As the meeting about the new Salem Singularity droned on, Arjuna paid attention with one ear—the endless wrangling didn't require more—while focusing most of his attention on his Master standing in front of him. She kept tugging on her dark hair as her irritation with the proceedings grew, twisting it into the spikes he already knew she hated.
His Master. His ward, his charge, his plaything. Possibly his enemy. Most importantly, his. Even without looking, he could sense Karna near the front of the room, imagine his attention focused on the other Master, the one Karna had to share with almost every other Servant in Chaldea.
But Kaiya, scruffy waif that she might be, belonged only to Arjuna. Although he'd been unimpressed at first, he'd found he quite enjoyed playing with her. His decision to extract a different price for her intrusion into his secrets pleased him. She might be practically malnourished (pale skin over wiry muscle and bone with hardly a trace of a woman's softness), but she was extremely sensitive to a man's touch.
Lightly he placed his fingers on her waist and watched her shoulders tighten in response. He wanted to lean down and scrape his teeth across those rigid muscles, make her gasp and surge against him. He resisted. They were very much not alone, and he had sworn he would restrain himself under the eyes of others.
He lifted his hands and leaned back against the wall, looking at the line of her neck and thinking about how desperate gentleness made her. She preferred rougher play, but he found he liked her desperate; frantic; clinging. Not that there wasn't something to be said for how she cursed him, scratched and bit and pulled his hair, told him she hated him and then begged for release at his hands. That… yes, that had been very good too.
"Come on!" Kaiya burst out, her irritation at the briefing finally boiling over. "You can't really be planning on sending Ritsuka into an obvious trap when I'm right here. That's why you made me a Master."
Arjuna's brow darkened. His plaything had some bad habits, including an unfortunate tendency to misunderstand her role. He twisted his hand behind his back, reminding himself of his vow. Correcting her now would be unseemly.
Then, as the room's attention shifted toward her, and him behind her, he smoothed his expression. He'd revealed too much of himself to Kaiya, but nobody else could be permitted to see his secret thoughts painted on his face. Even the freedom to be himself around Kaiya was perhaps too much, given what temptations it brought him in public. Ought he have killed her anyhow?
Da Vinci sighed. "Kaiya, nothing is coming out. One way or another we'd be sending Ritsuka in blind. And it's Ritsuka's job to handle this. We'll send you as backup. Consider it on-the-job training."
"For our last Rayshift?" said Kaiya bitterly. She hadn't taken that news well at all.
"You never know!" said da Vinci brightly, in a way that put the whole briefing room on edge while absolutely forbidding further questions on the topic. "Now, I'll be having a series of smaller meetings throughout the day as we put together a plan. Kaiya and Ritsuka, expect deployment in 72 hours. Since we'll be limited in the support we can provide and we have no idea what we're facing, I'll be selecting the Servants very carefully, taking into account their flexibility, power set and ability to blend."
Her gaze flicked toward Arjuna before moving to several other Servants. As the meeting broke up and Kaiya stalked toward da Vinci, Arjuna ghosted behind her, and once again caught a reserved glance from da Vinci. He knew she didn't trust him. His demon reveled in it, and in knowing the acting director had no choice but to send him wherever Kaiya was sent.
"This isn't fair," complained Kaiya to da Vinci. "This isn't what Roman would have done. You can't send Ritsuka someplace so dangerous without sending me in first. Roman would have wanted that—"
"Don't you dare," said da Vinci, her voice flat and her expression transmuted to rare anger, "suggest you know what Romani would have wanted. You clearly know nothing of the sort, despite all the time he spent talking with you."
"But you—" began Kaiya stubbornly, and da Vinci held up a hand.
"No more, Kaiya!" She exhaled slowly and then said, "You want to be helpful and I'm giving you a chance to do so. For Romani's sake. He saw something worthwhile in you. Stop trying to waste it."
Kaiya's hands tightened into fists at her sides, but before she could push even harder and provoke da Vinci into something regrettable, Arjuna brushed his fingers over the base of her palms. It was the lightest of touches, and it completely derailed his Master's thought process. He curled his fingers around her wrists, pulling them back, just a little, and she inhaled sharply.
Da Vinci's gaze flicked up to Arjuna as he bent over his Master, an odd mix of relief and worry in her eyes. He ignored it to murmur, "I'm looking forward to a real mission with you, Master."
Kaiya blinked, her glazed eyes clearing, and then pulled her hands away from Arjuna. "Of course you are," she growled, and turned to stomp past him out of the meeting room.
Once again, he trailed after her, watching in amusement as she did her best to pretend he wasn't there. Instead of going to lunch as many of the others had, she went directly to one of the training gyms.
There were a handful of Servants already there, and judging from the way they greeted her, they all seemed as familiar with his Master as that green poacher. They all looked at Arjuna, too, and although his demon hated them, he kept his soul a still pool: his Master's perfect Servant.
She gave him a look of dislike as he took up a waiting stance at the edge of the mat, announced, "I am going to spar," and then turned her attention to the Berserker Beowulf as the big blonde man approached her.
"Come to play, squishy?" said Beowulf, grinning, and when Kaiya nodded tensely, shouted, "Yan Qing! Come help!"
The black-haired assassin joined Beowulf, tossing a careless smile in Arjuna's direction before moving behind Kaiya. A couple of other Servants drifted over, as if Kaiya sparring was somehow an attraction.
For a moment, Beowulf and Yan Qing simply circled Kaiya, like wolves stalking prey. Arjuna recognized in Kaiya a hint of the odd floating grace she'd manifested in the werewolf village before he'd saved her from her attackers. It was intriguing enough to make him resist his instinctive desire to protect her even in this controlled situation.
He did find himself asking of Hector, standing beside him, "Two on one. Why does it take two Servants to spar with one little girl?"
With a disarming chuckle, Hector said, "That's the rules. One to fight with her, and one to stop her from running away or getting hurt. She can't have been drinking, either. She gets a little out of control then."
Back in the werewolf village:
Arjuna said, "So you can defend yourself."
