“You won’t kill me.” Kaidan didn’t bother to turn toward me, his words proving that he’d noticed me despite the fact I’d slid through shadows and tried to stay out of sight.
Few people could sense me, so it irked that out of anyone,thisfucker could manage it. Still, I gave up the pretenses and stepped from the shadows. “I could, though. Your neck snaps as easily as anyone else’s.”
A threat like that usually caused some panic, but Kaidan didn’t seem bothered at all. “Yun would have your ass if you hurt me.”
“Who says she’d find out?”
“She’d know I was missing. That wouldn’t settle well with her.” He didn’t cross his arms, didn’t appear on edge at all. Instead, he stretched his legs out on the bench, soaking up the sun like he were at the beach instead of a Guide-run base preparing for a massive, dangerous battle.
It again reminded me that this man was not one to fuck with, at least not for normal people.
Of course, I’d never been normal.
“So?”
“So you won’t want her sad, so you’re not about to off her good friend and mentor.”
“Most people wouldn’t be so sure.”
“I’m not most people. You’re here to threaten me so just get to it already, won’t you? You’re ruining my sunbathing.”
The wayhebrought up the whole threatening thing made me not want to do it anymore. I’d always been contrary, even back as a kid when people would tell me to do damn near anything, and even if I’d planned to before that moment, I’d then refused. I’d screwed myself over time and time again like that, but it had never really mattered.
The idea of anyone else controlling my actions had never sat right with me.
“I just don’t love the influence you seem to have over Yun.”
“Good thing what you love doesn’t make it on my list of things to worry about.” He tipped his head back, a smile there that suggested he enjoyed the heat and the light.
“Seems like every fucking time she hangs out with you, she comes back confused or angry or fucking hurt. What the hell are you spouting off that does that?”
He shrugged, the action highlighting that he was far from the normal thin guide I’d grown used to. There were male guides, though there were fewer of them. They often seemed smaller, sweeter, playing the game of damsel just like the female guides. They all acted like sirens rather than brutes.
Not Kaidan, though, and that threw me off all the more. He was large—not as big as Kenyon, but with a build similar to Carter. He didn’t move around like some waif, not sweetly flirtatious, nothing like that. Instead, he seemed entirely comfortable with just about anything. He didn’t step lightly around espers and didn’t try to tempt them, either.
It was strange, since a guide’s position came largely from the espers around them, which meant they were consistently tryingto climb the status structure. Yun didn’t do it, but it was because of her trauma, because of fear. Kaidan showed very much that he wasn’t afraid of anything, and he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him.
“I tell her the truth.”
“And what truth is that?”
“What happened at The Pitt, for example,Reject Squad.”He drew out the name, making his fucking point perfectly clear.
So much for thinking that Yun hadn’t gotten a full story time of at least one version of what had dragged us out of the spotlight. I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t a shock. She hadn’t brought it up or anything, but I hadn’t really thought it would never reach her. Eventually, someone would talk about it, would out us for what had happened.
“So you thought you needed to go fucking gossiping?”
“She’s my friend. She deserves to know what she’s getting into before she ends up in too deep. She needs to understand what you’re really like, and no one else is looking out for her.”
“We’re looking out for her, now.”
“Are you, though? You’re looking out for yourself, for what you want. She’s a talented, high-ranking guide, after all, and you’re a squad who isn’t often given the best. If you could get her on your side, if you could trick her into falling for you and lock her down, it would benefit you.”
“It’d benefit her, too. She’d have a safe place, protection.” I wasn’t stupid enough to say some bullshit like love. “She wouldn’t get tossed around anymore.”
Kaidan sat up, finally turning to stare at me as though he’d decided I had become worth his time—or perhaps he’d realized I wouldn’t leave right away so he might as well deal with me. “If she bonds with you, she’s trapped. Your past becomes her past. You think that hasn’t already started? Do you have any idea how many espers and guides whisper about her? AboutReject Squad’s broken whore?” He spat the name out, and only the distaste his tone held kept me from popping him in the mouth for daring to utter something like that about Yun. “She’s got enough hate, enough problems in her life without having to shoulder yours, too.”
“If anyone says shit about her, we’ll deal with it,” I said, hating that I knew that wouldn’t do much. It would ensure they didn’t say shit within earshot of us, but it wouldn’t actually fix her reputation, wouldn’t resolve the problem.
