Jade War

Maro’s smile faded and his expression turned hesitant. Their banter had been meant in good humor, but had nevertheless highlighted the one inescapable disparity between them. As they continued walking down the street, Maro fell silent for an uncomfortable minute. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asked. When Shae nodded, he confessed, “I’ve never been in a duel. I was challenged once, over some stupid drunken argument, but managed to delay it and not show up the next day. That’s why I have no more and no less green than I graduated with from the Academy.” Maro paused on the sidewalk and turned toward her, his face shadowed under the streetlight, his expression uncertain. “I don’t think of myself as a coward, but… I’m not a clan loyalist, and winning jade has never been important to me.”

If either of Shae’s brothers had ever run from a fair duel, their grandfather would’ve whipped them for the disgrace. Of course, that had never been necessary; Hilo was more likely to be beaten for causing too many needless duels than anything else. In most other parts in the world, dueling (if two men firing pistols at each other from across a field could even be calling dueling) had gone out of fashion or been made illegal long ago, but in Kekon, winning contests was still the most prestigious way of earning jade, and jade was inextricably tied to social status. Dueling was simply expected of a Green Bone man and was a common way of settling disputes even among non–Green Bones.

“I never expected I’d fall for a woman as green as you, a Kaul no less. I think at least half the motivation for men to wear jade is to impress women, and it’s obvious I don’t have a chance in that regard.” Maro gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. He took a step closer, narrowing the space between them, and lowered his face. “But I have. Fallen for you. Even though I realize I might not be the sort of person who’s acceptable to your family.”

Shae pictured what Hilo’s reaction would be to hearing a Green Bone confess that he’d never fought to earn or defend his jade—skepticism, astonishment, disdain—and she was seized by an abrupt surge of proud and protective affection for Maro. “I think it’s the opposite of cowardice to be true to who you are,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed him.

The heat of their mouths collided. Shae shivered as she felt Maro’s jade aura ripple with pleasant surprise and then hum with sparking lust. Answering desire rose and tugged at Shae’s navel, shockingly strong and insistent. It had been a long time since she’d taken a man to bed—not since she’d split with Jerald and returned to Kekon two years ago. She clutched the lapels of Maro’s jacket and rose onto the balls of her feet, kissing him harder, more insistently. Maro wrapped a hand around the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, and curled the other arm around her waist, tugging her body closer to his own. Arousal lit between them.

Shae pulled away with a sucking gasp, suddenly struck by the worry that they would be seen. Here in No Peak territory, the clan’s Fingers and informers were always nearby; word might reach Hilo by midnight that the Weather Man had been seen kissing a strange man on the street corner. “A taxi,” she whispered urgently, and stepped to the curb to hail the nearest one.

In the back seat of the cab, she draped her legs over his, and Maro bent his head down to hers; his mouth moved eagerly over her jaw and ear. “Do you want to go to your place?” The Weather Man’s house was still under renovation, and Shae didn’t want to bring Maro into the main house, where she might have to introduce him to her brother. “No,” she said, sliding her hands under his jacket, feeling the heat and musculature of his back. “Let’s go to yours.”

Maro lived in a four-story walk-up apartment in a historical part of Sotto Village populated by art studios, curio shops, and tattoo parlors, interspersed here and there with new eateries and buttressed by infill housing. The cab let them off in front of the building, and they ran up the stairs holding on to each other. On the landing, they fell to kissing once again. Maro tried twice to fit his office key into his apartment door before he cursed and laughed and finally succeeded in letting them in. The inside of the apartment was spacious, and tidier than she’d expected, clearly the home of an intellectual bachelor, undecorated but full of shelves for books, magazines, and videocassettes. Shae did not pause to pay attention to any of it beyond a cursory glance; they staggered into the single bedroom and pulled off each other’s clothes, dropping them to the floor. She pressed one hand to the small of Maro’s back and cupped his scrotum with the other. Her nipples rubbed against his chest; the slight scratchiness of his hair against her intensely sensitive skin made her quiver, as did the pulse of their jade auras, mingling and coalescing together like melding body heat.