Triple Infinity (15 page)

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She pushed away from him and went back to the edge of the balcony to stand in silence.

After a minute, she turned back to Aiden. “Don’t y
ou think it’s scary for me? I didn’t know what I was doing or where my mind was. I couldn’t think, and it was like I didn’t even know what I was doing there.
Why
I was there. Malefics — Panthenites — I don’t care. I never have. This is your world, Aiden, not mine. I care about staying alive, sure, but I still know nothing of this Panthenite world.”

Aiden nodded at her, arms crossed against his chest. “Fair enough. But your skill. The fight in you. It doesn’t just turn off and on like that, Skye. So I have to ask, were you holding back? Holding back because you’re afraid of the anger? Afraid of the Malefic in you?”

Skye cringed as she looked out at the darkness above. The moon had crawled up into the blackness, half full, and bright. She shrugged. “Maybe...” She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I thought I knew something yesterday — this morning. But now. Now, I don’t think I know anything.”

Aiden moved alongside her, his arm going about her waist, looking down at her as she looked at the moon. “
Well, I have one thing that I know you know, and that is that you are my soul, Skye. That, you never need to question.”

Her eyes shifted to
him, the green in them glimmering through the maelstrom of uncertainty on her face. “I don’t, Aiden. I don’t question it. I know I have you to hold onto, if nothing else.”

Triaten looked at the clock in the jeep, 2:37 a.m. The jet had made good time, and after stopping by Hotel Auric to report to the elders on the G
enevieve mission, he parked at the ranch, only to see light emanating from the front window of the library.

He already knew that about Shiv. She was most alive at night. Triaten just wondered what kind of state she was in. Before he had left with Aiden and Skye, he had looked for her at the ranch, since that’s where his j
eep ended up after Shiv took it. But he couldn’t find her, and best he could tell, she was out on a trail, as she and Rafe were nowhere. So he had resorted to leaving her a note. Triaten hadn’t been sure about the wisdom of it, but time had left him little choice.

He walked in t
he front door. The library door was closed, but light spilled into the hall under the bottom crack. All he heard was silence.

Triaten slid open the library door. Rafe was sleeping in the corner on a sweatshirt that looked like Shiv’s, shirking his guard dog duties. He didn’t even twitch an ear when Triaten stepped into the room.

Shiv stood high, back to Triaten, balanced on the arms of the chair he had meant to remove from the room. She stared at the floor, tilting her head back and forth in rhythm, probably to whatever tune was piping through the ear buds from the music strapped to her arm.

Triaten looked at the floor. She had gone all-
out on the mosaic during the day he was gone.  The two main figures were mostly complete, only feet missing on both. The color of the tiles littering the area meant she was working on how the feet would meet the ground. He wondered if she had slept at all. Probably not.

Admiring the scene on the floor, he stepped up next to Shiv on the chair, only to scare the bejeezus out of her. She jumped away from him, and both
of her bare feet slipped out from under her.

Falling away from him, Triaten’s hand shot out and grabbed her flailing wrist, yanking her toward him. He caught her easily, but wasn’t ready for the whack on his chest Shiv delivered
, once her mind caught up with instinct, and she realized who had her.

She thrashed until Triaten set her feet on the ground.

“Holy shit, Triaten.” She yelled at him and gave him another thwack as she pulled the ear buds out of her ears. “What the hell are you trying to do to me? Break my neck?”

Triaten could only smile at her disgust. He pointed at the ladder, still leaning on the wall in the same spot he had left it.

She followed his finger, and then rolled her eyes at him, the adrenalized anger not yet subsided. “That still doesn’t give you the right to creep me out like that.” She hit his chest one last time, shaking her head.

“It’s looking beautiful.” Triaten said, head nodding at the floor as he turned from her to loo
k at it.

Shiv crossed her arms, eyeing her creatio
n. “You like it?” Her voice begged for approval.

“I honestly do. I had no idea the sketch would turn out like this.”

“I know. It was a bit of a leap of faith, wasn’t it?”

He looked back at her. Her finger tips were grey with dri
ed cement. Smudges of the mortar dotted her bare arms and the front of her crimson tank. Black yoga pants covered her legs, rolled up at the bottom away from her bare toes. Her dark hair was in a high ponytail, and her eyes, though tired, twinkled at him. And then there it was. The drug smile. Aimed right at him.

