Spicer than the natural variety.
Sep. 8th, 2011 02:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xhesikaI missed this. I love the way the story forms in my head, nothing like Ritzko, Artemis has a much more consuming feeling when I write it.
There was one thing that Kamen was certain of: Artemis was much too comfortable with him and it was making him uncomfortable. Although he couldn’t complain too much of the sight of the woman stretching and writhing slightly on the bed from a long day, he could easily make a comment or two that would, as Artemis put it, “botch the tone”.
He watched her wriggle herself in a continuing “S”—stretching and bending her spine to push herself into and above the bed—and recalled several times when they were much younger and she had done the same. He had found the gesture amusing then, but here, in these settings it was much different than two children stargazing, or cloud watching.
Kamen watched his childhood friend settle into a yawn on her back in the bed, reaching her hands up to rub her face.
“What are you staring at?” Artemis asked from behind her hands, still hard at work rubbing the worry-ridden creases out of her face from the day.
Kamen shoved his hands into his pockets, “You. Thinking about how quickly you bounced back from being depressed all morning, and now you’re relaxed.”
Artemis clasped her hands on her stomach, “I’m not ready to be queen.” She shook her head slowly, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. I’m relieved, but it takes the bubble off of everything, I don’t like how possible it can become.”
With a small smile Kamen set to work at the small clasp at his collar and then moved onto the buttons of his coat, “You were ready.” He pulled off his jacket and pulled it straight, speaking once more before setting it onto the bed closer to the head than where she lay out, “I think you were ready.”
Artemis rolled her eyes upwards in an attempt to look at him from her spot, and rather than responding to him she rolled onto her side to look away from him.
The week had been a torrent of bad news until that point; after walking in on the murder of Nora Sybil the past few days had done nothing but get worse. The news of Parliament declaring special circumstances and Valerie Araceli agreeing to step up to the throne only a few hours from that moment, was the first easy breath for Artemis.
The girl shook her head slightly, not wanting to turn back to Kamen just yet; she couldn’t become queen under the current circumstances, not with the heavy emotional turn of events and Van Dean putting pressure on Artemis to surrender herself to end the war.
Kamen shook his head slightly; he understood her hesitance perfectly, but didn’t quite agree with her wanting to keep out of direct power. Kamen sat down onto the edge of the bed and slouched down, letting his elbows hit his knees as he rubbed his hands together slowly.
“I can’t be queen; can you imagine how awful Cassie would get?” Artemis said slowly.
She thought back to the private meeting she had been called to earlier that day with Chancellor Weinham and Commander Rei. They had both agreed that this move was for the best, and Artemis would quickly admit that the two never agreed on anything, even so there was an unsettling feeling riling up in her stomach concerning her mother’s welfare. If Van Dean had been bold enough to murder the only daughter of Celeste, there would be no guarantee that he would not make a move against Valerie Araceli, and the words of Weinham would not be enough reassurance.
“I’m worried for my mother.” Artemis muttered.
“I don’t care what Rei says,” Kamen began with a swallow, his eyes loosing focus on the air in front of him, “It would have been safer for you to take power.”
Artemis sat up and looked at the back of his head, “If I did what would stop him from turning negotiations into threats?”
Kamen looked over his shoulder, “Is that any different than it is now?” He shook his head and looked down at his hands, “He wouldn’t touch you if you were queen.” He sighed, “All that studying gone to waste, all you ever did when we were young was stick your nose in a book.”
She let her jaw drop slightly in anger, and with a furrowed brow began in a hard tone: “It isn’t wasted! Mother will need help, we’ll be working together.”
Kamen sat up and turned slightly to look back at her, “Yes, Valerie is going to throw away her pride and ask her daughter for help running a country.”
Artemis clenched her jaw, “Oh how very nice, after the day I’ve had the first thing I need is for my best friend to start nagging me about politics—prime—because he so loved the idea of venturing into them himself.”
Kamen sat back for a few seconds, bitten by the venomous tone she took with him, and then gave her a skeptical glare, “Touch a nerve, did I?”
“I’m bored with this, Covington.” Artemis drolled before falling backwards and rolling back onto her side away from him.
“Covington?” Kamen said quickly, angered by Artemis’ attempt to change the subject with a condescending shrug. He quickly pushed himself to stand on his knees on the bed and hobbled over to her, “And the day I’ve had? Following you around? Watching you? You think this is easy?” He reached out to her shoulder and gave it a tug, forcing the weight to shift and her back quickly hit the bed.
