Page 13 of The Last Hunt
“Don’t be like that, Bladesy,” he’d said. “Don’t die of stubbornness.”
“I’m not going to die of stubbornness,” she’d growled.
Aethon had shrugged and raised his brows. “I predict that’s what it will say on your tombstone.” He raised his hands as if he was picturing it. “Maeve Bladesbearer. Infamous member of the Guild of Two Roses. Stubborn as hell.”
Maeve had shaken her head and pressed her lips together. “I’m not going to have a tombstone if we die in this fucking pod.”
Aethon had met her gaze. She’d expected him to soften. To try and comfort her. But he’d just looked at her, his expression still hard and challenging. “I never expected you to be defeatist,” he finally said. “It’s disappointing.”
“I don’t want to die, you asshole,” Maeve had snapped.
Aethon had opened his arms again and narrowed his gaze. “Prove it.”
Maeve found herself rising from the cold floor of the pod. She ripped her jacket off and unbuckled her shoulder holster, then took off her shirt. She ignored the way Aethon’s eyes flared as he took in her body.
“If we’re going to do this, let’s do it properly,” she demanded. “Take off your pants.”
He nodded and stood up, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his black pants. He shoved them down, revealing tight gray boxers that didn’t hide much of anything.
Maeve’s mouth had gone dry. Aethon was a jackass bounty hunter. And Maeve knew enough about jackass bounty hunters (herself included) to know that they make shit partners. They might be good for a roll in the sack, but they always put the job first. Her old mentor Harlan Yates had taught her that. Unfortunately, he hadn’t taken his own advice in the end.
“Want me to completely strip, Bladesy?” Aethon had asked. He lowered his chin, and glared down his long nose at her. “For optimal skin to skin contact and heat sharing?”
“Let’s save some mystery, hmm?” Maeve snapped. She was down to her racerback sports bra and underwear. Her skin was pebbled with cold and she crossed her arms over her chest, hopping from one foot to the other on the icy metal deck floor.
Aethon had grunted in affirmation and spread out one of the shiny emergency blankets that came with the pod. “We can put the other blanket on top as well as our clothes,” he said.
Maeve had nodded and lay down quickly on the blanket, suddenly desperate for Aethon’s warmth. When he had moved to lay down behind her she had snapped, “I’m going to be the big spoon, Trell.”
“Alright, alright,” he muttered, going to her other side. “Demanding, aren’t you?” He lay down in front of her and Maeve was so cold that she hadn’t wasted any time pressing herself against his broad back. They’d set themselves on this route, there was no reason to feel awkward or inhibited. They pulled the other blanket and their discarded clothes back on top of them and settled down, shivering, waiting until their body heat ramped back up. She pressed one hand to Aethon’s back and snaked the other around to his stomach, trying and failing to ignore the way he inhaled sharply at her touch, and the play of his muscles under his smooth skin.
“Your hands are freezing,” he murmured.
“No shit,” she muttered.
She felt his hand clasp around hers. His palm was calloused, and she felt the ridges a person gets from daily weightlifting as he chafed her hand between his.
“You grow up on a desert planet or something?” he asked. “You don’t seem very hardy for someone who spends a lot of their time in the cold of space.”
“First of all,” Maeve growled. “Fuck you.”
“Mmhmm,” Aethon replied, his tone bored. “And?”
Maeve rolled her eyes and pressed her chin down against his shoulder. He continued rubbing her hand between his and then he gently placed her palm on his chest. Maeve could feel his heart beating. It was a startling sort of intimacy, and for a moment, Maeve had the impulse to press a kiss to the back of his neck. In the reddish light of Jupiter, she couldn’t see all the details of Aethon, but she could see that he had a scar low on the back of his head where his hair was shorter. His ear was gilded in the red light, and she could see the very edge of his nose. She was glad she couldn’t see his eyes at the moment. His eyes were narrow and slightly hooded, and the whisky gold color reminded her of the desert sand on her home planet. He had a hard, piercing kind of gaze like a bird of prey. “I grew up on Tellamar,” she said after a moment.
Aethon was silent for so long that Maeve thought he might have fallen asleep.
When he finally spoke, his voice was lower, and almost cautious. “My mother was from Tellamar.”
Maeve blinked in surprise. She had only met a handful of other people who had managed to escape Tellamar. Most were too poor to ever attempt it. Aethon’s mother must have been a formidable woman to escape the planet.
“Where did you grow up?” she asked.
He huffed. “Freehail.” His tone was dismissive, but Maeve could hear the underlying edge of defensiveness. The tendons in his neck were tight, and she wanted to smooth her hands over his skin, but she kept herself still against him. She knew what it was like to grow up somewhere that people judged. It was a strange dichotomy - a love for a planet, while at the same time understanding its many shortcomings. Maeve hated the politics of Tellamar. But she loved its land and its people. Her croi crystal necklace sometimes felt like a millstone around her neck.
“All I know about Freehail is that it’s on the edge of colonized space,” Maeve said.
“There’s not much else to know,” Aethon replied. “Let’s go to sleep. We need to conserve energy.”