Triaten looked away from her. Promises to Skye, he muttered to himself. Shiv was off-limits.

He eyed the mosaic. “It was. I’m glad I took it.”

Shiv moved forward and stood next Triaten, her eyes
echoing his at the floor. “I have to ask, what was with the note? That’s how you leave?”

So the note not
the best choice, Triaten surmised. He looked down at the top of her head. “We had to leave right away. I looked for you and couldn’t find you. It was the best I could do.”

“I see.” Her big toe played with a
n errant brown tile on the floor. “Triaten, you need to start being honest with me. What you do here. Where you go. I don’t need to know a lot.” Her gaze made it to him. “But I do need to know something.”

“Like what?”

“Like, who do you work for? The government?”

“No. ”

“Then what was with the Secretary of State being here?”

Triaten crossed his arms across his chest. “Just because I don’t work for them, doesn’t mean they don’t take great interest in what happens here. We use them. They use us. It’s a balance.”

“So who is the ‘we,’ if not the government?”

“I pick and choose what I get involved in. Where I would be useful. Who I can help.” He paused. That was the end of that answer. “What else?”

Shiv begrudgingly moved on from the last question. “Okay, fine, is Skye back?”

“No. She and Aiden will be another day. They have to work some stuff out.”

That caught Shiv’s interest. Her brow furrowed. “Work stuff out? Hmmm, I have to ask. Is she happy with Aiden?”

This one had
an easy answer. Triaten relaxed. “The one thing I do know for certain about Skye, is that she is deeply in love with Aiden. And he is with her. The rest of it...they’ll work out the rest of it.”

“What do you mean,
‘the rest of it’?”

“The rest is between Skye and Aiden. You’ll have to ask her.”

Shiv’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. “That she left with you, Triaten...if she went somewhere with you — is Skye in danger?”

“No.”

Her hand went to her hip as she barraged him. “No is not good enough. You need to give me more than that.”

“She will be fine as long as Aiden is by her side.”

“Well, that seems pretty stupid. Does he follow her everywhere she goes?”

“I’ve seen her go to the bathroom alone.”

Shiv rolled her eyes at him.

“Okay, for now, yes he pretty much goes everywhere she does.”

Shiv sighed as she used the clean spots on the back of her wrists to rub the bleariness from her eyes. “Well, as long as she’s safe, I guess. To each their own.”

“You should head up to bed.” Triaten pointed to the stairs. “The tile isn’t going anywhere.”

She stepped in front of him, cement-speckled hand on his chest. Her green eyes had flipped from bleary to alive with hunger. “Care to join me?”

Triaten took a step back. Then another. He had to space himself from her warm body. “Shiv...it’s late. You’re tired. I’m tired.”

“Tired?” Her head cocked in attempt to figure him out. She took a step toward him. “I’ve not known you to ever be tired.”

Triaten took another step back. “It’s just been an exhausting day.”

Shiv shook her head as she took another step toward him, hands now on her hips. “No, you need to tell me why you’re stepping away from me. Because tired is not an excuse I’ll believe from you. What’s going on?”

Triaten rubbed his jawline, stalling. He hadn’t been ready with any excuses, and now he was paying for it. He looked at Shiv. She wasn’t even impatient. Just calmly staring at him. Calmly waiting for the shoe to drop. She had said she had gotten used to dropping shoes as a child, with all the
moves from foster home to foster home. This must be how she took it. Calm to hide hope. How to make this easy for her?

“It’s not about you, Shiv. With your sister back...it gets complicated.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I promised her I would leave you alone.”

“Leave me alone? Skye doesn’t get to make that decision, Triaten.”

“No, but she asked, and I made that decision to keep her happy. She is a dear friend, and I intend to keep it that way.”

Shiv reached down to her waist and proceeded to pull her red tank up and over her head. Her breasts were pushed high by a black lace bra. She strode forward, closing the gap between them. Shiv grabbed Triaten’s hand and put it on her chest, holding it to her smooth skin. “If she’s a dear friend, than what am I?”

Both of her hands were over his, and she
moved his hand around to cup her left breast. Her eyes flickered up at him with the intensity of the offering.

