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THE TWO OF THEM HAD settled into a kind of routine over their time together where Micah built the fire every night after they returned from her claim and they sat around it until bedtime. Sometimes in silence, sometimes with a little conversation.
Tonight was a silence night, both staring into the flames. Two lonely people, though they weren’t alone.
At least until Micah stood from his spot and walked away. He stopped a moment at the door to his tent, and then after a long pause, she heard, “Good night.”
Surprised, Jade turned to him. She hadn’t realized he was getting up for good, or that it was so late. “Good night, Micah.”
He nodded to her and went inside.
Forehead wrinkling as she turned back to the fire, Jade stared at the flames. Something seemed... off. The way he said goodnight, his voice, his hesitation. It had almost sounded like a concealed plea, as if he wanted to ask her for something. But what?
There’d been too much on her mind for her to have picked up any clues.
But perhaps he had something on his mind, too.
She’d been busy with the crystals and hadn’t noticed his demeanor before this, but come to think of it, he hadn’t been much like himself since he’d helped her find her big strike earlier. Her instincts were telling her something was wrong.
And she’d learned a big lesson in trusting those lately, hadn’t she? All thanks to him. On a hunch, Jade popped up from her place by the fire and went to his tent door.
A soft glow came from inside, but she didn’t hear anything.
“Micah?” Surely he couldn’t be asleep yet. “Is everything okay?”
A minute of crickets chirping and the fire crackling went by with no response from him.
She’d half turned away when she finally heard him say, “Everything is fine.”
Jade paused. “Okay. If you’re sure. If you want to talk—” Jade winced. Of course, he didn’t want to talk. Not even on a good day, much less a bad one.
“Sure.”
Stunned, Jade stood there in the firelight until his arm reached out and held back the tent flap for her.
Micah wanted to talk.
Her instincts were right again. Something was really, really wrong.
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MICAH SHOULD BE HAPPY. Jade had found her gemstones. She’d trusted him, allowed him to touch her.
She’d have her minerals, and he’d have her drained, and safe, very soon. She’d leave the mountain, and he could get back to his patrolling and solitude and singing. He should feel triumphant. Or at least productive, close to achieving his goals.
Instead, he couldn’t sit still, his thoughts circling. An unexplainable sadness weighed on his heart.
He should be excited at the prospect of being done with this mission soon. Of Jade returning, successful and safe, to her life.
But he was dissatisfied by the thought of both, and he couldn’t identify the reason for it. So he pushed it aside, focusing on the other cause for his gloom.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the boy.
Either one of them; the one at the portal, and Tokoni. Even the boy’s name made his chest tight.
He didn’t know the other young man’s name, the one he’d sent back to the Chaos plane. But he remembered his face clearly. From before, a frightened victim, and from last night, when he was a vessel of Chaos with an empty expression.
And now he had two ghosts keeping him company.
Why had the boy been here? What if he was still ‘there’ somehow, what if he’d returned in an attempt to go home? Or looking for help?
The Warriors weren’t exactly sure what happened to the Chaolt to make them what they were, the way they were, but they’d always been mindless minions with a singular purpose and no soul. Since the dawn of the war between Harmony and Chaos long ago.
But the ‘what ifs’ kept circling in Micah’s mind between the faces of all the people he’d failed, all the people he’d lost, in his lifetime.
The deep pain had mostly faded away to a dull, heavy ache, but it always seemed to cycle around again randomly to shred his insides, even all these years later. The ghosts were more real, the pain fresher, than it had been in a long time, and it made him off-kilter.
He needed to sing, to let it out, but he couldn’t in front of Jade, and he wouldn’t allow himself to leave her alone at her claim in the daytime. Maybe after she went to sleep, perhaps then...
“OK, big guy. What’s going on?” She dropped onto his bed beside him, her side against his, and grabbed his hand. “You’ve been even quieter than usual, and that’s saying a lot.”
Caught off-guard, he stared at her hand, so small and pale compared to his.
Jade was allowing him to touch her. And touching him, voluntarily. Her trust was growing.
He almost didn’t want to drain her solely because it was such a victory. But despite that, he started the flow of power from her to him, just a single, thin golden thread between them. He did it with resistance because he simply wanted to be here with her, hold her hand, without ulterior motives. But the mission came first.
