then?”

He keeps his eyes on me, steady, unwilling to break the connection that’s holding our gaze. “I expect when that day comes, we’ll build a house in the Red Oaks where we’ll live out the rest of our days in peace. No more fighting. No more running.”

I clasp my hands together and press them to my mouth in frustration.

“As friends, right?”

His lips part slightly. He takes several seconds to answer. “That’s right.”

“Really… well, what if I want to marry someone one day? And have babies?” Please don’t break my heart again, Kane. Please don’t hurt me.

“Skylenna…”

“No.” I shake my head. “Don’t you say it again.” I slide my hands up his chest to grasp his neck. He takes a shaky breath as our skin touches, sharing warmth, sharing a pulse. “Don’t hurt me again, Kane.”

His eyes are swelling with a suffocating emotion. He looks like he wants to pull away and pull me closer all at the same time.

“I know what I’m feeling isn’t something as tame as friendship. And I know we both feel it. I can see it in your eyes when I touch you. I can feel it in my stomach when you look at me.”

He inhales a sharp, unsteady breath, still unable to speak.

“You can try and convince me that you don’t feel that way about me. But you’re lying. And if you’re unable for some reason to tell me the truth, then fine, I get it. But don’t lie to me again. If you can’t tell me the truth, then don’t say anything. I can accept that. I can live with that. But I can’t live with you saying those words to me again.” Hope and desperation flood my veins. The pain in my jaw, my busted lip, my eye gnaws at my skull, begging for me to sleep.

Kane curls his fingers around my wrists and holds them tightly.

“When I was rotting in that cage… I replayed your words in my head over and over again. I felt the heartbreak over and over again. It hurt me more than living through broken bones and abuse. But I also relived our kiss. I held on to it and it was the only light I saw when they blinded me.” My chest clenches and my throat fights to swallow down a heavy lump. “That kiss meant everything to me. And you stole that when you crippled me with your rejection.” My hands are shaking. I can’t believe my own boldness as I confess my feelings so bluntly. And by the look of his stunned expression, he can’t believe it either.

Kane’s breath hitches before he lifts me off the ground, pulling me onto his lap. His strong arms circle my waist, and his head burrows into my neck. Instinctively, I fasten his neck and shoulders securely against me, feeling his heavy breath against my skin, and his nuclear passion unfolding from his body into mine. My heart floats around us in a mist of stars and solar flares. His hands travel sensually under my shirt, his fingers running softly along my spine, summoning goose bumps and small shivers within his embrace.

I want him to confess his feelings to me. I want him to tell me that he is falling in love with me. I want some kind of verbal affirmation.

He reaches up to my face and lowers my head to his lips, placing a soft kiss on my forehead, and then meeting my ear with his mouth.

“You’re everything to me. I’ll never lose sight of you again,” he whispers into my ear. I lean the side of my head against his, impairing my ability to keep myself upright. I’m bulldozed with paralyzing relief.

I know that’s all he can say and I won’t ask for more.

After we spend long stretched-out moments holding each other, like we’re about to be ripped away by a violent tide, kicking and screaming, reaching out endlessly to be held again, he offers me dinner and then does as promised. Kane lies back, holding me against his chest, his fingers tangled in my hair. He whispers to me how grateful he is to have me in his life. The magnetic energy flows through my veins every time he places a kiss on my head. And after a while, DaiSzek shows up, planting himself on my other side to comfort me further and keep me warm.

Tonight, this was enough. This was so much more than enough.