Not that he was thinking of her like that. She was a principal. He was assigned to protect her. It was as simple as that. Anything else made for undue complications, and he had no interest in complications.
Then, things got complicated.
“You’ve been shot!”
She was on him before he could react, grasping at the wide burn hole in his Skintex shirt near his lower left abdomen. He reacted, grabbing her hands an instant after he felt her fingertips sliding over his smooth, unblemished skin.
“B-but I heard the weapon go off. There’s a burn in your shirt the size of my fist. Why …?”
“Never mind,” he said gruffly. “The gun must have misfired.”
“MX’s don’t misfire,” she said flatly. “But let’s say I believe that, how does Skintex burn through, yet your skin isn’t even so much as blistered? Not even reddened!”
“Will you hush?” he hissed at her. “Why don’t you just jump up and down and start screaming ‘Here we are!’?”
“Don’t try to change the subject by yelling at me, thinking fear will shut me up!”
“I’m not changing the subject. I’m telling you there isn’t any subject to discuss. And if we’re not quiet, some other contingent of guards will find us. We got away because we had the whole team with us before. We’re on our own for the time being, so maybe we won’t be so lucky in another attack.”
Ambrea wasn’t fooled. He was still trying to deflect her interest in a wound that wasn’t. She recalled him jerking the gun muzzle out of her face and pointing it toward his own body, and then hearing that loud perfunctory searing of the air that signified gunfire. He’d taken a shot directly in the gut, yet it hadn’t touched him. Or so it seemed. She knew that soldiers wore Skintex to protect their skin, but it wasn’t like a shock vest that could defray the power of a blaster strike. There was no way that Skintex was strong enough to account for what she
wasn’t
seeing.
Still, she decided to keep quiet. It was true they were vulnerable, and chitchat wasn’t wise. But she kept her eyes on him steadily, trying to see in his face some clue as to what was going on. His expression was implacable, however; just by the way he studiously ignored her focus, he was giving himself away.
“I—”
“Look, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make
like none of this ever happened, like you never saw anything,” he snapped suddenly, grabbing her face in his large hand and pushing himself nose to nose with her so she could feel the anger radiating off him and through his russet eyes. “And if I think you’re going to whisper a single word of this to any of my friends, I’ll cut your throat right here and now and your ass will never touch your precious throne of Allay. You got me, Princess?”
She blinked slowly and drew in a long, unsteady breath.
“I was just going to say I think we lost our pursuers,” she said softly.
“Oh.”
Ender slowly relaxed, the tension in his big shoulders releasing in tiny increments, his grip on her face becoming less cruel.
“Have you done that before?” she couldn’t help but ask. “Killed someone to keep them quiet about … this?”
“I told you to drop it. Damn, woman, are you really this dense, or are you just bound and determined to test my resolve?”
“Oh, I believe you’ll do what you say,” she assured him. “I believe you’d plunge Allay into a lifetime of continued cruelty at the hands of my uncle by killing me just to … I guess to keep a secret. This … strange secret.” She blinked. “But humor me a minute. I am forbidden to speak of it on pain of death, and it’s likely you will kill me anyway. So why not tell me what it is I am bound to lose my life over?”
He growled under his breath, pushing her away. A nerve ticked in his jaw as he spent a moment checking his belt to make sure his munitions were pinned and secure before fastening an exterior communications device into his ear.
“You don’t understand,” he ground out. “I’ve been in
the IM for almost fifteen cycles, and never once … not once …” He made a sound of frustration, running a hand through the short, crisp ends of his hair. “So I’m a freak, all right?” he spat out. “Some kind of mutation or something. And people don’t take kindly to freaks. They’re afraid of them. Even friends, even family, even my team wouldn’t understand.”
“More like they’d feel hurt that you didn’t trust them,” she said quietly.
“There are things you can trust people with, and things you can’t.”
