PART III: FORTY-SIX

Mai's pulse pounded hard in her ears as Nobu shoved a door open with this shoulder and then pushed her into the room, letting go of her hair. She stumbled, but caught herself from falling on a chair sitting crookedly in the center of the dusty room. She whipped around immediately, facing Nobu, who slammed the door shut and then threw the lock home.

He had his back to her.

If she'd had her knives, she could have put one in his heart, dead center.

Her fingers twitched, swollen and covered in dust and blood. Her weapons were gone. It was just her, and this man, who knew exactly how to hurt her.

And how to touch her.

Nobu lowered his tattooed head, taking a ragged breath.

"Sit," he commanded softly over his shoulder.

"No," she said through her teeth and then braced for his anger.

But she should have known better. Nobu wasn't the type to explode in rage. He was calm and calculated, a patient hunter. She'd learned that the hard way, long ago.

Being near him again made goosebumps shiver down her arms, and fear lodge behind her galloping heart. She swallowed, the taste of him in her mouth, her lips still buzzing from the force of his kiss. She could still feel that kiss, infecting her like a poisoned wound, reminding her of things she had thought she'd left behind. Lost in the ashes left after the Smoke Demons had burned to nothing.

But the Smoke Demons weren't gone. Nobu was alive. And so was she.

"Sit. Please? You look tired," Nobu said, turning around to face her, his lips open, his eyes dark in the dusty light slanting in through the grimed-up window. "The Master...did he hurt you?"

"No."

"Good. I'd hate to kill him."

"What are you going to do to me?" she asked tightly. Nobu cocked his head, his gaze sliding along her face, as if memorizing it.

"What do you want me to do to you?" His voice was simmering, suggesting things that made her shake. It made her remember things she thought she'd forgotten.

Or maybe she just hoped that she had.

"Let me go."

"I won't do that," Nobu said, shaking his head. "Not now that I've found you again, my love."

"Don't call me that!" Mai hissed, her head lowering.

"You didn't mind it when I called you that at that inn in Alekasha. There were many things you didn't mind that night, if I recall," Nobu said, and Mai's mouth opened, then closed, the words she might have hurled at him jumping back down her throat. Her eyes closed.

And she remembered.

She remembered it all.

Two years ago...

"Do you think they followed us?" Mai asked, panting as she swung into the room. The door closed behind her, and Nobu threw the lock, letting out a breath, his shoulders dropping with relief.

"Not likely," he said, turning to face her. "Not after that."

He peered at her from beneath the hood of his dark red cloak. He shook his head, and lowered the hood, revealing a bruise on his left cheek, and the spots of blood splattered across his face.

It wasn't his blood, she knew.

She tried to ignore the blood on her own hands, and the pain in her side, as she took off her black cloak and threw into the plush-looking bed behind her.

"Show it to me," Mai said. Nobu's dark eyes flicked to hers and then a little twisted smile caught hold of his dark red lips.

"Impatient, are we?"he said, pulling the wrapped package out of the front of his black shirt.

Mai returned the expression, pushing her sweaty hair out of her face. "I just want to see what all the fuss was about. What's on the scroll?"

"We're not supposed to read it. Just retrieve it."

"Aren't you a little tempted?"Mai asked.

But Nobu was watching her with his hot eyes, ignoring the wrapped scroll in his hands. "I'm very tempted, Mai."

Mai started, at the heat in his voice. It shot little jolts through her skin. It wasn't the first time, nor the last time, she'd felt that way. She lifted a hand to her face, but stopped when pain radiated up her side. She groaned, clutching at her ribs.

"Mai," Nobu started, dropping the scroll into a chair near the door. He was by her side in a moment, catching her hand as she bent double. "You're hurt."

"It's nothing. I took a kick to the ribs. Knocked the breath out of me," she lied, as Nobu steered her over to the bed. He made her sit and dropped to his knees in front of her.

"Let me see."

"It's fine," she argued, as he gently pulled her hand back, revealing the smear of bright red blood on the palm she'd pressed to her ribs. Her fingers trembled as Nobu looked up, startled, fear in his eyes.