She gave him a black look as she turned to return to the tavern. "Not really. Not unless I have to."
Arjuna watched now as Yan Qing came up behind Kaiya and whispered something in her ear, prompting a flurry of movement from her, kicks and strikes the Assassin brilliantly avoided. Then Beowulf moved in with a hammer fist attack Kaiya ducked. She backed away from both of them, toward the far edge of the mat, but Yan Qing blurred behind her, taking on the role of sheepdog to keep her from escaping as Beowulf attacked her. She bared her teeth, dodging what she could and getting in a few strikes of her own that had no impact on Beowulf's solid form.
Hector observed, "It's been a while since she's come to play. She's a bit more aggressive than I usually see her sober. Normally it takes a while before she gets up to speed."
It became not just a test of Arjuna's patience, but of his self-control. Initially, although she dodged very well, Kaiya took blow after blow from Beowulf. The Berserker was obviously pulling his strikes, but again and again, Arjuna's Master slammed into the mat and kept getting back up.
Whoever had trained her had trained her first in avoiding attacks, and then in disabling attackers, and Arjuna was forced to admit she'd been trained well. But almost all Servants were faster and stronger than her. This really was nothing more than a game to them, like playing with a mouthy puppy.
Then she caught Beowulf once in a throw and surprised Yan Qing twice with sudden attacks behind her, and the feeling of the match shifted. More of the floating grace suffused her movements, until she was practically leading her partners in a dance.
"This is worth watching," said Hector in satisfaction, and then added, "It's actually hard not to watch her when she really gets moving."
They couldn't lay a hand on her using their previous playful approach, and Beowulf's eyes brightened as he started to take the fight more seriously. But it didn't take long before Arjuna's skin prickled as he watched his Master dodge a strike powerful enough to break her ribs. Then she dodged another, spinning aside to avoid an uppercut almost too fast to see, her hair lifting in a dark halo around her face and her dreamy eyes shining.
Hector frowned. "Ah, hm. You know, this may be too much."
"Wulf!" said Yan Qing sharply, but the Berserker didn't lose his laser focus on Kaiya.
Shaking his head, the Assassin moved up behind Kaiya as if to grab and restrain her, but she smiled and stepped sideways, allowing Beowulf's incoming jab to take Yan Qing in the chest so hard bone cracked. Yan Qing stumbled backward, blood trickling from his mouth, but Beowulf didn't even seem to notice, instead pivoting to watch Kaiya with a berserk glee.
Arjuna's patience snapped. One successful blow from Beowulf at this point would cripple or kill his Master. The match had to end, instantly, but both Kaiya and Beowulf were in a mental state beyond the reach of words.
Beyond the reach of most words. His demon took over, stepping onto the mat and said pleasantly, "My light."
Kaiya's faraway gaze drifted to him, and he smiled, revealing his white knife to her. Then he took a single step toward Beowulf.
"No!" Kaiya gasped, her pupils constricting and her grace vanishing as her shoulders hunched.
That, Beowulf noticed. He stopped abruptly, glancing over his shoulder to find Arjuna standing behind him, somber and empty-handed. "Oh," he said, blinking. "We done?" Then he looked around. "Shit, Yan Qing?"
"It's cool," said the other, rising to his feet and wincing as he prodded his own ribs. "I knew what I was in for."
Then he added, "Good job, Kaiya," and gave Arjuna a look with layers.
Kaiya stepped off the mat, her shoulders still hunched as she glared at Arjuna. He crossed to her side, although she tried to avoid him gracelessly, and took her arm in a grip like steel so that she couldn't even try to tug herself away.
A red mark bloomed high on her cheek from one of Beowulf's early hits, and Arjuna knew similar marks lay on her torso. They each made him angry, frustrated in a way he didn't understand. But they were in public, so he would be everything he ought to be.
"Come along, Master," he said gently, and moved her toward the little connected locker room. "You will feel better with a shower."
"Fuck you," she growled, tugging at him despite his grip.
He gave her a little smile. "My precious Master." Then, because she was clearly still not in the right frame of mind, he simply picked her up and carried her to the locker room.
The small room smelled of soap and cleaning solution more than human sweat, unsurprising given the current population of Chaldea. Despite recent hires, Servants still outnumbered humans at least four to one. It had a small bank of lockers, a bench, a full length mirror, and two shower cubicles with a stack of towels in a cubby beside them.
Arjuna turned on one of the showers and ruthlessly pulled Kaiya's clothes off while the water warmed, ignoring her complaining and struggles. Then he pushed her into the shower, closed the curtain, picked up her stinking clothes and went to fetch her clean ones. When he returned, she was still in the shower cubicle, muttering to herself enough that he didn't need to check on her.
He gave her the time she needed, refolding the stack of towels so the edges were crisp and wiping down sinks that previous users had left blotched. When she finally turned the water off, he stood at the curtain with a towel over his arm, presenting it to her grasping fingers as her arm emerged.
A moment later, she emerged from the shower, the towel wrapped tightly around her torso. Her skin was flushed bright red from the shower, and she looked tired instead of angry. Her dark hair fluffed around her head where she'd towel-dried it, still damp enough that a bead of water trickled down her neck as she stared at him.
He remembered a similar bead of water as she'd emerged from the bathroom in a robe the morning before. Before they'd made their deal, before he'd been given the right to do as he pleased to her when they were alone. Even then, he'd wanted to lick that bead from her neck.
They were alone now.
Without any more thought, his hands closed on her hips and he nuzzled against her throat, lapping at the droplet of water, and then searching for more. She gasped and then whimpered, her body pliant against his. When he'd licked from her ear to her collarbone, his mouth drifted lower, toward the expanse of flesh wrapped in terrycloth. But a raised voice from beyond the locker room door interrupted the near-fugue brought on by the fresh smell and sweet taste of her skin.
He released her as he realized how unsatisfying it would be to indulge himself in this hard, bare little room. Instead he handed her the stack of her clean clothes, smiling when she glanced at them like a snake might be hidden within.
