Chapter One—Part Two: The Fire

That rest of that night, I dreamed of him. Of Kaz. But it wasn’t a beautiful dream, not yet. It was a tormented one. I dreamed that I crept into his room and climbed onto his bed with him. I dreamed that he rolled over in his sleep and that I laid my head against his chest. And then I dreamed that I could see the fire all around us, and although I was shouting at my dream self to rouse him, to get us both out of the room, I stayed there in his arms. I stayed there in his arms and let him tuck a finger under my chin so that when I lifted my head, he could catch me in a kiss. I stayed there in his arms, and I parted my legs for him, and instead of saving us from the fire, I let it consume us both.

I woke up in a cold sweat, my sheets drenched, and my heart pounding in the hollow of my chest. I was panting like I’d just run from a wild beast, and certainly my body was reacting as though I had. I threw the covers off of myself and went to the window, throwing it wide to let some fresh air into the room. Had he put that dream into my head?

The air conditioning had gone off at some point while I’d been asleep, and I peeled my sweat-drenched pajamas from my body, yearning for a cool breeze to come in off the desert, but of course one never came.

I padded into the bathroom, where even the marble floor was warm to the touch, and ran the bathtub full of cool water. I thought if I could only bring my body temperature down, I could calm my shaken nerves. If I could just relax, I’d be fine to face what remained of the day. But I didn’t need the blinking green glow of the clock to tell me it was past noon, and that the day was halfway done.

When the tub was full up, I stepped into the water, sucking in air through my teeth at how cold it was compared to the air around me. But I forced myself to sink slowly down until I was sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the tub, submerged to the sternum, mousy brown tendrils of hair floating in the water around me.

I sank lower, lower, and tried to get my breathing to even out, but all I could see when I closed my eyes was the fire we had only narrowly escaped. I must have slept fitfully and was ill-rested, because I think I started to doze off again in the water when a knock at the door roused me, another surge of adrenalin, of panic, coursing through my system and making me jump up out of the tub with unsafe haste. I grabbed one of the plush white towels and wrapped it around my body before darting over to the bedroom door, leaving little puddles of water in my wake.

And when I opened the door, there he was. Master Kain. Kaz. “Please forgive the intrusion, Jane,” he said, his head bent with contrition. “May I please come in.”

“I’m not, er…that is…” I tried to make some excuse about the fact that I was naked and dripping wet, but the words didn’t quite form.

“This will only take a moment,” he assured me, so I stepped aside and allowed him to enter. The towel was large, large enough—I imagine—to accommodate the hulking form of an Ivaldan, so even my sizable breasts were not enough to make it fall open at the side. I tucked the corner in and wore it rather like a sarong. It was modest by modern standards, really.

I closed the door behind him and twisted my wet curls into a knot in a futile attempt to make myself more presentable. Then, I pressed my lips into a thin line and lifted my brows, waiting for him to say whatever it was he had come to say.

“I just wanted to ask,” he said, looking awkward and out of place in my bedroom, “how you were. After last night, and all.”

I nodded slowly. “I’m all right,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how true that statement was, and neither, it seemed, was he. “Well,” I amended, “still a little shaken, perhaps.”

“And rightly so,” he said, his tone low and contemplative. “I only wanted to reiterate how grateful I am to you, for saving my life.”

“Please,” I said, lifting a hand in protest, “there’s no need. I didn’t do anything any decent person wouldn’t have done.”

“Still,” he went on, finally lifting those ice blue eyes to look into my face. How was it that someone so pale, with eyes like frozen crystal, could live in a place so hot? “You are my…guest, my…my employee, and your life was endangered. I endangered the lives of everyone in my employ, and my sons, and…You see, what I’m trying to say—not very articulately, of course—is how…how very ashamed I am. Can you ever forgive me?”

I blinked, tilting my head to one side as I examined him. His shoulders were hunched forward, as though he were carrying the weight of the world on them. “Honestly, Master Kain—”

“Kaz,” he quickly corrected, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Kaz. There is nothing to forgive.” I don’t know what compelled me to be so familiar, but I walked forward and took his hand in mine. “It isn’t as though you set the fire yourself.”

When he looked into my eyes, then, there was something raw in them, something I wasn’t entirely certain I could place. A desire, perhaps, to tell me something; to express something. But he did not speak. Instead, he gave my hand a squeeze, and used his other hand to cup my face, to brush his fingertips over the line of my cheekbone.

“I feel as though I know you, Jane—do you feel it, too?” His voice was whisper quiet and full of questions, and I didn’t know what to say.

“We’ve only just met,” I protested.

“I realize that, but you’re so…” He plucked a wet strand of hair away from my forehead and tucked it behind my ear.

“What?” I urged.

“Open.” I had no idea what he meant by open and couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with the fact that I’d let him into my bedroom wearing nothing but a bath towel. “So many of you humans are so…closed. Just a mess of…of damage and neuroses. And I understand why, I do. I understand how the circumstances of a life lived can make you hard, can close you off. But it’s just so terribly refreshing to meet someone who is so…just…open.”