“It helps sometimes, you know, to talk about it. You helped me.” She looked down at her hands with a deep breath. “I would like to return the favor.”
He stared at her for a minute, wanting to speak, but then dropped his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t.”
He wished he could tell someone, anyone, how he felt, the things that haunted him. Jade was looking for comfort in sharing, but his words always seemed to get stuck somewhere between his brain and his heart and his mouth. He couldn’t explain what was going on inside him even if he wanted to. Didn’t have the right words, and most people wouldn’t wait around for him to find them.
“If you can’t talk to me about it, maybe you could sing about it?” Her eyes were soft, understanding. She wasn’t going to push him.
Micah considered. He did have a song, the one he sang in the silence and the cold, when his memories felt too heavy to bear. When the memories and the pain were too close, he sang it until he could push them down again.
He could sing it now. Somehow, that seemed easier than putting words to the weight on his shoulders, the ghosts in his past.
He started low and slow, staring at his hands. Thinking of Tokoni and the way he had died. Thinking about the young man with static in his eyes who was as good as dead as well. Wrestling with losses in the war against Chaos. All the disasters and deaths that couldn’t be prevented. Or could have, if he’d just done something differently, been faster, been stronger.
It was a heavy pain that weighed down his heart, his voice, and made his song raspier than normal.
When he looked up, he saw the echo of it expanding in Jade’s eyes, until silent tears fell down her cheeks.
And it killed him.
She’d lost people too. Was losing people. And whether one or a thousand, it hurt the same.
He couldn’t remember a time before Jade when he’d had the actual urge to touch someone else, to draw them close, but he wanted to do just that. Not to drain her, not from lust, merely hoping to soothe her pain, though he could do nothing for his own. But he couldn’t.
Instead, he just sang. For her, and to her. For and to himself.
When the song was over, he released a long breath and looked at Jade. She looked back at him with damp eyes.
And then she let go of his hand, turned her upper body, and put her arms around him, her head on his arm.
His breath turned to mud in his chest, and he could barely breathe. So stunned was he that he didn’t resume the flow of power between them.
“Thank you for sharing,” she murmured against his bicep, “and whatever it is, I’m sorry.”
He’d wanted to pull her close, to comfort her, but had done nothing. She’d done it instead, in an attempt to comfort him.
It... touched him.
Slowly, he brought his arms up around her, pressing her closer to him, leaning his cheek down on top of her head to let her know he was giving as much as he was receiving. To tell her he was thankful for her comfort, and wished to comfort her as well.
But he was overwhelmed. He closed his eyes. It was similar to how he felt when he held baby Jackson. Just as soothing, as peaceful, but different.
Weighter. More meaningful. The feeling of someone within his arms, and more, the feeling of another’s arms around him, sated a hunger he didn’t know he had.
And because it was Jade, it awakened the other hunger. The one for her.
Slowly they pulled apart, staring at each other. Neither of them spoke, the silence thick.
Micah swallowed and glanced away, raw and unbalanced after sharing his song. After touching her again.
He wasn’t sure what to do or say next, so he did nothing, and the silence between them stretched until she got to her feet.
He turned and looked at her, her eyes only slightly above his even though he was sitting. She stepped closer, put her palm on his cheek, and his heartbeat raced.
All this time, he’d wanted Jade to trust him, wanted her to touch him or allow him to touch her, all for the purpose of draining.
But draining was so far from his mind, lost as he was in the translucent green of her eyes, more beautiful than the gemstone she was named for.
She leaned in and her lips touched his. Heat curled in his abdomen, but the contact ended before he could react.
“Thank you for singing for me.” Another quick but soft kiss landed on his mouth. “And for being a good listener.” Another kiss. “And for protecting me. And for helping me trust my instincts.”
As she said the last words, Micah brought his hand up to the back of her head, wove it in her hair to keep her from withdrawing again, and kissed her back.
So far it was only her who had initiated kissing, even though he’d wanted to for so long. It was his turn, and he needed her to know it wasn’t all about comfort and commiseration. Not for him. Just as he gradually brought gems up from the earth, something in him was slowly surfacing. And that something wanted Jade with the hunger of a wild animal.