"Will you be more comfortable if I turn my back?" he asked, and smiled more as her gaze went to the mirror behind him.
Her mouth twisted. "Whatever," she said, and dropped her towel to dress. As she did, he studied the bruises already darkening on her torso, overshadowing his own smaller and more precise marks. He made a mental note to have an illuminating conversation with Beowulf later. Perhaps when his Master was sleeping and could not be troubled by his actions.
An unpleasant thought occurred to him, and he frowned, his gaze lingering on the bruises. "Why do you crave punishment so badly?"
She lowered her eyes. "Because I'm alive when better people are dead." Then she gave him an angry look. "Why are you so afraid of people discovering your true nature?"
It was the wrong question, and thus easy to answer. His voice cool, he said, "Because I should be a better person."
Kaiya's eyes narrowed. "I don't think you want to be a better person at all."
The demon smiled at her again. "Correct. Would you like me to tidy your hair, my light? I brought a comb."
She scowled at him. "You keep breaking our deal, you know."
"By offering to comb your hair?" He affected surprise. "Surely not." When he moved toward her, she stood up quickly. "Amidst others, I have done nothing that was not in your best interests. As any proper Servant would."
"Hah!" she said, which was no more than meaningless defiance to cover her escape from the locker room. Arjuna strolled after her, trailing her from the training gym through the corridors of Chaldea. She roamed for a almost half an hour, stubbornly ignoring him but pausing now and again to speak with some of the other Servants.
Finally, after hearing that the writers would be involved in the Salem Singularity's management, she made her way to the suite they shared, pushing open the ajar door without knocking. Arjuna, still at her heels, looked over her head into the room beyond.
The study shared between Hans Christian Andersen and William Shakespeare (and sometimes Nursery Rhyme) had been repaneled in dark wood, and a magical fireplace provided the only source of light other than the tablets the writers worked with at a round table. They looked up as Kaiya peeked in, both greeting her in their customary modes.
"Hark! Our other Master approaches! As Ritsuka is our sun, so you are the moon, lovely Kaiya."
"What do you want, brat?"
Hesitantly, Kaiya said, "What are you two doing?"
"Working," said Andersen flatly. "Now that you know, go away."
"Lady da Vinci has given us an important mission, Master," Shakespeare inserted smoothly. "I believe you'll find out about it very soon. Perhaps this evening? Meanwhile, 'tis true what my curmudgeonly companion states: for now, we toil with tablet and stylus, like the scribes of old."
"Oh," said Kaiya. She glanced over her shoulder, looking at Arjuna's chest instead of meeting his eyes. Then she walked further into the study, seating herself on the small couch set perpendicular to the fireplace. "Can I stay here for a while?" Her voice was small, almost childish in tone.
Andersen peered at her over his spectacles, and then glanced at Arjuna, who remained at the door. Then he sighed. "If you must, but be silent," and then muttered, "That damn couch is hardly ever empty."
"You will be our muse, my lady," said Shakespeare grandly, and turned to Arjuna. "And you, great prince? Will you join us as well?" Behind him, Andersen facepalmed as Kaiya shook her head frantically.
Amused by both the writers and his Master's obvious attempt to avoid him, Arjuna shook his head. "I will wait here while my Master attends to her business."
Shakespeare laughed silently, winking at Arjuna, and then seemed to get distracted by a sentence on his tablet. Andersen took longer to return to his work, studying Arjuna in a way that bordered on the insolent. But then he too glanced at his tablet, scowled, and started scribbling.
Arjuna waited calmly, watching Kaiya as she fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. The room was warm, the couch soft, and the fire crackled comfortingly. It took almost no time before the young woman began slowly nodding off. As soon as her head dropped completely onto her chest, Andersen looked up and said softly, "Will."
As gracefully and silently as any shinobi, Shakespeare rose to his feet, lightly moved Kaiya until she was curled on the couch, and placed a blanket over her. Then, straightening, he turned to Arjuna and held a finger to his lips, his eyes sparkling. "She sleeps deep and true, great prince. Attend to your own business knowing your princess is safely supervised."
"Yes, I'm sure you have something better to do than looming in our door," added Andersen acidly.
Thoughtfully, Arjuna said, "Yes, thank you," and took advantage of the opportunity to attend to some errands. Because Chaldea's human staff was still minimal, everybody, Servant or otherwise, had to do their own housekeeping chores. Kaiya clearly avoided many of them, and Arjuna was pleased to have the opportunity to make up for her lapses.
After he'd taken care of her laundry, both of her personal clothing and her bedsheets, he reorganized some of her shelves. In the process he derived satisfaction both from the task itself and the knowledge that she would inevitably be irritated by his work on her behalf. Although he'd once thought his preferred form of acknowledgment to be distracted gratitude, he couldn't deny that his demon enjoyed Kaiya's more visceral reactions, both positive and negative.
It was the happy anticipation of her irritated scowl that sent him back to the writers' study, where he found Kaiya still fast asleep on the couch.
"God, yes, take her away," said Andersen bitterly. "Who knew sleeping girls were such a distraction?" He waved his hand at Shakespeare, who was leaning back in his chair nibbling on his pen as he contemplated Kaiya's form.
"I merely seek to design the perfect role for our dark lady."
Andersen snorted. "Her? Put her on the stage and she'll be a mess. She belongs in the audience."
"Ah, an assistant director," mused Shakespeare. "Yes, that sharp tongue and tendency toward brooding. Exactly so. And yet I wonder…"
"And this one?" demanded Andersen, pointing at Arjuna.
"Caravan guard. Possibly stage dressing. No lines required," said Shakespeare, without looking away from his muse.
Arjuna shook his head and went to kneel beside the couch. His Master slept deeply, half on her back, her lips parted and her hands flung over her head. She looked delightfully open as she hadn't in her own bed, where he'd felt the nightmares tremble through her body and done his best to chase them away.