"Which one of therm did this?" he asked after a long moment, his voice soft but hard at the same time, a sizzling anger beneath his normally calm demeanor.

Mai shivered at the memory of Nobu with a flaming sword in his hands, dealing death like a demon. Bodies had fallen before him, one after the other, including the body of the man who had gotten in that lucky shot. She hadn't been fast enough to avoid his sword.

"You killed him," Mai replied, pushing the memories away, locking them up in the same place where she locked all of the memories she'd made in service to the Smoke Demons. One day she would pay for those memories, but it wouldn't be tonight.

A muscle below his eye twitched and he lifted his chin.

"Good. I'd hate to have to hunt him down and set him on fire," he said, his lips curling again, but she knew that he wasn't joking. Nobu wasn't the joking type.

"Nobu..." she started, but he leaned in, peeling the blood-soaked clothing away from the wound. She winced, biting down on the inside of her lip as his fingers gently probed the wound. Blood ran, sticky and warm, down her side, soaking into her clothing. "How bad is it?"

"You need stitches," he said, looking up at her as his hand dropped to her knee. He squeezed it. "If you'll let me?"

She hesitated and then swallowed. "Yeah. Okay."

"Let's get this stuff off," he said, reaching for her boots. She caught a breath, and it was more than just the pain in her side that made her tremble all of a sudden. He eased her left boot off, his hands—hands she'd watched throw fire and death just minutes before—gentle with her.

He glanced up at her as he set her left boot aside, something burning there in his gaze that sparked and made her blood run hot. She looked away, pulling her gloves off, and shaking back her sleeves. She bit down on the buckle of one of her wrist sheathes, and pulled it free.

He watched her unbuckling her weapons, his eyes hot on hers, not looking away. When he stood and offered her his hand, she took it. He helped her to her feet, his hand spreading on her back for a long moment as she swayed in place.

"Easy," he said. He was very close, his breath hot on her face. He reached for the buttons on her outer robe. She didn't stop him, watching him as he slowly undressed her, trying to still the swirling mix of emotions in her chest. She tried to focus on the pain, but when her robe dropped to the floor at her feet, she realized she was breathing raggedly, shivering before him.

Nobu caught her eyes and then he carefully peeled the dark red under dress off of her shoulders. She caught his shoulders with her hands, letting out a gasp of pain and surprise. He turned his face and said against her ear, "I won't hurt you, Mai."

But she didn't believe that for a second.

She'd seen him dealing death before, had seen the ruthless light in his eyes. She'd been working with him for months. She didn't know much about him, but she knew that he was a true believer in the work the Smoke Demons did.

And he hated Zuko, for some reason. She had never found out why. Perhaps he hated the Harmony Restoration Movement. Perhaps he had supported Ozai, and the War. Perhaps he was an anarchist, rebelling against any kind of imperial authority.

It hardly mattered. Nobu hated Zuko with a burning passion that sparked like flames, scorching her like fire. That hatred burned at the heart of who this man was, and she couldn't let herself forget that.

He was a terrorist, a man willing to kill to topple the Fire Lord. She'd seen him do it. Tonight, and other nights. She knew that they had been innocent men, too. They'd done nothing wrong, other than stand in the Smoke Demons' way.

She hadn't killed any of those men tonight, she'd made sure of it, but she hadn't left them unscathed. Her cover depended on playing along as much as she could.

That meant doing thing she didn't want to do sometimes. That meant blood on her hands, and lies in her mouth that tasted bitter. That meant working with someone like Nobu, who terrified her as much as he fascinated her.

And she knew that she was fascinated.

She tried to tell herself it was because she wanted to know more about who he was, and how he'd come to join the Smoke Demons. Why he hated Zuko. Why he was willing to kill, to die, for his cause.

But in the year since she'd met him, she still didn't know anything about him. It was frustrating, maddening. Where had he come from? He was a Firebender and an accomplished swordsman. Where had he learned it?

She kept telling herself she wanted to know more because it might help her on her mission to find the leader of the Smoke Demons. She knew that Nobu was high up, but she hadn't been able to find out much more than that. Every lead went nowhere. She kept running up against brick walls, and no matter which way she went, there were only more walls to run into. She hated that feeling.