I gave a slow shake of my head. “I don’t feel particularly open,” I said.

“What do you feel, then, Jane?” He took a step back, as though he wanted to give me some room to express myself, as though he wanted to make sure that I felt comfortable. I appreciated it and took that opportunity to tuck my towel in a little more firmly.

“I feel scared,” I said, surprised by my own direct honesty. “Yes, I do—I feel scared. I’m afraid of what happened last night, and I’m afraid of what has happened to the world now that you’re in it with us. I feel strange because I think I should probably hate you and your kind, for just…coming to our planet and essentially taking it over, but I don’t hate you. And that makes me feel like a traitor to my very species, and…I’m just very confused right now.” And I didn’t realize any of this was true until I’d spoken it out loud. I think part of me had simply taken my circumstances at face value, something I was quite good at, and hadn’t bothered to ask questions about it at all.

“I think you have expressed what a great number of people are feeling, the world over,” he said. “And even with this mix of emotions, still, I can read you.”

“Read me?”

“Yes.”

“What, like, dig through my brain without my permission?” He had suddenly put me on edge, and I propped my hands up on my hips. But he shook his head.

“That isn’t how it works, Jane,” he gently intoned. “We can’t simply root around in people’s minds—our own people’s, or yours. We can only read the psychic energy that an individual willingly puts out.”

“Psychic energy,” I echoed.

“Just so.”

“So you didn’t…put that dream into my head?” I asked, and his expression was a puzzled one when I met his eyes again.

“What dream?”

“Never mind.”

“Any connection you feel to me, Jane,” he said, approaching again and curling his long, thick fingers around my wrist, “is purely organic.” He was close enough that I could hear him breathing; and I wondered if he could hear how quickly my heart was beating or feel it there in the veins in my wrist.

“How can I be sure of that?” I asked. “I’ve only just met you. And, yes, all right? To answer your question, yes, I feel like I know you. But I don’t trust that feeling. I don’t trust that you aren’t somehow influencing me, that that feeling isn’t…manufactured somehow.” I looked up into those eyes, like two tropical pools. “I don’t trust it.”

Then he leaned forward and caught my mouth with his.

His tongue was insistent, and I parted my lips for him. He drew me close and wrapped his arms around me, expressing that unspoken need I had seen in his eyes. I did feel oddly connected to him, as though he had opened up the whole of his being and let me in; and I felt safe there, in his arms, and in the confines of his esteem. But beneath that feeling of safety, something else lurked there: mistrust, as I’d said. Was this real? How could I ever know?

I felt his hands, warm even through the fabric of the towel, and hot against my flesh when the towel dropped to the floor at my feet.

“Jane,” came the growl of my name, buzzing against my neck as he pressed kisses there, his hands roving down along the curve of my hips. His palms found the flesh of my backside, and he gripped me, lifting me so that my legs parted, and he could hold me to him. I felt the pulse of my wanting, but I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust it.

“Kaz,” I said, not the same gentle murmur he’d used when he said my name, something punctuated, like a staccato. He carried me a few feet toward the bed, still mussed from my fitful night’s rest, and he laid me down. He bent forward, sliding his fingers around my breast and taking my nipple between his lips. I could feel the hardness of him from beneath his cotton trousers pressed against my thigh. “Kaz,” I said again, but I couldn’t find the words to tell him what I wanted. My body wanted his, but my mind…

And the fingers of his other hand found the flower of my sex and pried apart its petals, and I gasped. This was the moment, where I could give in and become his, utterly, or I could stop it. Or I could listen to that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t quite right.

But just before I’d resigned myself to speak up, to stop him, he stopped himself. He drew his hand away and lifted his head to look into my eyes. “Something’s the matter,” he said, without my having to say so. “What is it?”

I swallowed hard and shook my head. “I can’t,” was all I could manage to say. For some strange reason, I felt a well of tears rising up in me, and I didn’t understand why.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “It’s all right.” He pushed himself to standing then, and left me where I was, my knees spread, naked before him. He bent at the waist and picked up the towel that I’d abandoned on the floor, holding it out to me with his face turned away so that I could preserve my modesty.

I reached out and took it, wrapping it around me as I rose to standing. “I’m sorry,” I eked out, casting my gaze to the floor. But he moved toward me then, hooked his finger under my chin just the way he had in my dream, and forced me to look up into his face.

“There is nothing,” he said, “absolutely nothing you need to apologize for, Jane.” He took a step back, then, and toward the door. “I misread…whatever was between us.” He proffered a sad sort of smile and tugged at the front of his white collared shirt in an attempt to smooth it out. “Perhaps this openness of yours is…is supposed to mean that we are to be great friends.” He cleared his throat. “I hope…” But he never finished that thought. Instead, he splayed his fingertips against his thigh and headed for the door. “I’ll leave you, then, Jane.”

And he threw open the door and left me there without another word.