The wind and his own rapid movements had his hair dancing around a face damp with sweat. She thought his eyes brighter, bolder than the blades.
He gave no quarter; she wanted none. Thrust, strike, attack. Thrust, strike, defend. As they matched power against power, speed against guile, she felt the thrill of battle against a perfectly matched opponent.
Once more their swords crossed, held. They stared at each other, breath labored, sweat dripping.
“Screw the game,” he said.
“Oh yeah.”
They tossed their swords aside and leaped at each other.
They rolled over the thick, coarse grass, mouths meeting, clashing as their blades had. Breathless, desperate, she gripped his hair, used her teeth. Her breath came short and harsh as she tugged and yanked at leather.
“How the hell do you get this off?”
“How the devil do I know?”
“It’s your game.”
“Bloody hell.” He rolled her over, shoved her facedown in the grass to attack the laces. “Bastard’s knotted like steel.” Inspired, he yanked the dagger from his belt and sliced them free. He flung the dagger point down in the grass.
Lowering to her, he gave himself the pleasure of her naked back, the lean length of it, the play of muscle under hot, smooth skin. When his hand passed over the wound in her hip, she flinched.
“How’s the hip?”
“Hurts-just enough to let me know I took a hit.” She flipped over, reared up, pulling the dagger out of the ground. “Shoulder?”
“I’ll live.”
She smiled. “Better hold still or I’ll win by default.” She sliced the dagger down the leather. Her eyes on his, she turned the blade. “Trust me?”
He gripped her wrist, shoved her arm down until her fingers opened on the hilt. “No.”
With a laugh, she pulled him down to her.
His mouth warred with hers, quick bites, sliding tongues while their bodies, slick with sweat, stained with blood, moved over the rough grass.
Smoke plumed from the valley below, and on its edges echoed the endless combat. It seemed apt, she thought. No matter how in tune she and Roarke might be, there was always another battle brewing under the calm.
And always with it, always this need to take, to consume, to have, to be. Even now, in the midst of this violent fantasy, she wanted nothing more than his hands on her, then his body mated with hers.
She rolled again, straddled him. His hands closed possessively over her breasts before he pushed up so his mouth could do the same.
She tasted of the fight-hot, damp, hints of leather, and under his hungry mouth her heart thundered. For him. As her body trembled-all that strength, all that will trembling. For him. That was his miracle, his greatest treasure.
“Mine,” he said. “My heart.” And he felt the new thrill of hearing her answer him in the language of his blood. His hands tangled in her hair, the long, wild tumble of it-another new and oddly seductive sensation.
He overbalanced, taking her down to her back with the swords crossed just above her head. Now when he thrust, when she cried out, it was only in pleasure.
Power met power again, and with it speed while the new battle raged. When she closed around him, when she shuddered through her release, she dragged him with her through the violence, and into the peace.
She lay faceup, the wind washing over her, the determined beams of sun pulsing red against her closed eyes. The grass, all those rough tufts, made her skin twitch-but it didn’t seem like a good enough reason to move. Particularly since Roarke lay beside her, nearly in the same position.
The clanging of her heart in her ears had slowed and quieted enough so she could hear the continuing war in the valley below them. Apparently, the hillside had come to a truce.
“Who won?” she asked.
“Let’s call it a draw.”
Seemed fair enough. “I guess we’re still a little pissed at each other.”
“I thought it was aggravated.”
“Same thing. But between the fighting and the sex, I worked most of mine off.”
“Then we’ll call that a draw, too.”
What was the point in arguing about it? she asked herself. They’d just start it all up again, and nothing would change what he did, who he was. Nothing would change what she did, who she was.
Sometimes that middle ground between them was narrow and slippery. The trick was figuring out how to navigate it.
“It’s a good game,” she told him. “Realistic, compelling, involving.”
“We barely touched the surface.”
“This.” She touched a hand to her hip, examined the smear on her palm. It looked like blood, felt like it, smelled like it.
“Illusion. It involves sensory enhancement, the scan of your vitals, your physicality, the motions, reactions.”
“What if you cut off a limb-or a head.”
“End of game. Or in multiplayer, end for the player who lost the limb or head.”
“I mean, would you actually feel it, see it?”
“Not the human players. If you were playing the comp, a fantasy figure, and got that kind of hit on it, you’d see it.”
“What about a droid?”
“Well, you could program it to play against a droid. Same results. The droid is solid. Therefore, the game would treat it as it would a human. The weapons aren’t real, Eve. They can’t harm anyone.”
“Which is what the vic would have assumed, whether he played against a human, a droid, or a fantasy character. Just a game. But it wasn’t.” She continued to study the blood on her palm. “I felt the hit-not like a cut, not like you’d just sliced me with a sword-”
“I’d hardly have done so if you would have.”
“But I got a jolt. Like an electric shock. Mild, but strong enough to let me know I’d taken a hit. And it throbbed-when we fought. I was fighting wounded.”
“Which would be the point.”
“I get that. I get it. But the vic had those burns. Up the voltage, you’d get burns.”
“Not without direct contact. The game reads the hit, registers it, transmits it.”
“Okay, but if somebody reprogrammed the game, and used an actual weapon.” She sat up, pushed her hair back-surprised and disconcerted by the length of it.
“It’s different. Your hair.” His gaze ran over it. “Interesting.”
“It gets in the way.”
When he smiled, she ran a long, loose lock between her fingers. “It feels real. If I tug it, I feel it, even though it’s not really there. My weapon’s over there. I can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s real. So if his killer brought it in-like I did-oh yeah, forgot. Sets it down in a specific place. He’s only got to remember where it is, pick it up, use it. But why do all that? Why go through the motions of the game first?”
“More sporting?”
“Maybe. Maybe. The bruises, the burns. If the game was sabotaged ahead of time, the levels bumped up beyond what they could be for code, for sale, that ups the competitive level, too, doesn’t it? And if the killer used a droid, he wouldn’t have to be here. Alibis, none of them would matter with that angle. Talk Bart into testing the game at home with a droid.”
“The droid would have to be sabotaged as well, or built and programmed off code. The weapon would register as real, as lethal, so it would have to be programmed either not to register the weapon as lethal, or to discount it. Then to clean up and reset the security. Some of that would involve computer use, and that should have alerted CompuGuard.”
“You could do it.”
“Yes, I could do it. But I have unregistered equipment and the privacy to do the work without sending out flags. EDD combed the warehouse. There’s no unregistered equipment there. And none in Bart’s apartment.”
“Which only means, potentially, someone else had a copy of the disc, and worked on it off-site. You know this whole thing is showy. Showoffy,” she added and started to rise.
And remembered she was naked, and her illusionary clothes torn and bloody. “Ah, let’s shut this down.”
“If we must. Game end.”
The hillside vanished, the sounds of war faded away. She watched the blood on her palm do the same. She picked up her shirt, studied the ragged tear down the back.