Artemis looked up at him, her expression devoid of any feeling and her tone just as neutral, “Is it very hard? To watch?”
Kamen swallowed the lump that was quickly forming in his throat at the sight of Artemis lying next to where he knelt, “E byri et.”
“E byri et?” Artemis groaned; still looking up at him with fingers lacing the crisp dark blue sheets, still rumpled from where she had napped earlier and not cared to pull back into order. Kamen’s sudden change in attitude only took a few seconds for Artemis to figure out, and she smiled, “It’s me isn’t it? Something I did and now you’re catatonic?”
Kamen rolled his eyes, “I am not catatonic. You just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
“Off guard?” Artemis cooed, bordering on laughter, “it’s a good thing the high general position was rigged, I might be stuck with someone who could actually do the job.”
“This is splendid pillow talk; really,” he let out a small sigh at her familiar antic, “I just love how you try to make me angry when you don’t get your way.”
Artemis swallowed slowly, tilting her head at him to straighten his head in her sight, “I know how I really could make you angry, you’d just purse your lips and shake your head, and then I would back off like a good girl before I really did see you get angry. Please drop the business about being queen; I might say something I’ll regret.”
Kamen shook his head and reached down to her head to push one of the chains of her stephane out of place before reaching to the back of her head for the clasp. Artemis tilted her head slightly, anticipating the gesture and giving her approval to it.
He wadded up the thin metal strings in his hand and tossed it into the black of the dim room, quickly bringing his hands back to her head to pull the hair out of its form and scattered it across the linens before grasping the back of her head and pulling it up to kiss her forehead.
Artemis reached up to grasp the fabric of the armor shirt and made a few fruitless attempts before pressing her hand against Kamen, “I hate that I’m scared, and I hate that I’m putting pressure on you because of it. I don’t mean to.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed the side of her head to his chest, certain that she wouldn’t be able to hold herself up like that for long at such an angle. Kamen’s arm reciprocating her gesture quickly eased the fleeting worry and she tilted her eyes upwards in an attempt to find his face but looked back into the black of the room with her failure. “I know he wouldn’t touch me, he wants me as queen, and the negotiations wouldn’t change. Weinham is certain he won’t touch Mother, but we also thought Nora Sybil was safe. Growing up, I thought there was always going to be a line that he wouldn’t cross, but he did, he has no limit.”
“I couldn’t follow you if you were queen, is that it?”
“Part of it. A lot of it. Most of it.” Artemis murmured.
A low chuckle and slight vibration of his chest resounded in Artemis’ head, “Less than five minutes ago you were trying to bruise my ego.”
“I’ve been spoiled, you’ve spoiled me.” She mumbled once more, cutting off Kamen’s sentence and drawing his attention once more. “Do you think sunflowers die if they never see the sun? If all they receive is shade and never see it directly?”
Kamen swallowed and gave Artemis a squeeze, “Don’t talk like that.”
“I suppose I’ll find out once he gets me and locks me up in Gorgosa away from you.”
The pair of blue eyes that hovered just above Artemis’ head clenched themselves shut as Kamen bestowed a strong peck into her hair.
“I don’t think I mind the taste of ambrosia so much, as long as he keeps me doped up enough to not remember anything.”
Kamen released her, sending Artemis down and back onto the bed, all the while giving her a hard look and clenched jaw.
She swallowed, watching him cautiously, “Am I making you angry?”
“No.” He attempted a smile, but struggled in keeping it from twisting into a frown, and ran a hand through his already messy hair. “Just sad.”
Artemis sat up and ran her fingers through her hair a few times, scratching the scalp slightly. She looked down at her feet and stretched them a few times; happy to be out of the boots that she had worn the whole day, after the summer spent in a gossamer stola she had forgotten the way they pushed at the arches of her feet. She was certain that her mother didn’t approve of the military uniform, but it wasn’t a form of rebellion from her position as Dauphine. There was a strange strength that Artemis associated with the uniform, the mindset of a soldier and the idea that success is merely holding yourself together as the world around you crumbles.
She turned slightly to the man sitting beside her on the bed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders; now peeved with herself for putting him into such a melancholic mood.
Kamen touched the arm that draped itself over his chest, and with a small smile he turned his head to Artemis, “I won’t pester you about it.”
