“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gently pulled her against him and ran his hands through her pale hair before he braided it for her.
She tilted her head back to look up at him. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you the hair of an Andarion warrior.”
Sumi furrowed her brow. It was such a strange thing for him to do. And again, it seemed incongruous that a male so fierce would play like this in a woman’s hair. “Is that why League assassins braid their hair? Because they were founded by an Andarion?”
He continued to brush his hands through her hair and plait it. “Not just any Andarion, mia. The first Keris of the Warring Blood Clan of Hauk. Back then, an Andarion warrior had to earn the right to grow his or her hair long. It was kept short until Endurance. Then it was allowed to grow, but only so long as you were undefeated in battle. And no one ever defeated Keris. So when he started The League to fight against the human tyrant, all The League soldiers wore their hair long and braided to pay honor to him.”
It made sense, and she’d wondered why assassins did that. Now she knew. “So why don’t Andarions still wear their hair braided down their backs?”
“Too many humans took up the style.”
“I’m serious, Dancer.”
“As am I. We have a fierce loyalty to our homeworld that is only matched by the Phrixians. When so many offworlders began adopting our style, we changed it to the many shorter braids we now wear.” He pulled a leather tie from his bracer and used it to secure her hair.
Then, he stooped down and dipped two of his fingers into the dark soil. Smiling at her, he drew a pattern around her eye and down her cheek and jawline. “Now you look like the fierce warrior you are, munatara.” He placed a tender kiss to her other cheek before he moved away and gathered their things.
Curious, Sumi went to the water to see the beautiful swirling shape he’d drawn. “What does this signify, Dancer?”
He didn’t answer as he slung the pack over his back and secured it. “We need to hurry to catch up to the others. Once I see you safely to them and make certain they were able to contact Nyk, I’ll take one of the airbees and lead the assassins away from you.”
She started to repeat her question, until her gaze fell to the Andarion short sword he’d put across his back. There on the hilt, emblazoned in gold, was the same symbol he’d drawn on her face. It was identical to what was also stamped into his bracers. They were the swirling wings of a hawk. In that moment, she knew what he wouldn’t say.
He’d marked her as his.
Listen with your eyes…
Tears choked her. Quickening her steps, she caught up to his long strides and took his hand. He gave a light squeeze before he called for Illyse to follow them. Hand in hand, they walked while she tried to learn some Andarion. Which proved to be an extremely complicated language. It dripped like a song from his lips with that deep, resonating voice of his.
But her human tongue stumbled over all the vowels and diphthongs.
When they stopped a few hours later to rest and feed Illyse, she saw the blood running down Dancer’s leg.
“How can you walk on that without complaint?”
He glanced down and brushed at the blood then shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
Rolling her eyes, she opened the pack and took out an antiseptic cloth. “I swear Andarions must have different pain receptors than humans.” She pulled his pants leg up to see that it was starting to fester. She grimaced. “This is looking bad, sweetie.”
He moved his leg so that he could see it. Then he made an adorable face at the wound. “I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head at his nonchalance then did her best to clean and rebandage it. “What would Syn say if he were here?”
“That I’m an idiot.”
His unexpected dry retort made her laugh. “Does he call you that a lot?”
“A good bit of the time.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I call him worse things.”
Sumi tried to imagine having friends like that. She’d never had many, and Avin had chased off the handful of people she’d once hung out with from work. In her mind, she’d already made up personalities for the men and women she’d seen in Dancer’s module. Too bad she’d never know if they were accurate or not.
Unwilling to think about the future that awaited them, she gave him a light kiss. “All done.”
Without complaint, he stood, then pulled her into his arms with her back to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. She could feel him growing hard against her hip.
Hauk closed his eyes and savored the sensation of holding her like this. It was a very human thing to do. Andarions didn’t really touch in public.
Unless they were fighting, they were very circumspect.
And it made him wonder how Keris and Dariana had ever managed to be wingmen together. How they’d had a marriage without children.
All he wanted was to strip Sumi’s clothes off and spend the rest of the day inside her. To hell with everything else in the universe.
If they were married…
Hauk tensed as he remembered a flashback from his childhood.
“Are you okay?”
He tried to call back what his mind was trying to tell him. But it was gone as fast as it’d come. Straightening, he released her and wiped his forearm across his face. “Yeah, I’m just… confused.”
“By?”
“Nothing. It was a fleeting thought that left no impression.” He picked up their pack and took her hand. Yet as they continued on, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from pondering that one question —
Given as long as Keris and Dariana had been together, how had they managed to stay childless?
As they neared Aksel’s old base, Hauk pulled Sumi to a stop. He had a bad, bad feeling in his gut. Something wasn’t right.
“Dancer?”
Instead of answering, he turned a small circle and scanned the desert around them. There was nothing there.
Still the feeling persisted.
Sumi buried her hands in his hair and forced him to look at her. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on inside your head?”
He gave her a dry stare. “You don’t scare.”
“I do on occasion. Now, what is it?”
“Just the ghosts of the past haunting me.” He glanced back to the base, a shoddy, broken-down husk of what it’d been the last time he’d seen it.
A lot had changed in eight years. Then, Kiara had been kidnapped by Aksel and brought here to die. Nykyrian had come on a suicide run to save her life. Hauk’s mission had been to secure Kiara at any cost while Nyk played decoy for Aksel and his men.
Even now, he could see the anguished look on Nykyrian’s face right before they’d left to come here. “If I don’t get the chance, tell her I love her, that I’ve always loved her, and that I couldn’t have been more thrilled about the baby.” Nykyrian’s heartfelt words still ran a chill up his spine. His best friend had given him one hell of a bad day back then. He still owed Nyk a beating for that.
But this was an entirely different time. It was an entirely different enemy breathing down his neck, trying to kill him. One whose face and name he didn’t know.
Shrugging the feeling away, he took Sumi’s hand and led her toward the dilapidated building.
They’d only taken three steps when Sumi pulled him to a stop. He glanced at her with a frown.
She dropped and tugged at his arm for him to do the same. He obeyed without question.
Sumi narrowed her gaze on the shadow that stood in the doorway of the base. Wanting a better vantage point, she crawled along the ground to a small rise. She pulled her rifle from Hauk’s shoulder and used the scope to survey the building.