The Smoke Demons didn't trust her, though she thought she'd proven herself to them. They wanted more and more from her. It was only a matter of time before she would have to kill for them. She knew that Nobu had noticed that she hadn't taken any lives tonight. He hadn't said anything yet, but it was only a matter of time.

She wasn't against taking a life, but she only ever intended to kill the Smoke Demons she'd rooted out, the targets she could get to, and take off of the board. They'd been sending her out recruiting for them, and some of the people she had tried to recruit had proven to be too dangerous. If they had joined up with the Smoke Demons...

It gave her nightmares, remembering the faces of the people she had put down, the criminals and agents that had fallen already. And she still had so much more to go...

It was playing on her, she knew, the weight of what she was doing. She felt alone, adrift, surrounded by enemies who would destroy her if they knew her real purpose. If they knew that she wasn't one of them. That she was lying.

That she was using them.

Nobu especially.

Mai licked her lips and turned her head. "I know you won't hurt me, Nobu."

He pulled her arms free of the dress and then eased it down her cut ribs. She was grateful for her breast wrappings, but she still felt naked, exposed in a way she had never been before. Nobu pushed the dress over her sharp hips and it pooled at her feet. His hand slid up her side and she trembled, still clutching his shoulders.

He laid her back down onto the bed, helped her down with one knee on the mattress. Then he left, going over to the packs they had left there hours ago, and rooting around for his first aid kit. When he came back, she was staring up at the ceiling, trying to concentrate on the pain in her side and not the thoughts swirling through her head.

Thought she should not be thinking, feeling she should not be feeling.

He was gentle with her, cleaning the wound and then stitching it up with that same careful manner as before. When she winced, he put his hand on her bare stomach, keeping her in place.

"I know, I know," he crooned at her. She grasped his wrist tightly, but let go when their eyes met again.

Don't, she told herself. Don't do this.

He finished stitching up the wound, and then cleaned it again, pressing gauze against the seam. She hissed in a breath when he helped her to sit up. He leaned in close, wrapping a bandaged around her torso to keep the gauze in place. When he tied a knot in it and used one of her knives to cut off the rest of the bandage, she let out a breath.

"There. That should do it," he said, putting her knife aside and rolling up the bandage. He shoved it back into his little pack and she watched as he meticulously cleaned and sterilized the rest of his tools, holding a little flame over the hooked needle he'd used for her stitches. He put everything back and then looked up at her.

He brushed the back of his knuckles against the bandage and looked up at her from his crouch on the floor.

"It will probably scar," he said, cocking his head. "I'm used to making wounds, not stitching them, I'm afraid."

Mai nodded, and he stood, and started to walk away, but Mai reached out, grasping his wrist in her hand. He looked back at her, his intense eyes on her again.

They stared at one another for a long moment. Her heart slammed hard in her chest, every bit of good sense telling her to stop, not to do this, and the rest of her demanding the opposite. She knew that Nobu could see the war going on in her eyes. She couldn't stop the conflicted expression on her face, couldn't keep her mask in place. She'd cultivated that mask over the last year, but it failed her now, when she needed it most.

Nobu dropped the pack on top of her blood-stained clothing. It landed with a loud bang. It was a sound of finality. Decision made. Point of no return reached.

She pulled him a step closer, looking up at him from her perch on the edge of the bed.

"Mai..."

"Shut up," she said, letting go of his wrist and reaching for the sword sheathed at his hip. She tugged it free, and let it drop with a clatter she could barely hear over her racing pulse. He was watching her, as still as a statue, as she glanced up. Then she grasped the waistband of his dark pants and yanked forward half a step. "We both know you want me."

Nobu let out a soft breath as she undid the laces on the front of his pants. "And you want me?"

She could hear the question in his voice, and it struck her like a battering ram. Her head tipped back.

"Yes."

But his hands came down on hers, stopping her from pushing his pants down. "Is this really what you want, Mai?"

"Why would you ask me that?" she whispered, as he let go of her hand and then cupped her chin. He lifted her face upward, until their gazes met with another scorching sizzle that shook her to the bone.

"Because when I make love to you, I want you to want me to," Nobu said in that soft voice that ran shivers up and down her spine. "I don't want it to be for any other reason."

