The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“But then,” she pointed out, “you chose to stay beyond your initiation period.”

His brow twitched; another promising sign. “Does that surprise you?”

“Of course,” she said, relieved to see he was finally taking a more active role in the conversation. “Your pitch to us in that room was about power, wasn’t it? Returning to the world after initiation to take advantage of the resources allotted to the Society’s members,” she clarified, “and yet, given the opportunity to do so, you chose to remain here.” As a cleric, essentially. Some intermediary between the Alexandrian divine and their chosen flock.

“Someone once told me I don’t seem like the power-seeking type,” Dalton said.

She smiled. He didn’t know it yet, but she had found her footing.

“Well, I suppose I have little reason not to join,” Parisa replied with a shrug. Nothing, after all, was keeping her. “Only that I am not particularly enamored with teamwork.”

“You will be glad to have a team,” Dalton assured her. “The specialties are chosen to complement each other, in part. Three of you specialize in physicalities, while the other three—”

“So you know my specialty, then.”

He smiled grimly. “Yes, Miss Kamali.”

“So I suppose you don’t trust me?”

“Habitually, I refrain from trusting people like you,” said Dalton.

That, Parisa thought, was rather telling.

“I imagine you suspect me of using you, then,” she said.

His response was a wry half-smile with a clear enough translation: I know better than to answer that.

“Well,” she said. “Then I suppose I’ll have to prove you wrong.”

He gave her another curt nod. “Best of luck to you, Miss Kamali,” he said. “I have very high hopes for you.”

He turned, about to head for the corridor, when Parisa reached for his arm, catching him unawares just long enough to draw herself up on her toes, bracing her palms on his chest.

There would be the slightest pulse of contemplation here—the hardest work was managed in the moments before a thing was accomplished. The promise of her breath on his lips; the angle at which he viewed her, her dark eyes overlarge, and the way he would gradually become conscious of her warmth. He would smell her perfume now and catch hints of it again later, wondering if she had rounded a nearby corner or recently been in a room. He would catalogue the sensation of her smallness in the same incongruous moment he registered the pressure of her presence; the immediacy of her, the nearness, would momentarily unsettle him, and in that moment, lacking the presence of mind to recoil, he would permit himself to imagine what might happen next.

The kiss itself was so fragile and brief it hardly mattered. She would learn only the smell of his cologne, the feeling of his mouth. The most important detail of a kiss was usually the cataloguing of a single fact: is the kiss returned? But this kiss, of course, was far too fleeting to be informative. Better he did not return it, in fact, as no man would allow a woman access to the more worthy corners of his mind if he kissed her too readily to start with.

“Sorry,” she said, removing her hands from his chest. Balance was a delicate matter; the sending of her desire forward while also tearing herself physically away. Those who did not believe this to be a dance had not undergone the choreography long or devotedly enough. “I’m afraid it cost more energy than I cared to expend,” she murmured, “preventing myself from doing that.”

Magic was an energy they all knew better than to waste; on some level, she knew he would relate.

“Miss Kamali.” These, the first words after kissing her, would forever taste like her, and she doubted he’d escape an opportunity to say her name again. “Perhaps you misunderstand.”

“Oh, I’m sure I do,” she said, “but I suppose I quite enjoy an opportunity for misunderstanding.”

She smiled up at him, and he slowly detached himself from her.

“Your efforts,” he said, “would be better spent convincing your initiation class of your value. I have no direct impact on the decision as to whether or not you’ll be chosen for initiation.”

“I’m very good at what I do. I’m not concerned with their opinions.”

“Perhaps you should be.”

“I don’t make a habit of doing things I should.”

“So it appears.”

He flicked another glance at her, and this time, to her immense satisfaction, she saw it.