He brushed her lips with his, smiling slightly at the familiar way she tensed initially at his touch—a habit formed after years of the affections between the two being taboo—and then slowly relaxed with each innocent kiss he placed on her face.
“Ea zyt gyezg mzoq’fivi.” I’m not going anywhere. Kamen whispered against her cheek; the day prior, and also the day following the murder, had been Kamen’s twenty-fourth birthday, and his day off had been spent at her side as a friend. He smiled and pecked at her cheek, “You know that.”
Artemis swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded slowly. Comforted by his promise she pushed her voice past the choking sob, “E byri oys.”
“Mu jy E.” Kamen said with a small smile, wiping her eyes with his thumb, “I’ve seen you cry enough to last me a lifetime.”
Artemis released his shoulders and sat back onto her legs, wiping her face with a small laugh, “Sorry.”
Kamen turned towards Artemis and wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulling her up onto her knees once more. With a dark look in his eyes, Kamen pressed his mouth firmly against hers and she reached out for him once more, this time grasping the armor shirt at the collar and pulling the fabric down slightly.
“E q’mzt oys.” Kamen said with his voice low.
Small pools of heat formed just below Artemis’ eyes and she strengthened her grip on his collar, grasping his shoulder as best she could with her other hand before finding a better spot for it on the back of his neck.
“I know you understood me.” Kamen said, kissing at the reddening blush on her cheeks, “I want you.”
The discomfort with the subject was evident on Artemis’ face and Kamen pushed himself back slightly to gauge her reaction to his words. After the relationship Artemis had shared with Van Dean, she had shied from any affection that escalated too quickly, making the summer she spent in thin fabric difficult for Kamen who had forced himself to pay no attention to her form.
She let out a small huff and began to shake her head.
An apology was coming, and despite knowing that it was, Kamen was certain that the way she would say it would break his heart. He pulled her back to him, strengthening the arm around her waist, and reaching a hand up to the back of her head to pull her mouth to meet his. “I know. I’ll wait.”
The familiar hum burrowed itself in the back of Artemis’ head; Van Dean’s forced telepathic link to her, and she deepened the kiss in a moment of defiance and passion. His obsession had once again forced her to take refuge in the forest with Kamen—almost something that at that moment in time she could have been thankful for if not for the looming threat given by Van Dean for Artemis to either kill Kamen or submit.
Never. Artemis pushed the single word to the front of her mind as she ran her fingers through Kamen’s hair, grabbing what she could on the back of his head to pull him closer.
Kamen responded by breaking the kiss and releasing her from his grasp.
Artemis watched him curiously for a few seconds, and then felt her breath catch in her throat when he reached up to the tiny clasp at the neck of her jacket. He undid the clasp on her jacket much easier than he had on his own prior to joining her on the bed. Artemis felt her breathing pick up when Kamen reached for the other buttons, undoing each in turn until the jacket was open completely and he was sliding the fabric down her arms and tossing it off the bed.
Kamen reached a hand up to the side of Artemis’ face, cradling it and dropping it down to her neck, turning her head slightly with his thumb against her chin and letting the appendage drag across her lower lip and cheek to rejoin his hand when she gave into the gentle force.
A small smile flickered over his face at her increasing blush and already quickened breaths. She anticipated his hand on her hip and did nothing to stop him from pulling her shirt from where it had been neatly tucked into her trousers so that he could rest his hand on her flesh.
Like petals. Her skin was soft, like smooth flower petals, and he ran his fingertips over her waist sending electric shocks through her skin and causing her breath to hitch with each pass.
With another gentle push, Kamen lowered Artemis back down to the bed, kissing her forehead once her head had touched down, and he grabbed a handful of the dark blue sheet next to her head in an attempt to slow himself down. The opportunity for such affections had arisen several times, but more often than not had they been cut short because of his impatience—usually ending in her small breathless pleas.
Sheet in his fist, Kamen pressed his mouth once more to Artemis’ and she arched towards him, reaching her arms around his back and pulling him down closer to her.
With a small sigh of relief, Kamen released the sheet and let himself fall onto the bed partially beside Artemis, their bodies pressed against each other’s and he set his head against her chest just below her shoulder, smiling slightly as she ran her fingers through his hair.