"What other reason could there be?"

"You tell me."

Mai felt heat flush her face and she jerked her chin out of his hand. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you? I don't like to be used."

Mai stood in a rush, shoving him back a step, one finger jabbing into his shoulder. "Used? You're one to talk! All you've ever done is use me!"

"I've followed orders!"

"And that's all you ever do, isn't it? Do you even know who you're working for?"

"It's not my place to ask. And it's not yours either!"

Mai brushed her hair away from her face, feeling wrong-footed, hot beneath her aching skin. She glared at Nobu. "Who even are you, Nobu? At least tell me that! Tell me something!"

"Why do you need to know?"

She shoved at his shoulders, exploding, all of her pent up fear and frustration, guilt and regret, and yes, even her desire, centering on Nobu, who had made her feel so completely spun about the moment she'd met him. It wasn't just fear. It wasn't just attraction. It was everything.

"Because! I was in love with a man who kept everything from me! And no matter how hard I tried, he kept pulling away! He kept pushing me away and every time he pushed me away it was like I hit the walls of a cage. There was nowhere to go. And eventually I stopped trying to push back, and started trying to find a way out of the cage instead! I couldn't breathe, I couldn't do anything! I couldn't..."

She turned away from him, tears in her eyes, but Nobu caught her, pulling her back against his chest, his hands on her waist. His breath was hot on her neck as he pushed her hair aside.

"I'm not him."

"And I'm not him either," she said. "You just want to fuck me because I was his."

Nobu laughed, and the sound was soft and full of heat. "Is that what you think, my love?"

"Isn't it the truth?"

Nobu's lips touched her neck and then skimmed up to her ear, raising more goosebumps as her body reacted against her will.

"I have wanted you since the first night we met, Mai. And not because of him. He was a fool to let you go. A creature of such beauty, and grace... I cannot imagine a man who wouldn't love you, who wouldn't fall at your feet."

"I don't love him anymore," she said, and it was mostly the truth. She'd left that part of her life far behind her. Zuko would always be a part of her, but the love she'd felt for him had shriveled long ago, rewritten by the bitterness of their breakup, and everything that came before it. She didn't want him dead, but he no longer had any claim to her heart. "You know that."

"I think you want to believe that," Nobu said.

"It's the truth."

He laughed again. "If we're playing the game of truths, I don't think you have the upper hand here, my love."

"Neither do you. Why did you join the Smoke Demons?" she said, turning in his arms. Nobu tilted his head, studying her.

"If I tell you, will you answer one question for me? And I want the truth."

"Of course."

But Nobu's eyebrow quirked, his red lips pursing as if he didn't believe her. He finally nodded, and then said softly, "Ten years ago, I was a soldier in the Royal Army. I was stationed on a ship, awaiting the invasion of the Earth Kingdom, while Phoenix King Ozai went ahead in his airships. When Sozin's Comet came... We could all feel it, all of the Firebenders. It ran through our bones like hot metal. I've never felt power like that, before or since. I realized then that Ozai was right. The Fire Nation was the most powerful force on the planet. It was our divine right to rule. The world was ours. But then everything changed."

"The Avatar."

Nobu's lip twitched. "It wasn't the Avatar that I blamed for what happened. The Avatar didn't take over my Nation and corrupt it. No, that was Fire Lord Zuko. He has turned us away from our destiny. He has made us weak, he has bowed and scraped and made us equals with our inferiors. We are not equal to the other nations. I felt our true potential, Mai, felt it burn through my veins...through my very spirit. I cannot go back. I cannot make myself less than. I won't."

Mai shook at the force of his conviction. She could feel it, an echo of the fire that had surged within him the day Sozin's Comet had come tearing across the skies. He believed what he was saying.

"That's who I am, Mai," he said, reaching out and cupping her face again. "I joined the Smoke Demons because I believe that Zuko does not deserve his crown. Just as he did not deserve you."

"Nobu..." she breathed, turning her head away, but he forced her to look at him again.

"Answer me one question, Mai. One truth..." he said. When she swallowed, he went on, leaning in and putting his forehead against hers. His breath was hot on her lips, his hands sliding down her aching side, and touching her hip.