He wanted to taste her, and he couldn’t let this chance at touching her, kissing her, pass again. He drank from her lips as if he was dry soil in a long-anticipated rainstorm.
When she groaned, he came to his senses and pulled back. Somehow both his hands were in her hair, both of hers in his, and she was sitting across his lap.
She untangled one hand from his hair and pressed it to her mouth. Lips swollen and red, she smiled behind her fingers, cheeks pink. “I suppose I was asking for that reaction.”
Uncertainty crept in. “Were you?” he asked.
Jade dropped her fingers, stared at his lips a second, and then met his eyes. “Yes,” she said, her irises a darker, hazier shade of green.
This time when their lips met, they were both hungry, both thirsty, both bold.
But it was Jade who pulled back the second time. “I’m sorry,” she said, the color of her eyes muted. Then she stood up off his lap and stared at him. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. Not before at the claim, and not now.”
His lips were still wet from hers, his body aroused from her tongue tangling with his. He waited for her to explain.
“Were it any other time, any other place, I’d love to explore this.” Jade’s eyes traveled over his face as she spoke, leaving him no doubt it was the truth. “But the past has taught me to never mix mining and relationships. I’m sorry for the mixed signals.” She walked to the door of his tent and stepped halfway out. “Goodnight, Micah.”
And then she was gone.
Micah stood and zipped the door flap, extinguished his light, and laid down on his back, arm behind his head.
Jade didn’t mix mining and relationships, and for him, the mission always came first.
And yet he would dream of her tonight. And when he escorted her down the mountain for the last time, he would dream of her for many more. He would feel her absence in his bones. He felt it now, a space in him cold and empty. A space that holding her, kissing her, had temporarily filled.
What was happening to him?
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JADE TOSSED IN HER bed.
She didn’t mix business and pleasure, but tonight, with the memory of Micah’s hands on her, his painful song in the air, she wished she did. Wished she could.
When she’d walked into his tent, she’d had no real expectation of him sharing any part of himself with her. But he’d helped soothe her when she’d talked about her mom and dad around the fire and though it hadn’t fixed anything, it’d helped her bear it for the night. That’s all she wanted, to help him bear whatever his burden was in return. If only for tonight. She’d thought he would say no, or stay silent. Shrug his way through her attempts until she gave up. So she’d tried, and to her everlasting surprise, he’d opened up a little.
When his low hum shivered through the air between them, it raised goosebumps on her skin.
She didn’t understand a single word. She did, however, understand the feeling.
Crushing, grinding sadness, and a loneliness that made her want to weep. Also, for just a second she saw a glimpse of why Micah was the way he was. Why he rarely spoke, why he kept himself apart from people. And she saw, clearly, that he felt different about her...
That was scary and sweet and touching. And who knew what that terrifying, wonderful feeling was when she was around him.
Attraction, certainly. His intensely muscled form, his height, the braids and the tattoos, it all worked for her. It just did.
That’s why she’d ended up in his lap, the two of them kissing in a way that woke up her sensuous side like nothing else ever had. She’d wanted to get rid of the clothes between them and rub her body all over his like a cat in heat.
But attraction was easier to resist, truly.
She was also starting to understand him, even like him. She wanted to be there for him, soothe him and fix all his broken pieces to make him smile again...
And that was dangerous.
All of it was harder to ignore, harder to resist, simply because she didn’t want to, dammit. She wanted a happy thing, something good in her life. Something besides rocks and minerals to distract her from the pain of losing her family. Something that could hold her and kiss her and protect her and sing to her...
Not just something, someone. She wanted Micah.
And the fact that he seemed to feel the same way, that she could have him, even for just a little while, was almost too much to resist.
But the old sting of betrayal was still there, like a tight scar pulling on healthy skin. To take what she wanted would open her up to wounding again. She couldn’t do that. There was too much at stake. If it was just her heart, her happiness, at stake, she might risk it with Micah. But her mother would be the one to suffer if Jade got distracted from her mining. Jade was here to provide for her mother’s care, and nothing else.
But... she’d found her gems, she simply had to get them out. Her mother’s future was all but secured now. The only real thing she’d be risking was her heart. She could keep everything light and fun and physical if she gave in, right? Even if she already liked him?
Right.