Praetorian Rising, стр. 58
Her stomach flipped unwillingly as she struggled to reign in control of her heart banging like a drum against the lining of her ribcage. Images of the previous night swirled through her mind, and she found herself imagining him grabbing her and kissing her like he'd done in the hall by her room, fingers threading through her hair and lips sealed to hers.
Clamping her eyes shut and pressing the images of Theo out of her mind, Camille scooted past him and moved toward the opposite side of the table.
"I think we have better things to do right now than discuss my personal preferences," Camille replied flatly when she was a good distance away. She plucked a menacing looking silver dagger from the wall and slipped it through the front holster of her belt, adding it to her repertoire. "What do you care anyway? You got what you want, no?" Camille's chin angled in Charlie's direction, busy fluffing her hair in the reflection of a perfectly shined glass case.
"Cheeky," Theo said, lips twitching with humor, and she would have believed the good-natured motion if not for the dark swirl of black shifting through the icy blue. With pinched lips and squared off shoulders he was inches from her face in less than two strides.
"You know what I want, and it has nothing to do with anyone else but you." He said it inches from her face, his breath fanning against her cheeks with the heat of his words.
"Theo, I—" Camille started, her tongue locking uncomfortably to the roof of her mouth. What did she want to say, she was sorry? She wasn't, not really. There was something between them, undeniably, but her gut feeling wasn't enough. It wasn't fair to assume she would start where they'd left off, especially having no clue where that'd be for him. Forcing her feelings to catch up to his felt not just wrong but unnatural. She didn't want someone else telling her how to think or feel.
"Are we going to do this or not?" Charlie asked, coming up behind Theo, her smile dazzling with white brilliance as she held up two nasty looking daggers in either hand.
Theo stared at Camille with deliberate eyes that made her heart skip a painful beat before he turned on his heel and marched out of the room. "Let's go!"
Camille had no choice but to follow, telling her heart to slow down and get a grip. She hadn’t felt the heat of his fury sizzle over her skin as she had the night before, but Camille couldn't be sure if he'd forgiven her for everything she'd said. The fire blazing across his features when their eyes clashed was proof enough; there was an avalanche of emotion beneath the surface waiting to crush her.
After two flights of stairs and one prolonged hand-crank elevator ride, the three of them were out in the open of the desolate village square. This time, Camille felt prepared: she wore her thick fur-lined vest to ward off the fall chill, a long-sleeve linen shirt, a heavy fur wrap that clasped at the neck with an elegant green and silver beetle pin, and thick green pants tucked into her favorite brown leather boots. With a sword at her side, a bow with metal-tipped arrows, and a hefty dagger sheathed against her hip, she felt more than prepared for battle.
Theo led them west out of Romeo Village, before turning further north toward the outer edge of the town's barriers. Snow crunched loudly under their boots, each step like a gunshot piercing the bitter silence.
Camille's breath snaked out of her mouth in jolts, blasting her cheeks with momentary heat before dispersing into the canopy of bare branches above their heads. The distance they were putting between themselves and the compound made her more than a little jumpy; it felt too far from the warm embrace of security. She kept glancing over her shoulder to gauge the amount of time it would take to sprint back, but soon realized she couldn't even see the tall towers of the outer village square through the thickness of the surrounding forest.
It was strange to be enclosed by a landscape so familiar yet so foreign to her. Sierra Village had been warmer and filled with maples, oak, willow, and aspen trees. In Romeo Village, the air tasted crisp with notes of pine, burr oak, green ash, and hackberry, their branches weighed down with fresh snow or bare-limbed and draped in delicate ice. She felt caged inside a dome of endless white.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to be out this far?" Camille asked as a gust of chilly air whipped her ears. She yanked back the heavy weight of her hair into a thick knot of loose curls on top of her head, not wanting the long strands to get in the way of her practice.
"Yeah, it's fine. Acher told me this was the best place to spar and remain within view of the village. We'll be fine," Charlie assured her, walking several feet in front of her. The woman's long hair curled invitingly down the length of her back, swishing from side to side, the light brown highlights shimmering like honey against darker brown curls. It came to rest just where her waist dipped inward before her display of full hips. Camille tried not to feel the stab of jealousy in her gut but found it hard to press the emotion away. Charlie was so perfect in every way. It made Camille second guess herself,