"Nobu, I..."

"Do you love me the way that I love you?" Nobu whispered. Mai's eyes squeezed shut tightly for a long moment, then she opened them, tipping back her head.

She was trembling again, from fear and adrenaline. Nobu was very still when she reached up, and cupped his face. She wiped a spot of blood off of his bruised cheek, gently, slowly, as he looked at her with his heart in his eyes.

He was a killer, a zealot, her enemy. If he knew she was lying to him, if he knew what she had done in her quest to take down the Smoke Demons, he would kill her. She knew that. Knew it in her bones.

And yet when she lifted into him, kissing him without words, she found she didn't care one bit. When he groaned, pulling her against him, he seemed not to care that she hadn't answered, that maybe she couldn't.

She didn't know anything past her pounding heart and the need driving her. She was tired of being alone, afraid, tired of feeling empty and guilty.

And when she'd undressed him, pulling him over to the bed and down on top of her, she forgot her fear, forgot that she was using him for information. That she had to be careful. That he would kill her in a heartbeat if he knew, really knew...

When he took her, again and again, his body hot and hard against hers, within her, she forgot everything.

And she didn't care one bit.

"That was a long time ago," Mai said, as Nobu walked toward her. "And you knew. You knew it was all a lie, so don't pretend—"

"And you knew how I felt about you. You knew, and you used me!" Nobu said, hurt in his eyes.

"I never answered the question," she said. "You knew that I didn't...that I..."

"Did I know that, Mai? I don't think I did. And neither did you," Nobu said. "Not that night, or any of the other nights you spent in my bed, listening to me spill my heart out like a fool! Hoping... You still can't admit it, can you?"

"There's nothing to admit," Mai said, looking away from him for a moment, unable to take the hurt look in his eyes. "And you... You knew the entire time that I was working against the Smoke Demons! Why didn't you turn me in? Why did you protect me?"

"You know why!" Nobu said hotly.

They glared at one another for a long moment and she felt the hurt in Nobu's eyes, the anger and banked emotion. She looked away first.

"Well, it didn't work, did it? Shura still found out," she said rawly. "And instead of me taking out the Smoke Demons, she used you to feed me information. Because I was still useful. Because she needed a trained killer, an idiot she could aim at her enemies. How many people did I kill that didn't deserve it, Nobu? Do you know?"

"They all deserved it," Nobu said in a hard voice. "You know they did."

"They weren't my enemies."

Nobu surged forward and grasped the collar of her shirt, yanking it down to expose the black flame tattooed on her collarbone. His breath was hot on her face as he pulled her against him.

"You took the mark, Mai. The Smoke Demons are gone, but you cannot change what is and what was. You're a killer, an assassin. So am I. You can hide it, run from it, but I know you. I've always known who you are. I see you!"

"I know who you are too. Why do you think I've been hunting you? I knew you didn't die in that warehouse when the Smoke Demons went down. Where did you go?"

"Lady Shura sent me away. Perhaps that mission saved me from the conflagration at the warehouse. We'll never know. I don't think its a coincidence that she sent me away the night she attacked you. I didn't know what she had planned. I would have stopped it."

Memories came back to her, of taking an arrow in a rain-soaked alley, and then waking up in the back room of a warehouse. She'd tried to fight her way out, but there had been too many bodies. The Smoke Demons had let her go, dumping her into the street, a warning to Zuko that they were coming.

They had used her again, used her up and tossed her aside. Everything she had done had been for nothing, and she knew it. The pain of her failure was still with her, still drove her, made her search for more answers, and her own peace of mind. To prove something to herself, perhaps.

That she wasn't the killer Nobu said, that she wasn't what they'd made of her. That she was still herself...whoever she was now...

"Would you have stopped them? You? A loyal Smoke Demon?" she said, glancing at the black flame he'd tattooed across his shaved head.

But Nobu smiled. "Why do you think you survived? Shura had every reason to kill you, but she knew that if she did, I would put a sword through her. Without hesitation. She sent me away, and you lived to tell the tale. I saved your life!"

But Mai sneered at him. "I don't believe for a second you would have killed Shura. You're still loyal to them."