Gently he stroked her cheek and watched as her eyelids fluttered before she lapsed back into a deeper sleep again. Smiling, he ran his knuckle along her jaw and murmured, "Master. Time to wake up."
She made a grumbling sound in her throat, caught his hand with hers and tried to curl around it. He brought his other hand up to continue stroking her face, leaning so close that his nose brushed her hair to whisper, "Kaiya."
Her eyes opened and she turned to look at him, but he could tell immediately she was still mostly asleep. He ran his thumbs along her jaw, sharing her breath. Then, perhaps instinctively, she leaned up and kissed him.
After the last thirty-six hours, her mouth wasn't new to him. But her initiative was, and it electrified him. All thought, all awareness of their surroundings vanished as he pressed her back into the couch.
Then something lightweight, non-threatening, thocked between his shoulder blades and he realized he was in the writers' study. As he pulled away from Kaiya, she stared up at him with eyes more alert but quite confused.
Then her mouth twisted in that scowl and she pushed him away. "My own best interests, was it?"
"The dinner hour approaches, Master," Arjuna said, and bent to pick up the ball-point pen Andersen had thrown at him. Returning it out to him, he added, "Your hand must have slipped, Caster."
Andersen took it back again. "No, I threw it at you. This is a writer's study, not a bordello."
"Hans!" said Shakespeare, in what appeared to be genuine shock. "How can you be so crude? It was the very essence of a fairy tale. The noble prince awakening the sleeping maiden—with a twist!"
Kaiya rose unsteadily to her feet. "What twist?"
"Ignore them, Master," said Arjuna calmly. "It's time for dinner. We shall learn more about the mission."
"Yeah," muttered Kaiya, after giving everybody in the room a suspicious look. Then her expression softened. "Thank you for your couch. I hope I didn't snore."
"You did, but I'm used to it," said Andersen. "Now go away and take your caravan guard with you. Some of us have work to do." He gave Shakespeare a glare before returning to his own tablet.
In the cafeteria, Kaiya was called to a large table where da Vinci sat with Mash, Ritsuka, Holmes and a large handful of other Servants. There was a chair for Arjuna, too, but he chose instead to stand against the nearest wall, observing. Kaiya's nap had done her well in terms of her self-control; she was determinedly (but obviously artificially) enthusiastic about da Vinci's plan to send the mission team to Salem as an undercover acting troupe. She volunteered to join Mash in memorizing as much as possible of the scripts that Andersen and Shakespeare were preparing. She paid attention to Ritsuka's disorganized ramblings. She even ate some of her dinner.
But when the meal broke up and Ritsuka invited Kaiya to the lounge to watch a movie, Kaiya declined. Without even a glance at Arjuna, she trudged back to her own room, and he could see the anger growing in her again as she shed the facade she'd tried to wear during dinner. By the time she reached her door, he could feel the sizzle of frustrated fury radiating off her.
He caught the door behind her and slipped in. She gave him a single angry look and then went to dig around in one of her drawers, moving aside her carefully folded laundry without noticing it to pull open a shoebox and extract an unlabelled bottle of amber liquor.
Arjuna leaned against the door, watching her as she poured herself a glass and then hoisted herself onto the low dresser to stare back at him as she drank the alcohol. Tension poured off her like a jagged blade about to fall.
Irritated without knowing why, Arjuna said, "Once again you seek out solitude with me rather than safer company."
"I'd only upset them," she said flatly. "Hardly a risk with you."
"True," he said softly, stepping toward her. He judged she was angry at herself and angry at him in about equal measure, as she'd nearly always been since he'd been summoned to her. But she was much better at hurting herself then hurting him, so that had to change.
He leaned past her and picked up the bottle of alcohol, placing it on a high shelf. "Drinking will only damage your ability to fulfill your commitments, Master."
Her hand tightened on the glass, as if daring him to take that too. Then she gulped it fast, glaring at him before complaining bitterly, "I thought it would be different with a Servant. But not with you. Every time I feel a tiny bit of control, you take it away."
"Poor little Master," he said, smiling, deliberately provoking her.
Her eyes flashed and then her arm jerked and the glass shattered against the empty wall near the bathroom door. Shards glittered in the air and scattered across the floor. She followed them to the ground, diving for one of the shards, but she'd barely snatched one up before Arjuna was on her, pinning her outstretched arms to the ground and completely immobilizing her.
She growled, but as he flicked the shard of broken glass from her hand, he was enjoying himself completely. Sweetly he asked, "What could you have intended, I wonder? Or did you simply want this, your body beneath mine?"
Her chest heaved as she strained against him in vain, but her reflexive rage faded from her eyes.
He rubbed his nose against hers. "Now what shall I do with you, my light?"
"Bathe me," she suggested sarcastically. In response, he bit her mouth, his tongue flickering within and stroking her own before he withdrew to contemplate her some more. She was so very fragile. If he broke her, he wanted it to be by choice, not accident… and not yet.
Her eyes were wide and worried, yet as he stroked her palms with his thumbs, her eyes closed and her face smoothed. When he loosened his grip experimentally, her eyes opened again and that scowl twisted her face. "Bastard. Monster."
"Ah." He smiled and nipped her ear as he tucked her hands underneath the small of her back where he could restrain her one-handed. Then he delicately nibbled his way down her throat to her chest until her shirt interfered, listening to her intermingled gasps and curses. As his mouth became more tender, her invective increased: coward, she called him, and cheater. Monster. Liar. Con artist. Murderer.
Still smiling, he cut her shirt off her so he could bite her nipples, wrapping his tongue around the stiff nub as he scraped his teeth across her skin. At the first bite, she cried out, and at the second, her legs moved against his as she tried to arch her back. That was also when the name calling stopped. Or at least stopped until later, when he'd nipped his way down her stomach and brought his teeth and tongue to bear on the bundle of nerves hidden between her legs. Then she writhed against him, gasping his true name while saying please.
His tongue softened against her damp flesh as he lingered over tasting her. Her fingernails dug into his wrist as she tried to free her hands from his unbreakable grip, and she panted harshly, moving her pelvis against his mouth.
