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

I find a place to sleep away from the others, deeper into the cave. After my outburst, it doesn’t feel natural to chat like everything is normal. Like I didn’t just air out Kane’s dirty laundry. Like I didn’t just assume the worst of Warrose.

As I tuck myself in, Kane slides under our fur-lined blanket, cupping my body with his own. His chest is against my back, moving slowly with the speed of his breaths. I’m instantly less sleepy by the buzzing in my head, like hearing music for the first time. A warm layer of familiar comfort, longing to be held by him again.

He swivels his hips to match up with my lower back. His arms close around me, locking me inside the safety of his embrace. Fire and bursts of chemical reactions implode in my skin. How quickly my brain responds when our skin touches, when our bodies cling together like arteries to a heart. Kane’s lips make a trail of light kisses against the back of my head, dropping like bread crumbs down my neck as if he is leaving himself a map. As if he is afraid he might get lost. Firecrackers pop and crackle in my lower belly. Galactic energy hums through my fingers and toes, forcing me to arch into him.

“I’m hurting you.” His voice is soft, like rippling water. I sigh at the sound.

“Hmm?”

“With the secrets,” he clarifies, a rush of hot breath tickling my neck. “I’m hurting you by keeping you in the dark.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t excuse how I acted.” I frown. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Mind Phantoms. Your body’s metabolism is burning the last of it off. But the side effects are mood swings, fits of anger, hormonal imbalances. Temporary, though.”

“Oh.” Thank God.

“About Warrose,” he prompts, shifting closer against my back. “It’s hard for me to talk about my time being trained. It was hard for Dessin because Warrose was his best friend, and he had to say goodbye when he admitted us to the asylum.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“And the—women that were brought for soldiers. Dessin went into a rage when he learned what they were for. He put them out of their misery and was beaten mercilessly for it.”

“Kane—”

“Please don’t ever do that to me again,” he whispers, the smell of his breath is dynamite to my attraction. It’s sweet and I want to taste it.

“Do what?”

“Run away. Go rogue. Give up your safety for my own.” He’s breathing so close to my ear that my eyes slightly roll back into my head. The euphoria.

“I’d do it again.”

He readjusts to roll me on my back, his left hand cupping the back of my head, a pillow against the cold stone. I roll farther than he intended, purposefully letting my body snuggle into his.

“No you won’t,” he says.

“So you can make sacrifices for me but I can’t make any for you?”

His dark eyes burn in the firelight, growing in sentiment, like he’s preparing to read my eulogy. “You’ve already sacrificed so much. But for now, I just need you to be safe. We won’t survive on our own. Our only chance out of this is to stay together.”

I touch my hand to his chest in response. Yes, I want to stay together.

“Promise me you’ll stick with me. No matter what happens. You’ll never stop believing in us. In our freedom together. Promise me.” He’s breathing heavy, gripping my waist like I might slip away.

“I promise.”

Kane lowers his head to mine, breathing deeply as if he’s about to go underwater. I lift my chin, offering my lips up to him, giving the permission he needs.

And it’s soft, yet strong enough to braid my heart in a knot. His warm lips brush against mine, thumb grazing over my fast pulse. And then he kisses me. Slow and sweet, allowing me to explore him, slipping my tongue past his lips, and that throbbing ache between my thighs springs to life.

My body remembers the night Dessin and I had each other. It remembers the feel of his shredded muscles, the growing hardness in his pants.

But this is someone else. This is Kane, who cradles my face, kissing me like he’s died for me a thousand times. Like he’s known me a thousand lives.

He pulls back, parting our lips, holding his forehead against mine.

“I think it’s time I give you answers.” He exhales.

This is the only acceptable reason I will allow the kissing to stop.

“You’ve been so patient with me. But you have to know, there’s a plan. A plan that wasn’t just created by Dessin. There’s so much at stake. So much involved.” He leans us up against the cave wall behind us, holding my hand while he gathers his thoughts.

I stay quiet, careful not to scare him away, or make him rethink telling me anything.

“I told you that we’ve known each other before the day I saved you from Jack and carried you to the hospital. It goes back much further than that.” He squeezes my hand a little tighter. “Skylenna, I’ve known you since you were two years old.”

My last gasp of air comes to a halting stop in my throat. What?

“My mother was friends with Jack and Violet. They introduced us when I was five.”

“Your mom knew my parents?” I can’t show enough surprise on my face at a time like this. It’s physically impossible. I’ve surpassed the quota.

He nods with a solemn frown. “I first saw you when you were sleeping in your father’s arms. You had a head full of honey curls and these squishy cheeks. Your arm was hanging over the side of his arm. I remember walking up to you, and I held your little hand while my mother spoke with your father. After a few minutes, you woke up briefly. Your green eyes opened and you stared at me. You weren’t even the least bit curious as to who I was. You just smiled at me like you’d been waiting for me to hold your hand, and then you fell back asleep. I don’t know how, but I knew you’d be in my life for as long as I live.”

“I can’t believe this…” I say with my other hand pressed up against my forehead.

“That’s as much as I can say right now—except…” He trails off, looking away in a muted argument. Kane lets go of my hands, an impossible load of anguish in his warm eyes. He levels himself on his knees and turns his back to me, removing his shirt. Burn marks cover his back in the pattern of tic-tac-toe. Vertical and horizontal, narrow, rectangular slats.

He turns his head to the side to give me a sidelong glance.

“The day Scarlett died, Dessin knew something was coming. Call it a sixth sense, call it intuition, call it a careful calculation of her behavior. But he knew. And we were too late.”

Wait. Is he saying… was he there? My hand acts on its own accord and finds the damaged skin on his back. I caress the scars starting from his shoulder blades down to his lower back. Was he burned in the fire I started?

“When I finally got to you… Scarlett’s childhood home was set ablaze. I fought my way through the flames and found you passed out, holding her hand. I saw the noose around her neck and—it all hit me. I’m the only other person alive that knows the truth. I know you didn’t kill her, despite the senseless rumors. She ended her own life and it… it broke your heart.” His voice grows weak and raspy. “I carried your body out of the fire and left you on the sidewalk. When I went back for Scarlett, the house was caving in on itself… but I just knew you’d want to bury her, so I went in anyway. I made it halfway to her room when half of the ceiling came crashing down on my back. By the time I pulled myself out of the fire, her body was a pile of ashes.”

“Oh.” Pieces of my heart come sprinkling down to my gut in thin flakes, and I’m failing at holding in my sobs. I don’t realize my cheeks are wet, drenched with ongoing tears.

“It’s something I’ll never forgive myself for. It’s part of the reason why I couldn’t resurface when we met again at the asylum. Dessin knew he had to take over. I couldn’t face you after failing you the way I did.”

I lunge into him, pulling his body to my chest with impressive force. My arms curl around his neck, and my face snuggles into his shoulder. “You didn’t fail me. You saved my life. Kane, I knew… I knew you meant more to me for a reason.” I pant into his neck.

“I wish I could tell you everything, honey.”

This touches my heart like dipping into a hot bath. I have more respect and feelings for him than I did before.

“But why didn’t Dessin tell me? When he met me again in the asylum, he acted like it was the first time. Why was it a big secret?”

Kane pauses. “You won’t believe me until I show you.”