Page 113 of Beautiful Prey

I don’t remember crossing the room. I only know I hit him hard enough that he rocks back a step, laughing, and both his arms wrap around me.

“You’re breathing.”

“I know.”

“Say something. About anything. Like, a long sentence. Don’t stop in the middle.”

He laughs at me and says, “Two men came to the flat and told me there was a place waiting on a ship and doctors on Tempest who could make me better, and they said you knew about it and that you’d be coming after me, so I went because I thought maybe, for once, I could be the one bringing you something good instead of you always having to bring it to me,” and he gets all the way to the end of it, and his voice holds, and his hand stays where it is.

I put my forehead on his shoulder because my knees have gone weak. “Light. Onyx, I’ve missed you so fucking much. We’ve never been apart like this. Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? I thought someone had taken you.”

His arms tighten around me. “I thought you knew, JaJa. They told me you did. I thought you’d be on the ship or waiting for me when I got here.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I know.” His hand moves over the back of my head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” I hold him tighter for another second because I still can’t quite let go. “You’re here. You’re breathing.”

“And I knew you’d come anyway.”

I pull back enough to look at him. “You knew?”

“You always come for me.” He’s smiling again, and his face has color. Real color in his cheeks, the kind I’ve only seen in the photograph our mother left behind.

Then I really look at the rest of him. He’s wearing dark, tailored trousers and a fitted black jacket with a silver fastener at the throat. Not hospital clothes. Not anything my brother has ever owned.

“Onyx...” I look him up and down. “Why are you dressed like that?”

His smile disappears. “JaJa. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“They told me you knew.”

Behind me, music starts. It’s the sort of string music they play at fancy dinners, and it rises from the room itself, and every hair on my body stands up at once.

My brother’s hand tightens on my arm. “I’m sorry.”

I turn around. The doors at the far end stand open. Seren waits to one side, hands folded behind his back, while Ryven leans against the frame, arms crossed, watching me without a smile. Beside them, an older man in gray holds a slate against his chest, waiting as officials wait.

Beyond them, where the morning light spills into the room, stands Asher. He isn’t smiling either. He’s watching me as if he’s been expecting me all morning.

The black jacket drapes perfectly over his shoulders, the white shirt bright against the dark fabric, his hair pushed back from his face. Nothing softens those black-gold eyes. His mouth is set in a tight line, and for one impossible moment I forget every speech I rehearsed on the journey here.

Heat crawls treacherously through my chest before I can kill it, and the betrayal of my own body lands somewhere between anger and humiliation. I should hate seeing him. Instead, I can’t stop looking.

“Stormbird.” He says it with that familiar confidence, as if this is exactly how he expected the morning to go.

But when I cross the room, which takes eleven steps, I have all three lines of my speech on my tongue for nine of them. I catch his jaw twitch before he smooths it away.

“You don’t just get to move people.” My voice comes out sharper than I meant. “My people, even less so.”

“I take it you had a good journey.”

I glance over my shoulder, my jaw grinding as I catch Ryven standing too close to Onyx, who’s seated again. He wanted me to see how well they’re treating him.

“You’re standing too close to him,” I snarl.