She tilted her head, studying the hard lines of tension in his face. There had been no mistaking the camaraderie amongst the IM teammates. There had been efficiency and professionalism, yes, but it had been clear as day that they were good friends as well. Especially the two Tarians in the group.
“So you … have really tough skin or something?” She couldn’t help reaching out to touch the back of his hand. It was warm, smooth, and soft just like skin ought to be. The sparse hairs were slightly coarse and as blond as the hair on his head.
“Or something,” he agreed. It didn’t seem as though he was going to elaborate any further, but then he looked at her, his opposite hand gripping the trunk of the tree, bits of bark flaking off under his powerful fingers. “I just haven’t spoken about it since before my mother died when I was fifteen. She told me never to speak of it. Never to show it. She said it was a curse, an aberration that would make people want to hurt me. I disobeyed her directive only once in my life, and I paid the price. People I grew up with, people who knew me and supposedly loved me, turned on me in an instant. I never made that mistake again. And now you—”
Ambrea could see that he was afraid. This tough, stalwart warrior who faced down weapons and danger and
drowning without so much as a rise in blood pressure was very much afraid of being exposed for being—as he put it—a freak. And perhaps not because of what they might try to do to him, but because he feared being betrayed by those he trusted and cared about. He feared them rejecting him, casting him out of the position in life that he now maintained. That loss, to him, would be far more damaging than any physical wounds he might suffer should they try to hurt him.
“Do I look like I want to hurt you?” she asked quietly, lifting her gaze to his so he could see deeply into hers. “Do you think someone like me, someone who has been persecuted just because of the blood in her veins, could ever find it in herself to see another be hurt because of the blood in his?”
Seconds ticked past as their gazes held, his breath quick and noisy between them. Whether it was from running moments earlier or from that genuine fear, she couldn’t tell. He reached up suddenly, swallowing the entire right side of her face in the span of his hand, holding her tightly in his fingers. She felt a strong flash of fear then, the understanding that he was so physically superior to her in strength, size, and skill. She sensed that he wasn’t the sort of man who would harm an innocent for his own gain, but fear made people do things that they would not normally do. If his fear of exposure was truly that strong, there was no telling what he might be pushed to.
“You’re being tolerant because you’ve seen only a little piece of it. If you saw it all—”
“Why are you so determined to frighten me?” she asked, drawing up all of her courage and going with her instincts. She had faith that he would not hurt her. “Why are you trying to provoke the very reaction you are dreading?”
He was so close to her, his heated breath cascading
over her face again and again, his thumb rubbing almost harshly at the corner of her lips. She could feel the energy of his need, his need to believe that maybe he was wrong to make a blanket judgment against her, just as others would be wrong to make a blanket judgment against him. She asked herself if this unknown power he harbored frightened her, honestly asked herself if it was wise to keep pushing like this. She imagined he was asking himself the very same thing.
“Perhaps if a stranger is willing to be accepting of you, then maybe you should have more faith in those who know you. I will not say you shouldn’t be cautious. There is always danger. Those who are supposed to love you can and sometimes
will
turn on you, but I can’t believe there is no one worthy of faith and trust in all of these Three Worlds.”
“Knowing who you are, knowing what you’ve been through, I can’t decide if you are really stupid for believing that, or really quite beautiful.”
Ambrea felt a peculiar warmth infusing her face and neck, a tightening around her ribs. How strange it was for her to realize right then that she thought him to be quite attractive as well. At first she had been overwhelmed by his size, his roaring presence, the dramatic, sweeping ink on his skin, but when taken along with this more vulnerable aspect, the intensity of his brow and the glimmer of his fair hair … not to mention the depth of pain and emotion she could see in his eyes, she thought he was really quite beautiful too.
“Perhaps I am a little bit of both,” she confessed. “I too find it very difficult to trust others. But we need to have faith in our long-standing relationships. Otherwise we will be forever on the outside looking in. I don’t wish to be on the outside, in exile. I have been there all my life. It’s time it came to an end.”