The clasps on Artemis’ armor shirt had all been done up tidily, and Kamen ran his hand over the collar of her shirt with his attention focused on the top one. With two fingers the first was opened, and he kissed the side of her neck as her breath hitched at the action. As his hand poised itself over the second clasp he watched her breathing steady out, and he placed a couple more pecks at her neck, nearly masking the fact that the second had come undone.
Fingers sliding over skin and fabric; Kamen hooked his index finger around the third clasp, squeezing it open with his thumb and middle finger and repeating the process for the fourth.
The fifth was in his hand, and he ran his index finger over the skin that he had exposed, finding it much softer than what he had touched at her waist. Artemis’s fingers had curled themselves around the back of his shirt and he watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, opening the clasp slowly.
There was some sort of added armor under her shirt, it stretched over her bust in arcs on each side and was barely visible to Kamen at that moment, but would be much more easily seen once the sixth clasp was opened. He poised his hand over the clasp, but was stopped abruptly.
Artemis had placed her hand on his, a gesture for him to stop his present course.
Kamen pushed himself up and leaned over Artemis to kiss the corner of her mouth, whispering a single word to her: “Limstehsb.”
With a gasp for air, Artemis pushed Kamen away and sat up abruptly. The word was immediately associated with a memory, a time when Najh still lived in Q’ael Dan’il, a time before Kamen came to the service, when the need for a High General had become imperative. Artemis felt the fabric of her trousers on her knees and felt a calm wash over her.
Kamen sat up and watched Artemis curiously for a few seconds as she caught her breath, “Too much?”
She gave him a small nod and he pulled her into his lap, pulling her back flush with his chest, and he reached for a blanket to wrap around the both of them.
The hum removed itself from the back of Artemis’ mind and she turned slightly to Kamen, wrapping her arms around his waist once more and pressing the side of her head to his chest, taking comfort in the sound of his heart.
Artemis looked up to the ceiling of the Haven and gulped at the dream catchers that had for the first time failed to keep Van Dean out of her mind, he had become more brazen, more desperate, and it had driven him to put himself directly at odds with Celeste.
“He broke through.” Artemis said at last.
Kamen kissed the top of her head, “We’ll get more catchers.”
“They won’t work. I don’t think he cares anymore.”
“Ea zyt gyezg mzoq’fivi.” I’m not going anywhere.
There was one thing that Kamen was certain of: Artemis was much too comfortable with him and it was making him uncomfortable. Although he couldn’t complain too much of the sight of the woman stretching and writhing slightly on the bed from a long day, he could easily make a comment or two that would, as Artemis put it, “botch the tone”.
He watched her wriggle herself in a continuing “S”—stretching and bending her spine to push herself into and above the bed—and recalled several times when they were much younger and she had done the same. He had found the gesture amusing then, but here, in these settings it was much different than two children stargazing, or cloud watching.
Kamen watched his childhood friend settle into a yawn on her back in the bed, reaching her hands up to rub her face.
“What are you staring at?” Artemis asked from behind her hands, still hard at work rubbing the worry-ridden creases out of her face from the day.
Kamen shoved his hands into his pockets, “You. Thinking about how quickly you bounced back from being depressed all morning, and now you’re relaxed.”
Artemis clasped her hands on her stomach, “I’m not ready to be queen.” She shook her head slowly, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. I’m relieved, but it takes the bubble off of everything, I don’t like how possible it can become.”
With a small smile Kamen set to work at the small clasp at his collar and then moved onto the buttons of his coat, “You were ready.” He pulled off his jacket and pulled it straight, speaking once more before setting it onto the bed closer to the head than where she lay out, “I think you were ready.”
Artemis rolled her eyes upwards in an attempt to look at him from her spot, and rather than responding to him she rolled onto her side to look away from him.
The week had been a torrent of bad news until that point; after walking in on the murder of Nora Sybil the past few days had done nothing but get worse. The news of Parliament declaring special circumstances and Valerie Araceli agreeing to step up to the throne only a few hours from that moment, was the first easy breath for Artemis.
The girl shook her head slightly, not wanting to turn back to Kamen just yet; she couldn’t become queen under the current circumstances, not with the heavy emotional turn of events and Van Dean putting pressure on Artemis to surrender herself to end the war.
Kamen shook his head slightly; he understood her hesitance perfectly, but didn’t quite agree with her wanting to keep out of direct power. Kamen sat down onto the edge of the bed and slouched down, letting his elbows hit his knees as he rubbed his hands together slowly.