"To the cause, yes. I still believe that Fire Lord Zuko is unworthy of the throne, but I always knew that Lady Shura was too foolish to keep the throne for herself. She had the money and the means to build an army, to rally people to the cause, but her greed got ahead of her, as I knew it would. I was never working for her. Like you used me, I was using her."

His rebuke was a slap to her face, but she ignored it. "You were working for someone else the entire time?"

"I still am. Though he has an annoying need to protect the Fire Lord. He believes Zuko can be saved, that he can be...better...if he receives the right guidance," Nobu said, and his mask slipped a little, showing anger for the first time. "His need for revenge against the people who killed his fool of a son has blinded him, however. But I suppose I'll have to thank him. It was his sending the Master after Sokka of the Water Tribe that brought you back into my life. I searched for you, after Shura's execution, but you were long gone. And my heart has been broken ever since."

"I looked for you too."

"To kill me?" he said.

Mai swallowed. "I don't know."

They stared at one another; he was still holding her tightly, though she had a feeling she could have broken free if she wanted. He wasn't hurting her. He was searching her face.

"You have Zuko?"

"Yes," he said. "And your friend, Princess Azula. I was sent here to kill her, but when the Fire Lord announced that he was visiting Ba Sing Se, I received orders to kidnap him, and to bring him and Azula back alive."

"To whom?"

"That would be telling, my love," Nobu said, letting go of her. He paced away from her, his hands clasped behind his back. A sigh left him, heavy, and sad. "You'll try to stop me, of course."

"If I can," she said honestly. "I can't let you hurt either of them."

"You'd protect the man who broke your heart, who never loved you the way you deserved to be loved? The man who is marrying an Earth Kingdom whore instead?"

Mai's jaw hardened. "You know, I'm really tired of that word. About as tired as I am of having Zuko thrown in my face. I'm not in love with him anymore, Nobu."

Nobu turned to face her, his head cocking to the side. "Is this the part where you try to convince me it's me you've been in love with this entire time? Or perhaps that prizefighter downstairs?"

"I told you he's nothing to me," Mai said quickly, her heart skipping a beat. Mai thought of Sokka, somewhere below her, at the Master's mercy. She didn't know why the Master had lied to Nobu, why he hadn't turned Sokka in. She had a feeling she wouldn't like the answer if she found out, but at least Sokka wasn't in any immediate danger.

Nobu had been serious downstairs though, when he'd threatened Sokka. He hadn't recognized him, but his hatred and jealousy had been white-hot. If he'd known who Sokka really was, he would kill him.

And if he actually knew how I felt about Sokka...

But even she didn't know how she felt about Sokka. She didn't want to know. Her feelings for Sokka were just as confusing as her feelings for Nobu, and lot less easy to untangle. Where Nobu had been a temptation she still couldn't resist, Sokka was a torment, a pain in her heart that wouldn't go away, and no matter how hard she tried to dig him out, he just kept sinking farther in.

If Nobu knew any of that, he would destroy Sokka. The thought of something happening to Sokka made her whole body ache with fear.

"You used him like you used me," he said again. "I suppose he and I have a lot in common. I hope he wasn't as big a fool as I was. I thought perhaps...there for a moment... That you really did love me, Mai. Even though I knew you were a spy, I'd hoped... Was it all a lie? Just tell me that."

They stared at one another.

Mai swallowed and then walked over to him, closing the distance with careful footsteps. Nobu stiffened, wary of her nearness, but he let her approach.

Mai took a breath. "I wanted it to be a lie, Nobu. But it wasn't. Not all of it. I slept with you because I wanted you. The way you looked at me... I wanted that, needed it. You frightened me. For a lot of reasons. You're dangerous. Not just because I know what you're capable of, but because of how you made me forget, and the things you made me feel. I still feel that way. I don't know what that means, I don't know if I feel the same way that you do, but I feel something. Seeing you again... I feel it. That's the truth."

Nobu touched her face, his fingers spreading on her dust-covered cheek. "That's all I ever wanted you to say, my love."

When he kissed her again, she let him.

She wondered, as his hand sank into her hair, if he knew that she was playing him.

She had a feeling she would find out.