He moved away from her a little, taking a moment to
look beyond their hiding spot, moving with an impressive silence for someone so big. Ambrea felt as though she were making too much noise just sitting there. But she felt safe just the same. Or perhaps it was more that she wasn’t worried about dying anymore. She would live or she would die. The close call of minutes ago had made that very clear. She had stared down the barrel of that vicious gun, smelled the ozone of the power pack that charged it. It had been just that close. But if it was the “freak” part of Ender that had allowed him to move so fast in that moment, that had allowed him to take a violent hit in her stead, she couldn’t see anything bad about it.
When he was settled down beside her again, she resumed her slow study of him. This time he smiled under her scrutiny.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”
“Generally, not for me. The royalty are encouraged to inspect the details of those around them, to seek out strengths and flaws. If it makes you uncomfortable, however, I will stop.”
“Not uncomfortable. Just not used to it. I prefer to blend in. Not be noticed.”
She covered a short laugh with fingers against her lips.
“What?” he demanded with a frown.
“Yes, not noticed. That’s why you carry around all those loud explosive things. So you won’t be noticed.”
That made him grin. “All right, you might have a point,” he acceded. He touched the communication device in his ear. It was clear he was worried about the well-being of the rest of the team, but he didn’t try to contact them. He was following some sort of protocol.
“What’s your real name?” she asked him suddenly. “I know you prefer other soldiers to use this soldier’s nickname you’ve been given, but if you don’t mind, I’d like
to know your real name. I am not a soldier, and a soldier is not all that you are.”
He looked at her, clearly thinking about it for a second or two.
“Rush. My name is Rush.”
“Will you mind if I call you Rush? I like it much better than Ender.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other.
Ambrea let a full minute go by before she spoke up again.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to be quiet, but I confess I’m dying of curiosity. Just what is it that makes you so different? Are you impervious to injury? Or is it some things that can’t hurt you as opposed to others?”
He sighed noisily, leaning back against the tree. He propped up a knee and rested his wrist on it. “You really aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
She replied with a one-shouldered shrug and a little smile she couldn’t seem to help.
“I asked, didn’t I?”
He seemed to think hard about it for several beats. “This is a bad idea,” he said aloud, more in a lecture to himself than to her, she supposed. “Truth is, I don’t know the full extent of what I can do anymore. I just pretend it isn’t there. Except to avoid accidental exposure like what happened with you. I’ve gotten so used to tamping down everything.” He sighed with feeling. “When I was younger, it was connected hard to my emotions. When I got upset or angry, when I became excited …” The big man colored, and Ambrea hid a smile behind her fingers. It was obvious by the stilted manner of his speech that he wasn’t used to talking about himself. She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him. In truth, she found it endearing.
“It?” she prompted.
“Yeah. It.” He studied her for a moment and then seemed to make his choice. He lifted his hand and stared at his palm for a long, steady span of seconds.
Slowly, almost like a trick of her eyes, a wobbly effect bent the air around his hand, like what you might see when looking down a long, heat-baked road.
There was a startling popping sound and his hand burst into flames.
She squeaked in surprise, watching with wide eyes as he spread his fingers, showing her that they were all fully involved, golden orange flames curling and licking at them, the fire swirling over his skin as if it loved him, as if it had missed him and needed to embrace him any way it could. His response to seeing it was visceral as well. His eyes became hooded with a distinctive sense of pleasure. He drew the fire close as though to smell it, taking in a long, slow breath. She didn’t think he even realized what he was doing. It was as if he had become instantly spellbound. Whatever he thought of his abilities, whatever the trauma he had suffered because of them, it was instantly clear to her that this was more than a natural part of him. It was a passionate part of him.
Ambrea was also fascinated. Thousands of questions filled her head. And like a child who didn’t know better, who could appreciate fire just for the beauty of it and without the fearful respect she ought to have for it, she reached out to touch his fingers with hers. She wanted to know if the fire was real or just a visual effect. Was it hot? Would it burn? It wasn’t burning him, but would it burn her?