“I can’t be queen; can you imagine how awful Cassie would get?” Artemis said slowly.
She thought back to the private meeting she had been called to earlier that day with Chancellor Weinham and Commander Rei. They had both agreed that this move was for the best, and Artemis would quickly admit that the two never agreed on anything, even so there was an unsettling feeling riling up in her stomach concerning her mother’s welfare. If Van Dean had been bold enough to murder the only daughter of Celeste, there would be no guarantee that he would not make a move against Valerie Araceli, and the words of Weinham would not be enough reassurance.
“I’m worried for my mother.” Artemis muttered.
“I don’t care what Rei says,” Kamen began with a swallow, his eyes loosing focus on the air in front of him, “It would have been safer for you to take power.”
Artemis sat up and looked at the back of his head, “If I did what would stop him from turning negotiations into threats?”
Kamen looked over his shoulder, “Is that any different than it is now?” He shook his head and looked down at his hands, “He wouldn’t touch you if you were queen.” He sighed, “All that studying gone to waste, all you ever did when we were young was stick your nose in a book.”
She let her jaw drop slightly in anger, and with a furrowed brow began in a hard tone: “It isn’t wasted! Mother will need help, we’ll be working together.”
Kamen sat up and turned slightly to look back at her, “Yes, Valerie is going to throw away her pride and ask her daughter for help running a country.”
Artemis clenched her jaw, “Oh how very nice, after the day I’ve had the first thing I need is for my best friend to start nagging me about politics—prime—because he so loved the idea of venturing into them himself.”
Kamen sat back for a few seconds, bitten by the venomous tone she took with him, and then gave her a skeptical glare, “Touch a nerve, did I?”
“I’m bored with this, Covington.” Artemis drolled before falling backwards and rolling back onto her side away from him.
“Covington?” Kamen said quickly, angered by Artemis’ attempt to change the subject with a condescending shrug. He quickly pushed himself to stand on his knees on the bed and hobbled over to her, “And the day I’ve had? Following you around? Watching you? You think this is easy?” He reached out to her shoulder and gave it a tug, forcing the weight to shift and her back quickly hit the bed.
Artemis looked up at him, her expression devoid of any feeling and her tone just as neutral, “Is it very hard? To watch?”
Kamen swallowed the lump that was quickly forming in his throat at the sight of Artemis lying next to where he knelt, “E byri et.”
“E byri et?” Artemis groaned; still looking up at him with fingers lacing the crisp dark blue sheets, still rumpled from where she had napped earlier and not cared to pull back into order. Kamen’s sudden change in attitude only took a few seconds for Artemis to figure out, and she smiled, “It’s me isn’t it? Something I did and now you’re catatonic?”
Kamen rolled his eyes, “I am not catatonic. You just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
“Off guard?” Artemis cooed, bordering on laughter, “it’s a good thing the high general position was rigged, I might be stuck with someone who could actually do the job.”
“This is splendid pillow talk; really,” he let out a small sigh at her familiar antic, “I just love how you try to make me angry when you don’t get your way.”
Artemis swallowed slowly, tilting her head at him to straighten his head in her sight, “I know how I really could make you angry, you’d just purse your lips and shake your head, and then I would back off like a good girl before I really did see you get angry. Please drop the business about being queen; I might say something I’ll regret.”
Kamen shook his head and reached down to her head to push one of the chains of her stephane out of place before reaching to the back of her head for the clasp. Artemis tilted her head slightly, anticipating the gesture and giving her approval to it.
He wadded up the thin metal strings in his hand and tossed it into the black of the dim room, quickly bringing his hands back to her head to pull the hair out of its form and scattered it across the linens before grasping the back of her head and pulling it up to kiss her forehead.
Artemis reached up to grasp the fabric of the armor shirt and made a few fruitless attempts before pressing her hand against Kamen, “I hate that I’m scared, and I hate that I’m putting pressure on you because of it. I don’t mean to.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed the side of her head to his chest, certain that she wouldn’t be able to hold herself up like that for long at such an angle. Kamen’s arm reciprocating her gesture quickly eased the fleeting worry and she tilted her eyes upwards in an attempt to find his face but looked back into the black of the room with her failure. “I know he wouldn’t touch me, he wants me as queen, and the negotiations wouldn’t change. Weinham is certain he won’t touch Mother, but we also thought Nora Sybil was safe. Growing up, I thought there was always going to be a line that he wouldn’t cross, but he did, he has no limit.”