Lifting his head, he adjusted her so that he once again pinned her hands beside her head as he rose over her. He wanted to see her face as he brought her the release she so desperately craved, in exactly the gentle way she thought she didn't deserve.
"Shh," he whispered as he sheathed himself within her, smiling down into her overwide eyes. "Trust me, my light. As you say, I steal all your control, and so you are free. Whatever you do, whatever you feel, you may lay at my feet."
Her mouth twisted as her eyes squeezed shut: an expression of pain rather than her usual angry scowl. "Fuck you," she whispered, and he licked the tears leaking from her closed eyes, tasting her defiance for the remnant pride it was. That too he would take on for her, and so he began to move, out and in against her tight and silken heat, each stroke a lick of rising pleasure for him and a tightening of an exquisite tension for her.
He tried, he really did try this time to keep the control he'd managed the day before when he'd taken her sweetly. But he'd spent this whole day tormenting her, being tormented by her. She felt too good against him: her smooth flesh; her pebble-tipped breasts against his own chest; the scent of her hair; her gasps and cries. Everything about her seemed to enfold him, intoxicate him. Slowly, as his own desire took over, he moved faster and harder against her, chasing his own pleasure and driving her wild in the process. When she keened and jerked against him, clenching around him, he groaned as his own pleasure surged over him.
Panting, he lay upon her, feeling the rise and fall of her chest as her ragged breathing slowly stabilized. He watched as her fluttering eyelids stilled, as again she fell asleep safe in his arms. Finally, once he felt ready, once he felt human again instead of demonic, he lifted himself from her, caught her up in his arms and bore her to the bed. After tucking her in, he went to clean up the glass and attend to the various other errands he'd set for himself.
[poison so sweet]
The next morning, she ate the breakfast he brought her quietly, without childish tantrum or dangerous provocations. Then she dressed and went once again to the writers' study, where Mash was already memorizing the manuscripts produced by Shakespeare and Andersen.
Arjuna watched from his position at the door as Kaiya struggled with the snippets and speeches that Mash mastered effortlessly. Though she was clearly frustrated, rather than lashing out, she kept glancing at Arjuna and then trying again. He wasn't sure how she could be deriving motivation from him; certainly he had little experience with the struggles she faced. An excellent memory was just one of many gifts he'd gained without effort.
As the lunch hour came and went, Kaiya was only a third of the way through the material she'd split with Mash. Displeased, Arjuna went to the cafeteria and returned with sandwiches—nominally for the writing team and the reading team both, but in truth entirely for Kaiya.
As she nibbled on half a sandwich, frowning at her work, Mash came over to the tray on the writers' table. While inspecting the sandwiches, she whispered, "She's really doing very well, isn't she? She just keeps comparing her progress to mine, and, well…" Mash shrugged nervously. "I was a designer baby."
"She's human. We aren't. She's doing fine," said Andersen, just a little louder, and Kaiya's hand tightened around her tablet.
"However," said Shakespeare, even louder, "There are limits to how much any performer can memorize without a break. Hans, we must let these beautiful ladies go for a time, lest we cook the golden goose."
"Yes, yes," said Andersen, waving a sandwich. "Both of you get out of here. But come back tomorrow. We'll need test readers for the final round of edits."
Instead of arguing, Kaiya quietly put her tablet aside and stood up, her sandwich forgotten in one hand.
"Master, eat," said Arjuna sharply. When she glanced at him and dutifully took another bite of her sandwich, he felt a chill. But at least she was eating, and more than just a scant half sandwich. She took an entire second sandwich with her as she wandered out of writers' study for one of her rambles around Chaldea.
This time she stopped at the IT department where she'd apparently worked once upon a time. She chatted absently with her replacement for a while. Then she went by da Vinci's workshop to talk about Mystic Codes, again in a semi-distracted way that left the acting director giving Arjuna more confused looks.
Outside of the workshop, she finally spoke directly to Arjuna for the first time since that morning. "I want to go spar again." She stared up at him, her big dark eyes serious. "I'm not good at it, but I feel good afterwards… unlike this morning. But… if you're going to meddle again, I'd rather not."
Unworthy irritation lanced through him. He'd been so very patient and he'd worked hard to suppress his urge to interfere until she'd been dancing with death itself.
He demanded, "Do you wish to participate in the Salem mission?"
She blinked up at him. "Yes, of course. I… probably won't be very useful, but at least I'll be there… just in case."
Acidly, he said, "Then I will continue to meddle, as you put it, every time you seem inclined to do something that would stop you from getting there." Then he shrugged. "But I doubt that will be an issue in your sparring today."
She gave him a puzzled look, and he responded with an ironic gesture for her to continue on the route she'd been planning before. After a moment, she sighed and did.
That day, Saint Martha awaited her rather than Beowulf, with Yan Qing once again volunteering to play the sheepdog. Martha gave Arjuna a polite nod as she pulled on her padded gloves. They'd had a mutually satisfying conversation late the night before, after Arjuna had finished his interaction with Beowulf.
Fortunately, Kaiya seemed just as happy to spar with Martha as Beowulf. And although the match started in a similar war, with Yan Qing whispering something in Kaiya's ear, it proceeded along notably different lines, with Yan Qing taking a subtly more menacing role, while Martha offered tips and instructions to Kaiya and not hitting her nearly as hard. And although a fragment of the floating grace came to Kaiya, it never took her over entirely as it had the day before.
Even without it, Arjuna was pleased by her skill. In a battle if ever he had to focus his attention elsewhere, he was confident she could avoid capture or injury from almost any mundane melee assailant. The only difficulty was the curious conditions she required to access her skill. But Martha hadn't understood that anymore than Arjuna did.
"Without a sheepdog, she just stands there, stiff. She knows I won't really hurt her, so she can't bring herself to respond unless she's overwhelmed or panicked. That's why Yan Qing is so good at that part."
