Kingdom Come: Suri and Hector

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

If you haven't read any of the draft chapters for this book, the following snippet may contain minor spoilers.

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When the Mercurion was back inside the Keep and we were alone, I spun Suri around and dipped her down. She laughed, and when she came up, she looped strong arms around my neck and looked up at me. “Hi.” 

“Hi.” Her eyes were a brilliant golden yellow, and as I gazed back, I noticed something about them I hadn’t seen before. Her irises were constantly in motion, veins of color slowly folding in toward her pupils like slow-moving magma. “Did I... ever tell you how gorgeous you are?”

Her smile turned a little shy. “Yeah, a couple of times. But I still like to hear it.” 

My mouth was dry, pulse hammering under my tongue. Sometimes, I could be confident with her, leading the way in our conversations, our lovemaking. Other times, I could hardly believe that this glorious Amazon of a woman actually wanted me near her, let alone have me hold her like this. But here she was. “You... think you might want to hear it going forward? Because I mean, I can dish out as much as you can take.”

“We’ll see about that.” Suri sucked her bottom lip under her teeth. “But you know... tonight’s our last night of peace, right?” 

“Uh-huh.”

“Might be the last night we sleep in a proper bed, too.” She pulled herself up to embrace me, sliding her cheek along mine until she could speak against my ear. “I hear that the Dark Moon Festival has a great Night Market. Want to go with me?”

Anxiety flashed through me, because my first thought was my character sheet – and Karalti’s. After I claimed the EXP from the Castellan, she was only 62 points from Level 9. But this... this was more important. I pushed down the guilt and worry, then nodded. “Two words: Hell and Yes.”

“Then I guess I’m going shopping for clothes after all.” She stood up, stroking her hands over my chest before dropping them down to my belt. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Hmm?”

Suri rolled her eyes up to look at me. “Wear something nice?”

“Last time I’ll be able to dress up without armor for a while,” I replied. “Sure. I’ll pick up something after I’ve wrapped up the day.”

“What’s on the agenda?”

I sighed as another pang of guilt tightened my chest. “Well... honestly, I was going to go to the hospital. I want to level up my healing skills – those are real important – and I want to see Rutha.”

Suri cocked her head curiously. “The Lys woman. Yeah… I was wondering how she was doing. How do you know her?”

“She’s...” I trailed off, not sure how to respond. With most women, I’d have been on thin ice with this particular question, but Suri didn’t seem like that kind of person. There was no hostility in the inquiry. No edge to it.

“Rutha and I were on the slave ship together,” I admitted. “When I first incarnated into Archemi. We helped each other, became friends... she gave me the Spear. We had a two-night stand while we were in Liren. Nothing serious, but it was my first time and she had this awesome bathtub and-”

Suri reached up and put her finger against my lips. “That’s all I need to know. When you go and see her... say hi from me. Tell her I look forward to meeting her when she wakes up. Tell her she’s got people on her side.”

“Really?” I blinked a couple of times. “You aren’t... like... mad?”

“I’m mad this Baldr cunt beat the shit out of a woman and used her as a hostage to make a point.”

“Yeah.” The ache of the anger I’d felt before was still trembling in my stomach and in the muscles of my jaws. “Me too. I was just worried you’d be…”

“Jealous?”

I nodded. 

Suri chuckled softly. “I’m not a jealous person, alright? Are you?”

“I... no. I don’t think so.” It was in that moment I remembered that we hadn’t known each other for that long. Only a couple of weeks, really. It was easy to forget when I was lost in her like this. “I’m pretty new at this relationship stuff, though. I don’t know.”

“That’s a good answer.” Suri smiled, but this time, it was strangely bittersweet. “You and me, we’ve both seen evil, haven’t we? Real evil.”

I nodded, taking her hands in mine. “Yeah. We have.”

She squeezed back. “I had a lot of time to think in Al-Asad. You know what I realized one day? ‘Evil’ is ‘Live’ backwards. Whatever you have with Rutha, that’s a living thing. It’s the opposite of evil. How can anyone be jealous of that?”

With Suri’s hands in mine, I took a minute to think about her words before I kissed her goodbye and we parted for the day.

That was the exact moment I knew I was in love with her.