Ill Omen's Light (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 3: Interlude - Her Touch

The haphazard nest of a bed lay before them in the dimmed chemlights, clean and – judging from the off-center but unrumpled state of the blanket – undisturbed by the baboons.

Lux hugged her towel closer around her midsection as she stepped toward it, noting the many sewn-on patches, the scribbles and doodles, the stuffed toys; she also noted that Jinx had mostly tidied away anything hard or pointy, at least from the bed itself.

I'm about to go to bed with a girl who habitually sleeps with ballistic weapons and high explosives.

Lux's bare-toed footsteps felt momentous. Her heart pounded in her chest, in her ears.

Am I really going to do this?

The shower – Jinx's touch – the sounds of her quickening, overexcited breath and the ferocity of the glow in her eyes had been delicious, arousing – and they'd frightened Lux just a little. She was so strong! When she'd pinned Lux in those awful moments when the Shimmer had blanked her mind into an uncomfortable bliss of fury, Lux had briefly become aware of how powerless she would be to break away from Jinx without Shimmer in her, without using her Light, without hurting her...

If she'd needed to. But she hadn't. She wouldn't. Because Jinx wouldn't hurt her.

Because in her moment of doubt, confusion and weakness, Jinx had taken all her shame and embarrassment and...and just talked her through it. Made her feel better.

Lux felt Jinx's curious, adoring eyes on her back as she bent down to draw back the sheets.

Am I going to do this?

She dipped her toes into the bed and stopped.

It felt like her first time riding a Silverwing raptor. Climbing into the saddle, that frozen moment where there was still time to stop, to turn back, because once the raptor spread its wings and the ground fell away beneath you, there was no getting off...

I'm a daughter of House Crownguard. My line has stood at the right hand of kings for centuries. If I do this, if I choose her, what am I?

But just like then, Lux wasn't afraid. Not really. Because whilst she had been afraid to fall...

She'd wanted the sky.

Lux looked back at Jinx, hanging back, arms wrapped around her chest, watching Lux with those huge, alien, beautiful eyes.

For all her broken-glass edges, the way she looked at Lux was so soft.

My wildling, Lux smiled with the thought, and Jinx smiled too, without saying a word, a quivering, fragile, perfect little smile, my devil girl. My Jinx.

Lux had her answer. Because, of course, she'd already chosen.

If I do this, I'm me.

Smiling still, she drew away the towel and lay down on the bed.

The material might have been far coarser than the linens at High Silvermere or Seraphine's fine sheets, the air colder, nibbling at her naked skin, but it somehow felt like coming home.

Lux stretched her hand out, and Jinx crept closer on furtive steps and, just as shyly as she had that first time, she dropped her towel away.

Lux caught her breath. Even with how intimate they'd been, Lux couldn't pull her eyes from the sight of Jinx, all of her, the gaunt whipcord muscle of her arms, shoulders and back, her ghostly skin dotted with the nicks and lines of whiter scars and those tattoos of floating clouds and glinting bullets, her small breasts and taut stomach, her lean thighs, and the little tuft of blue between them that matched the impossible cascade of her hair down her back...