He was, too. Arjuna's eyes narrowed as he watched how the Assassin laughed and teased Kaiya, right before whispering something in her ear that made her whirl away and strike out. The more Arjuna watched, the more he disliked the other man. Even more than the green poacher, the Assassin had an interest in Kaiya beyond the friendly. Arjuna would have to deal with him as well.
At last Martha declared the match ended. Kaiya was sweaty and breathing hard, but she had far fewer bruises and went to shower in the locker room on her own. This time, Arjuna had prepared clean clothes for her in advance, and he followed her into the locker room to wait there with a clean towel.
She opened the curtain entirely this time rather than fumbling around the edge for her towel. Water still running down her nude body, she looked up at him. Then she lifted her arms in a silent invitation for him to wrap the towel around her.
His breath hissed between his teeth and then he had the towel around her, and his arms too, and he was picking her up, laying her on the bench where the towel fell open and he took her breast in his mouth, sucking the water off.
Her fingers touched his hair and she said softly, "Arjuna, what would you do if I said stop?"
He lifted his head, saw she was looking at him in the mirror. "We made a deal, my light. But if you wish to change the deal, I would give you a ten second start to invoke your Command Seals. You have so many friends beyond that door, too." He watched her in the mirror as she watched him, silently counting. When he'd gone beyond ten, he smiled at her and returned his attention to her other breast, and then every other droplet of water he could find in a thorough investigation.
When he was done, though she'd become quite wet where it counted and he remained painfully hard, he closed the towel around her and placed her clothing before her. "Dress. I will finish what you invited later, in more comfortable surroundings."
She sat up, picking up her clothes. "Yes. I tempted you, and I shouldn't have."
Arjuna frowned, catching her chin. "What is wrong with you, Master? What happened to your fire?"
She yanked her head away and muttered, "I'm doing my best. It's just that my best kind of sucks." Then she pulled on her shirt and the leggings Arjuna had picked out for her. "I guess I might as well get back to it, though."
But before she turned to leave, she looked at Arjuna one more time in the mirror, and he saw, beneath a glaze of despair, a hunger, intense and hopeless, for what he'd been doing to her.
A strange woman. If she'd looked at him like that before dressing, he would have given her what she'd wanted, uncomfortable locker room or no.
She spent the rest of the afternoon quietly working at small tasks da Vinci had suggested to her: assembling costume materials; reading up on what historical Salem had been like; visiting Medea. Through it all, Arjuna trailed her: an extra hand when she needed it; a silent counter to Medea's wicked tongue, and always, his eyes on her, seeing beneath her clothes and beneath her skin to the wounded soul beneath.
Even at the team dinner that evening, she was quiet, no longer trying to protect artificial enthusiasm for a project she felt out of place in. Her companions noticed, they were kind, and only Arjuna seemed to notice how each encouraging word made her wilt a little more. Finally, as the team once again broke for evening recreation, she excused herself almost frantically. And as soon as she reached the corridor, she ran, all the way back to her room.
As soon as she was within, she fell to her knees, her hands pressed against her eyes. When Arjuna closed the door behind himself, she said, "Thank you. And thank you for the laundry. I noticed earlier, but I didn't say anything." She took a deep, gasping breath. "I know why you're here, you know. You have your own space, the same as Mash, but you spend all your time with me, and I know why."
"You're mine," Arjuna said calmly, moving so he could see how she hid her face behind her hands.
"Don't!" she cried, and then caught herself, lowering her hands. "I mean, yes. We made a deal. I don't want to break it. But you would be no different with another Master. Any Master other than Ritsuka." She smiled painfully. "You deserve better than me. Somebody competent. Somebody who hasn't been wasting the life others saved."
Arjuna moved to where she knelt. She glanced up at him and then looked down, her shoulders hunched like an invisible cloak of despair covered her. "Maybe I could find—"
He twisted his fingers into her hair, pulling her head up. "Stand," he commanded, and yanked hard enough that she barely had a choice in the matter.
She didn't cry out as she stumbled to her feet, although her eyes filled with tears she tried to blink away. He found they pleased him more than the dry-eyed, matter-of-fact way she'd discussed her unworthiness. He found also he was intensely irritated by her.
She thought he deserved a different Master, thought she was useless, a target of convenience. She, who had seen what he was and confronted him, who had accepted him rather than running away.
Arjuna knew very well the feeling of looking at what another had, and wanting it. He didn't feel that way now. Instead, he looked at what he did have, and wanted that, more and more. And the only thing stopping him from having her exactly as he wanted her was… her. She was a puzzle and a problem, one that didn't solve itself at his touch. No, she tied herself into new knots and then presented herself to him nude.
The thought brought all his arousal of the locker room rushing back, and he kissed her once hard before pulling her out of her clothes. She didn't resist, but instead moved like he was the fragile one; like letting him touch her was drawing him into sin. Her hands on his arms were hesitant, flighty, and she kept searching his face as if expecting him to realize a dark truth any moment.
He had no words to reassure her. He didn't even want to reassure her. He had no interest in wasting his time convincing her of self-evident truths. What he wanted to do was bring her out of the sad numbness that had afflicted her. To make her feel so much she screamed.
Roughly he turned her around, cupping her breasts in hands curved like talons as he bit her shoulder hard, just as he'd done before. She squealed and then cut herself off, panting as he held the bite. He dragged the fingernails of one hand down her stomach, not at all gently. When he relaxed his bite, she moaned as the blood rushed into the bruise he'd left.
"Good," he whispered. "Yes, my light."
Then he bit her other shoulder as he thrust his fingers into her core. She made a noise in the back of her throat as she pushed her hands through her hair.
"Why?" she panted, as if the question consumed her.
"You like it," he murmured silkily, and turned her around again to push her back onto the bed so he could focus on her breasts, using his teeth to give pinching little bites that left vivid welts on the outside curves. Each time she squeaked or moaned, he paused to praise her.
At last, it was too much for her.
"Sweet Master," he crooned as he bit her thighs.
She gasped, "No, stop!" with tears in her voice. "I hate you! You're trying to torture me. Stop talking and teasing and just fuck me!"