“I couldn’t follow you if you were queen, is that it?”
“Part of it. A lot of it. Most of it.” Artemis murmured.
A low chuckle and slight vibration of his chest resounded in Artemis’ head, “Less than five minutes ago you were trying to bruise my ego.”
“I’ve been spoiled, you’ve spoiled me.” She mumbled once more, cutting off Kamen’s sentence and drawing his attention once more. “Do you think sunflowers die if they never see the sun? If all they receive is shade and never see it directly?”
Kamen swallowed and gave Artemis a squeeze, “Don’t talk like that.”
“I suppose I’ll find out once he gets me and locks me up in Gorgosa away from you.”
The pair of blue eyes that hovered just above Artemis’ head clenched themselves shut as Kamen bestowed a strong peck into her hair.
“I don’t think I mind the taste of ambrosia so much, as long as he keeps me doped up enough to not remember anything.”
Kamen released her, sending Artemis down and back onto the bed, all the while giving her a hard look and clenched jaw.
She swallowed, watching him cautiously, “Am I making you angry?”
“No.” He attempted a smile, but struggled in keeping it from twisting into a frown, and ran a hand through his already messy hair. “Just sad.”
Artemis sat up and ran her fingers through her hair a few times, scratching the scalp slightly. She looked down at her feet and stretched them a few times; happy to be out of the boots that she had worn the whole day, after the summer spent in a gossamer stola she had forgotten the way they pushed at the arches of her feet. She was certain that her mother didn’t approve of the military uniform, but it wasn’t a form of rebellion from her position as Dauphine. There was a strange strength that Artemis associated with the uniform, the mindset of a soldier and the idea that success is merely holding yourself together as the world around you crumbles.
She turned slightly to the man sitting beside her on the bed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders; now peeved with herself for putting him into such a melancholic mood.
Kamen touched the arm that draped itself over his chest, and with a small smile he turned his head to Artemis, “I won’t pester you about it.”
He brushed her lips with his, smiling slightly at the familiar way she tensed initially at his touch—a habit formed after years of the affections between the two being taboo—and then slowly relaxed with each innocent kiss he placed on her face.
“Ea zyt gyezg mzoq’fivi.” I’m not going anywhere. Kamen whispered against her cheek; the day prior, and also the day following the murder, had been Kamen’s twenty-fourth birthday, and his day off had been spent at her side as a friend. He smiled and pecked at her cheek, “You know that.”
Artemis swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded slowly. Comforted by his promise she pushed her voice past the choking sob, “E byri oys.”
“Mu jy E.” Kamen said with a small smile, wiping her eyes with his thumb, “I’ve seen you cry enough to last me a lifetime.”
Artemis released his shoulders and sat back onto her legs, wiping her face with a small laugh, “Sorry.”
Kamen turned towards Artemis and wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulling her up onto her knees once more. With a dark look in his eyes, Kamen pressed his mouth firmly against hers and she reached out for him once more, this time grasping the armor shirt at the collar and pulling the fabric down slightly.
“E q’mzt oys.” Kamen said with his voice low.
Small pools of heat formed just below Artemis’ eyes and she strengthened her grip on his collar, grasping his shoulder as best she could with her other hand before finding a better spot for it on the back of his neck.
“I know you understood me.” Kamen said, kissing at the reddening blush on her cheeks, “I want you.”
The discomfort with the subject was evident on Artemis’ face and Kamen pushed himself back slightly to gauge her reaction to his words. After the relationship Artemis had shared with Van Dean, she had shied from any affection that escalated too quickly, making the summer she spent in thin fabric difficult for Kamen who had forced himself to pay no attention to her form.
She let out a small huff and began to shake her head.
An apology was coming, and despite knowing that it was, Kamen was certain that the way she would say it would break his heart. He pulled her back to him, strengthening the arm around her waist, and reaching a hand up to the back of her head to pull her mouth to meet his. “I know. I’ll wait.”
The familiar hum burrowed itself in the back of Artemis’ head; Van Dean’s forced telepathic link to her, and she deepened the kiss in a moment of defiance and passion. His obsession had once again forced her to take refuge in the forest with Kamen—almost something that at that moment in time she could have been thankful for if not for the looming threat given by Van Dean for Artemis to either kill Kamen or submit.
