Page 11 of Rook Takes Queen
“Yes, I agree.”
For a second neither of us says anything. The quiet of the room wraps around us, broken only by the distant happy chaos of the daycare at the far end of the house.
Then Maxon pulls up an extra chair to the small table. He sits down and gestures toward the other chair. “Show me how you play,” he says quietly. “Play against me, your way.”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” I eagerly sit in the other chair because this is sounding interesting and when was the last time I was allowed actual fun?
I glance out the window, at the view of the lush jungle and flowering bushes outside. The wide expanse of blue sky. And I look over at the cheery fireplace, then across, at the sexy, handsome male who thinks I might be his future bride.
Should I be getting closer to him, or should I instead go back to my room, trying to avoid him and his thoughts of something permanent between us?
My hand is already deciding for me, reaching for the pieces, setting them back on their squares, white and dark, king and queen and the little rooks in their corners.
Chapter 5
Rook
Hallie sets up the board like she’s done it ten thousand times.
I’m loving the idea that the female I’ve scented might possibly enjoy gaming as much as I do. How did I get so lucky?
The front room is perfectly quiet. With the crew gone to the mine and Lila and the offspring tucked away in the sunny room at the far end of the house, the compound has gone soft and still around us. Daylight slants through the window, catching the dust in the air, falling across the low table and the old worn board between us. Somewhere far off I can hear a muffled shriek of laughter and Lila’s voice answering.
Out the window the jungle presses close and green, still dripping from last night’s storm, a red flower nodding heavy against the glass. The fire’s banked low in the hearth. It’s warm and peaceful. And most importantly, Hallie sits across from me. I have never in my life been this aware of a room.
I watch her smalls hands move, quick and sure, the gloves of the unmated hiding fingers I’m trying very hard not to think about, placing each piece on its square without hesitation. She called them names of royalty. King. Queen. The little corner piece she calls a rook, just like my crew name. She doesn’tfumble once and doesn’t ask me where anything goes. My female just builds the starting position out of muscle memory.
My brothers tease me for my life-long love of this game. Everyone on Timbur knows Karrec exists, but none of my brothers has ever wanted to play. I learned to play alone, against myself, then against the males at the gaming hall who tolerated me hanging around their tables. Nowadays, I’m the top player on the entire colony.
And now there’s a small, sharp-eyed human female across the board from me, the one the universe made to match me, setting up the pieces like she was born to it. I want to ask her to formally clasp hands with me and start the claiming, the chase. I’d love nothing more than to learn how to kiss and mate with this female, filling her with our offspring. But as I told her earlier, now is not the time. She barely knows me or understands what being mated to a Xylan miner would mean. And there’s of course the whole reason she’s here…for safety. And I will keep her safe.
“All right,” she says, sitting back, flexing her fingers. “Same rules, you said? Mostly?”
“Mostly.” I lean in. “Show me where they’re different.”
They’re not very different,as it turns out.
The pieces move the way Karrec pieces move. Her queen is our Mother Lode, her bishop is our drifts and the piece she considers a knight is a jumper. We spend the first little while comparing, delighted, both of us talking over each other.
“Wait, your piece only moves in straight lines? Same. And the…what did you call it, the bishop, only move in diagonals?”
“Diagonals, yes.”
“It’s thesame game, Maxon, it’s just wearing a different coat.” She’s grinning now, and it changes her whole face, causingher beauty to shine even more brilliantly. “What about castling? When the king and the rook trade places to get the king to safety?”
“We call that walling the Core. But yes. Same move.”
“Walling the Core…I like yours better. Ours just sounds like a tax dodge.”
I laugh, and it surprises me, the size of it. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that over this board.
We play.
And here is the thing I learn in the first six moves, she is very, very good.
Not good the way the old males at the hall are good, with memorized openings and patience. She’s good the way someone with skill and speed is good. She comes at me fast and crooked, sets a trap two moves before I see it’s a trap, gives up a pawn like it costs her nothing and then makes me pay three times over for taking it. I have to actuallythinkand I haven’t had to actually think across this board in rotations.
“You hesitated,” she says, when I do.