He rose up over her, looking down at her flushed face, her tangled hair, her swollen lips. "Feeling angry, my light?"
"I hate you," she repeated sullenly, and his demon sang with joy.
"Ah, such passion," he said, and thrust into her, moving instantly to fucking her just as fast and hard as she always begged for. This time he held himself as long as he wanted, bringing her to her release twice before he let himself finish.
She was awake still as he lowered himself half on her, half onto the bed, the pleasant afterglow still tingling through him.
"You really are cruel," she said, as if it was wondrous to her.
"You had every chance not to unlock my demon, my light." He drew his hand down her ribcage. "But there's no going back now."
"Could I have stopped you from killing the werewolves?"
He considered that for a long moment. "No. Not without foreknowledge and your Seals. As soon as they attacked you, their death was inevitable."
"Oh." She burrowed against him, and then said, her words muffled, "Would you have had sex with me that night if I'd asked for that instead of a hug?"
He didn't answer, because he didn't know. Instead he stroked her spine, holding her until she finally fell asleep.
[breathe damn you]
The final day before they deployed to the Salem singularity, Kaiya began the day as Arjuna liked her best: fierce, determined, focused. She ate a good breakfast, scolded Arjuna for walking behind her, chattered at him more than she ever had before as they walked to the writers' suite.
She was nervous, he realized. She fidgeted as she studied scripts, memorizing less but caring less as well. She frowned and shook her head at her own thoughts so often that Arjuna finally spoke to her directly as they walked to her sparring session.
"What troubles you now, Master?"
She gave him a sidelong glance, twisting her fingers together and then pulling them apart. "I'm just afraid I'm going to mess up. I've got to be careful, keep a close eye on Ritsuka. I… I can't watch anybody else die."
Arjuna frowned, remembering his Master's worst personality trait. She peeked at him through her hair. "I don't want to be stupid. I won't be. I'm going to do my best. I just have to… be there. I have to protect her, even if I don't do anything else. I'm alive, so I can do that." She nodded, as if she'd said something bright and inspiring, but her words twisted like a corkscrew of ice in Arjuna, touching something deeper than mere irritation.
At the training gym, they were met by Martha and her new sheepdog, Sanzang. Penthesilia was there too, and several other women Servants, but Arjuna didn't have a chance to identify them before Sanzang was politely shoving him out of the gym.
"This is a ladies' gym today. You'll have to wait outside. Go for a brisk walk. Meditate! Come back in a couple of hours."
The door closed in his face, leaving Arjuna contemplating how he'd brought this on himself, and whether this was any better than watching Yan Qing play with what was his.
Yes, he decided, and went to see to his own preparations as he thought about Kaiya's determination to protect Ritsuka at the expense of her own life.
When he returned to reclaim his Master, she smelled like nail polish and hair products rather than sweat or soap, and she had a dazed look rather than a well-exercised glow.
Clearly he'd missed another opportunity to help her dry off after a shower. Disappointment edged his voice as he said, "No sparring today?"
"Oh… we did a little," said Kaiya vaguely, and then gave him a sideways look. "Then we got distracted talking. Martha wanted to tell me about her tarrasque and Sanzang had to talk about the Buddha, and Penth brushed my hair and told me how to kill you…" She trailed off, looking bewildered again. "They were all so nice."
"You have everything you need to kill me on your hand," Arjuna pointed out.
Kaiya glanced down at her Command Seals, and then shrugged. "She thought I needed to know other ways. I think it made her feel better somehow."
"Hah," said the demon, and they went along to their next meeting.
This one was more important than the troupe planning and general research meetings they'd attended thus far, for it was the meeting where da Vinci talked about her plans to power the mission. As part of some political game about Chaldea, part of the reactors normally used to supply energy to Servants in the field had been shut down already.
"However, we have an ace in the hole," said da Vinci cheerfully. Behind her sat Merlin, looking harried. "Merlin was always a big part of powering Chaldean operations during the Incineration and he's kindly agreed to help us out now." But the face Merlin made suggested that 'agreed' was something of a euphemism.
"However," continued da Vinci, her tone becoming severe. "There are hard limits. Most of the Servants I've selected for the mission have low energy requirements save for in emergencies. We only have the resources to send a single divine Servant." She paused, looking as if she'd swallowed something sour.
Before she could continue, a voice from the front row said, "That will be Arjuna, of course." A pleasant, calm, hated voice. Karna. "Kaiya can hardly go without him. Two Masters will be a boon on this journey and I know how dedicated Kaiya is to protecting Ritsuka."
Arjuna drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn't say anything. What was there to say? But he hadn't thought it was possible to hate Karna more than he did five minutes ago, and now he knew he was wrong. The chilly corkscrew Kaiya's self-destructive urges had driven into him dug deeper and broke through ice into a lake of pure rage.
"All right," said da Vinci, in a voice bright and brittle. "Now I'm going to go over some energy-saving tricks you may find useful—"
She went on and on, as she had at the first meeting, and Arjuna breathed, in and out, and didn't try to kill Karna. At his side, his Master looked at him in concern, but the only way he had to reassure her was to kill Karna, and Ritsuka too, and that just wouldn't do.
It would be unseemly.
They were on the same side.
Once, he'd been a hero.
Kaiya wanted to throw herself in front of an arrow for Ritsuka. Karna had charitably given up his ability to protect his lover so that Arjuna could go instead. And the demon Arjuna wanted to kill everything in response. A similar urge had gotten him banished before. He hadn't minded then. But now there was Kaiya,
He breathed, in and out.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. When dinner ended and Kaiya showed signs of finally accepting Ritsuka's social invitation, Arjuna could stand no more. He came up behind his Master and whispered in her ear, "Time to go home, my light."
She gave him a puzzled look. Before she could argue, he added, his voice even lower, "We are not alone, but we could be. I could make it so. Shall I? Or shall we go home now, together?"
Kaiya's eyes narrowed, as they had that day in the woods when she'd seen him for what he was. "All right. Let's go. We have an early start tomorrow anyhow."