Triaten crin
ged with what he was about to say. “Shiv. I can’t. I made a promise.”

It stopped her, and she blinked, humiliating reality sinking in. “And you’ve promised me nothing.” She backed up a step, dropping his hand. “I get it. I’m sorry.”

She turned her back to him and went back over to the mosaic, staring at the floor.

Triaten started to say something, anything to make it easier for Shiv. But then he closed his mouth. He doubted he could say anything to make it right with her. Leaving would be the best thing. So he walked out of the room.

Just outside the library door, Triaten couldn’t help but stop and look back at Shiv, half naked. She shuffled over from the mosaic to Rafe in the corner. She bent down to scratch his head behind his ears. Soaking in the sudden attention, he rolled onto his back, his thick body thumping on the floor, and his big eyes stared at her, insinuating a belly rub would be nice.

The smile she gave Rafe
was sad. “Why is it that you seem to be the only one that can stand to be around me for any length of time, Rafe? Is it the belly rubs?”

There was no self-pity i
n her voice, only an ache. An ache that wrapped itself around Triaten’s chest and slowed his heart. Feet moving on their own, Triaten strode across the library floor instantly, pulling Shiv up from her crouch in front of Rafe.

He
pulled her into a kiss, his hand on her back, pressing her into him, demanding her body meet the wall of his chest. When he leaned back, his voice was a growl. “Make no mistake, Shiv. I can stand it. And I was stupid to think I could avoid it.”

Her eyes we
re questioning as she looked at him. “And damn, Skye?”

“Damn stupid promises I never should have made.”

Her face broke into the drug smile as her arms went up around his neck, and her legs did the same around his waist. Triaten carried her upstairs.

~~~

Skye’s slap across his face stung. But not nearly as bad as the scathing disappointment dripping from her voice, “How could you, Triaten?”

It
had only taken Skye a second of being in the kitchen with Triaten and Shiv, to figure out what was going on between the two of them. Aiden and Skye had walked into the ranch, and had found Triaten and Shiv easily enough. Triaten hadn’t expected them to be back so soon from the island.

Once Skye had seen the two of them together, laughing at the kitchen table, Shiv’s hand on his thigh, she had practically grabbed Triaten’s ear and dragged him to
the study. She had slammed the door closed so hard, it bounced back from the frame — she had to slide it twice more before she eased it gentle enough for the latch to close.

And now she stared
at him, a perceptible shake of anger reverberated in her arms as she crossed them over her ribcage, trying to stymie her fury. “How could you?”

Each word snapped.

“It was wrong of me to promise you anything, Skye.” Triaten’s hands were up in defense right away.  “I thought I could keep the promise, but I was wrong. I shouldn’t have made the promise, and I’m sorry.”

“It was twelve hours, Triaten. Twelve.” She paced, arms flinging. “You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants for half a day? A cup of coffee didn’t occur to you? A walk? A movie? Anything but banging my sister?”

Triaten had never seen Skye this angry, or crass. “Skye, really, you’re over-blowing what you saw. What you thought you saw.”

Her hand flew up to stop him. “Don’t even start. I know what
I saw in there. You are playing with my sister, Triaten. This will never go anywhere, and you know it.”

She spun away from hi
m, arm lashing through the air. “God, why would you be so stupid? Every moment you spend with her gets you — gets her — in deeper and deeper. That much is obvious.”

She turned back to him, finger pointing. “And where’s it going to end? Are you going to tell her you’re a Panthenite? Are you really going to put her in that sort of danger? Are you going to get her pregnant, only to have an elder come on by and kill her baby
— or her? You know your father is not going to let this fly. What the hell are you thinking, Triaten? You know this is going nowhere, but there you are — sitting there with her, a charming asshole.”

A knock on the door interrupted Skye’s tirade. Without waiting for an answer to the knock, Aiden slid open the door and stuck his head in. “Skye, Shiv wants to talk to you.”

Skye glared at Aiden. She wasn’t done with Triaten. She had only just begun.

Aide
n took the glare for what it meant. “I know. And I imagine she mostly wants to get Triaten off the hook. You’re not exactly being discrete in here.”

“Shit, did she hear anything?”