Never. Artemis pushed the single word to the front of her mind as she ran her fingers through Kamen’s hair, grabbing what she could on the back of his head to pull him closer.
Kamen responded by breaking the kiss and releasing her from his grasp.
Artemis watched him curiously for a few seconds, and then felt her breath catch in her throat when he reached up to the tiny clasp at the neck of her jacket. He undid the clasp on her jacket much easier than he had on his own prior to joining her on the bed. Artemis felt her breathing pick up when Kamen reached for the other buttons, undoing each in turn until the jacket was open completely and he was sliding the fabric down her arms and tossing it off the bed.
Kamen reached a hand up to the side of Artemis’ face, cradling it and dropping it down to her neck, turning her head slightly with his thumb against her chin and letting the appendage drag across her lower lip and cheek to rejoin his hand when she gave into the gentle force.
A small smile flickered over his face at her increasing blush and already quickened breaths. She anticipated his hand on her hip and did nothing to stop him from pulling her shirt from where it had been neatly tucked into her trousers so that he could rest his hand on her flesh.
Like petals. Her skin was soft, like smooth flower petals, and he ran his fingertips over her waist sending electric shocks through her skin and causing her breath to hitch with each pass.
With another gentle push, Kamen lowered Artemis back down to the bed, kissing her forehead once her head had touched down, and he grabbed a handful of the dark blue sheet next to her head in an attempt to slow himself down. The opportunity for such affections had arisen several times, but more often than not had they been cut short because of his impatience—usually ending in her small breathless pleas.
Sheet in his fist, Kamen pressed his mouth once more to Artemis’ and she arched towards him, reaching her arms around his back and pulling him down closer to her.
With a small sigh of relief, Kamen released the sheet and let himself fall onto the bed partially beside Artemis, their bodies pressed against each other’s and he set his head against her chest just below her shoulder, smiling slightly as she ran her fingers through his hair.
The clasps on Artemis’ armor shirt had all been done up tidily, and Kamen ran his hand over the collar of her shirt with his attention focused on the top one. With two fingers the first was opened, and he kissed the side of her neck as her breath hitched at the action. As his hand poised itself over the second clasp he watched her breathing steady out, and he placed a couple more pecks at her neck, nearly masking the fact that the second had come undone.
Fingers sliding over skin and fabric; Kamen hooked his index finger around the third clasp, squeezing it open with his thumb and middle finger and repeating the process for the fourth.
The fifth was in his hand, and he ran his index finger over the skin that he had exposed, finding it much softer than what he had touched at her waist. Artemis’s fingers had curled themselves around the back of his shirt and he watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, opening the clasp slowly.
There was some sort of added armor under her shirt, it stretched over her bust in arcs on each side and was barely visible to Kamen at that moment, but would be much more easily seen once the sixth clasp was opened. He poised his hand over the clasp, but was stopped abruptly.
Artemis had placed her hand on his, a gesture for him to stop his present course.
Kamen pushed himself up and leaned over Artemis to kiss the corner of her mouth, whispering a single word to her: “Limstehsb.”
With a gasp for air, Artemis pushed Kamen away and sat up abruptly. The word was immediately associated with a memory, a time when Najh still lived in Q’ael Dan’il, a time before Kamen came to the service, when the need for a High General had become imperative. Artemis felt the fabric of her trousers on her knees and felt a calm wash over her.
Kamen sat up and watched Artemis curiously for a few seconds as she caught her breath, “Too much?”
She gave him a small nod and he pulled her into his lap, pulling her back flush with his chest, and he reached for a blanket to wrap around the both of them.
The hum removed itself from the back of Artemis’ mind and she turned slightly to Kamen, wrapping her arms around his waist once more and pressing the side of her head to his chest, taking comfort in the sound of his heart.
Artemis looked up to the ceiling of the Haven and gulped at the dream catchers that had for the first time failed to keep Van Dean out of her mind, he had become more brazen, more desperate, and it had driven him to put himself directly at odds with Celeste.
“He broke through.” Artemis said at last.
Kamen kissed the top of her head, “We’ll get more catchers.”
“They won’t work. I don’t think he cares anymore.”
“Ea zyt gyezg mzoq’fivi.” I’m not going anywhere.