In her room, he stepped in behind her and once again closed the door. She put down some gear she had yet to pack and turned toward him, crossing her arms. "What's going on?"
He stared at her, thinking about the way her hair tousled instantly, falling in distinct and adorable spikes that she hated.
"Arjuna?" she said, with a thread of uncertainty.
Her eyes were always dark, almost fathomless, even when she was enjoying herself.
Kaiya pursed her lips and then sat in the sole armchair, pulling her knees up. "You'd better not go on a killing spree tonight."
"I don't intend to," he said, and advanced on her. She watched him warily. Wisely.
Then she abandoned any claim to wisdom by saying, "Is this about Karna? Because you've been grumpy all—"
"Shut up," he snapped. "I don't want to hear you say that name."
Kaiya sighed. "That means yes, I take it." She rested her chin on her knees, watching him as he circled around her until he passed behind her completely.
Delicately he ran his fingers through her hair, drew his nails down the back of her neck. "You have a particular delusion, my light. I realize it comforts you, but if it continues, it will only make my life annoying. So I cannot permit it to go on."
She tilted her head back to look up at him in confusion, and he trailed his fingers over her throat. Then he had his hands wrapped around her neck as he said, "Understand this, my light. You will only die if I kill you."
He squeezed, very lightly, and then released her, drawing his fingers over her very wide eyes. "You will not die for Ritsuka. You will not die at your own hand. Nobody is permitted to kill you except me."
Her brow drew together. "You can say that, but you don't know. You can't do everything. And at least I'm trying to be constructive—"
The demon laughed. "I can't? I? My light, do you truly understand who I am? All I need do is knock, and every door opens for me." He leaned down, brushing his lips over her forehead. "Karna gave up his place for me. That is who I am. Admire his noble sacrifice if you will, but it was inescapable. He was born first, but it was I who had everything. He had to scrape and work and suffer, while I was peerless in my natural gifts. Admire him, but that admiration means nothing."
His hands tightened and he pushed the chair away from him explosively before covering his face. It meant nothing and it meant everything. "Could I have been that?" he muttered to himself. "Would I have climbed as high if I had started so low?"
Then he started laughing and lowered his hands. Kaiya had turned in her chair, was staring at him with her brow dark. "Would you like to know the truth? Karna's an idiot. An idealistic fool. That's why he died, and that's why I celebrated his death. Inside, of course. Secretly. But not secretly with you, my light. Karna will suffer a most unpleasant separation from his love, and he inflicted it on himself! He could have fought me for the right to be at her side, but he nobly gave it up. And I am glad."
Kaiya studied him in silence. The desire to take her, claim her, show her exactly how she belonged to him swept over him. He reached out, sliding his hands around her shoulders.
Absently, she leaned back—not so much to escape him as to continue looking at him. Then she reached up to touch his mouth, tracing his fixed smile gently. His mouth twisted into a scowl and he jerked his head away from her touch. Then he pulled her to him, half over the back of the chair, and hid his face against her neck.
Once again she touched him gently, this time her hand on his neck. His skin twitched and he nipped at her. Then her hand sank into his hair and she twisted, yanking hard as she whispered, "Good. So am I."
Only then did he realize that was what he needed: not tenderness, not absolution, not sympathy, not open doors, not gifts. Not everything he'd always had. Not charity, either, where his brother turned having nothing at all into every virtue.
But Arjuna, selfish, greedy, possessive, murderous, gifted, was aware of every good thing about himself and every place he fell short. He should have been better. He should be better, in this afterlife. And yet Kaiya had seen the truth so clearly. He didn't want to be better. He enjoyed his sin, and he enjoyed being seen by her.
She pulled harder on his hair, and his spinning thoughts fractured. All he could think was that she was his, and he would show her that over and over again. He slid into the chair under her and then pushed her down onto the floor.
"Hey!" she said, catching herself on one arm.
He grinned. "Are you angry, my light?"
"Yes! What the hell—"
He took her head and pulled it toward his groin, and then freed his erection. "I don't care. Pleasure me anyhow."
Her eyes widened as she stared down at his flesh, and she gave a shudder that seemed to emanate from her core from the way she shifted her weight. Then she lowered her head and began to lick him.
After she'd stroked his shaft up and down, she took the head into her mouth and began to suck as she moved her tongue in circles. One of her hands gripped the base and he threaded his fingers through her hair, tightening and relaxing with the movement of her mouth. She felt amazing, including the little sounds she made as they trembled through him.
But she was touching herself as well as him, he realized, and pulled her other hand up to wrap those fingers around his cock as well. "Stay focused, my light," he whispered. "You'll be pleased soon enough."
She gave him a dirty look, and worked her mouth and hands faster. Too fast, too sharp, so that he had to take her head and move himself in and out of her wet hole: harder, her saliva clinging to him as she tried to maintain suction while almost choking.
Then his skin tightened and he spurted into her mouth, a long, perfect sense of release enhanced by the way she kept working her mouth until finally he pulled away from her.
She wiped her mouth, scowling up at him. "Satisfied?"
"Never," he said, and pulled her up into his lap, holding her back to his chest as he began to play with her. Her panties were utterly soaked and he slid two of his fingers within her core. "Now, we should talk, don't you think?"
"Talk?" she gasped. "Arjuna—"
He moved his fingers in and out, and pinched at one of her nipples. "We deploy to a Singularity tomorrow, which apparently contains a town full of the primitive and the repressed. I understand that once they hung women for moaning like this." He frowned. "Making you scream there might bring down annoyances."
"Arjuna," Kaiya moaned. "There's a demon pillar involved. Fifty thousand people have been stolen. We have to rescue them."
"A properly heroic thought," said the demon. "But none of those people are mine. You are. So be careful, my light. I will burn the entire Singularity before I let you die."
All Kaiya could do was moan in response. Something about his hands, perhaps? But Arjuna would take it for now. He'd make her understand eventually, and meanwhile, well, she made the most delightful sounds.