Phoenix’s Fire (The Ruins Of Men #2)

Chapter 73

Seventy-Three

Zasen

L ast night, Saveah had warned me she'd left Ayla with Rymar and a bottle of wine. Needless to say, I hadn't been shocked when he'd come home carrying her. That she was wearing his shirt had left me with a few questions, but he'd said they'd been swimming. So when I heard something about kissing, knowing they'd been drunk?

I'd been ready to rip Rymar's tail from his body, but Kanik had walked past, waving for me to stay. Their conversation had continued, and from what little I could pick up, I had a lot more questions than answers. There was only one thing I was sure of: something had happened.

So once Rymar gave Ayla a glass of water and a pain pill, I gestured for him to get his ass outside. He turned for the kitchen, but Kanik moved to block his path, pointing out front. Rymar just sighed, turned, and marched outside without even slowing to wait for me.

"I have Holly out back," Kanik said. "But I have questions too."

"Uh-huh," I agreed, feeling my tail lashing as I stood and aimed for the chairs we had on the front porch.

Kanik had a good point. The table in the backyard was right beside the bathroom. If Ayla tried, she could probably listen in, and that would keep Rymar from saying what he should. He'd cover for her - or himself. But out front, this was as private as it was going to get.

"Swimming, huh?" I asked as I left the house, turning for the chairs.

Rymar was leaning against the railing, looking out over the front yard. "Where's Kanik?"

"Making sure Holly doesn't get lost," I said. "I would also like to remind you how you chewed my fucking ass for putting my mouth on her, and now you're the one kissing her? "

"Look," he said, glancing over at me, "She was drunk - "

"Which does not make it better!" I roared, clenching the arm of my chair hard enough for my nails to dent the wood.

"And," he went on as if I hadn't interrupted, "we were talking about men. Evidently you told her that if she wants another kiss, she has to do the kissing."

"And?" I asked.

"And she doesn't know how!" he snapped. "That girl drank a bottle and a half of my best wine - and quickly. So you know, my plan had been to swim, let her realize it was okay to be stupid with a friend, and drag our drunk asses home to sleep it off. She had other plans."

"So she kissed you?*" I scoffed, unable to believe it.

Rymar sighed heavily. "Zasen, my head is killing me, so is there any way we can do this at a respectable volume?"

"Sit," I told him. "Did you get any of those pills for yourself?"

"Yeah," he muttered as he made his way over to the closest chair. "Hasn't kicked in yet."

Okay, he wasn't filling me full of shit, so I decided to lower my voice a bit. "What happened?"

"Qavan's friends are assholes," he said. "The guy brought his pals to meet me. I thought that was a good sign." He leaned over his knees to rub at his eyes. "I was wrong."

"And?" I pressed.

"Yeah, pretty sure he's never going to talk to me again."

I reached over to rub his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ry."

"Me too," he said. "I honestly liked this one, Zasen, but he brought his friends for free drinks, and he'd been bragging about getting his dick sucked."

"I mean, I'd brag about getting my dick sucked," I pointed out.

He gave me a tired look. "No, you wouldn't. You might tell us it happened. You wouldn't brag about it."

"True," I relented. "So I'm guessing that's what led to the alcohol? How'd that become making out with Ayla?"

"Not making out," he assured me. "See, you told her she had to do the kissing. She was worried about that because she doesn't know how, and it seems our little Phoenix has been thinking about it. She didn't know how to do it."

"To kiss?"

"Mhm," he said. "Or to make sure it was okay, so we had a little lesson on consent."

"She. Was. Drunk," I reminded him, doing my best to keep from growling at him. "She can't consent like that!"

"She didn't," he said. "I did. She asked if she could, I said it was allowed - and then I put my hands on the rocks. Zasen, she kissed me because she wanted to make sure she did it right with you two!"

I jerked back to look at him again. "What? You said Kanik. "

"And it came up because she'd thought about how nice it would be if you kissed her after the whole bear thing."

"That's when I told her she'd have to do the kissing," I admitted. "I was trying to make sure I didn't take advantage of her."

"Well, it worked." He sighed and leaned back, clearly feeling every drink he'd had last night. "I made damned sure she understands consent."

"So you tried to kiss her in there?" Kanik snapped as he came around the corner of the house. "Seriously, Ry?"

"He's okay!" I hurried to tell Kanik. "There's a bit more to the story."

"I caught the part where he backed her into a wall and was all but forcing himself on her."

Rymar patted the air. "She was already in her no cycle."

"No cycle?" Kanik asked.

Which made Rymar sigh. "It's improper. She shouldn't. Women don't. You know, her no cycle." he explained. "Guys, that's what Ayla does when she's out of her depth. Shit, Zasen, you're the one who pointed it out! You said that's why you kissed her, because she digs in her heels about some things. Usually anything that has to do with men."

"Yeah. She's scared of the unknown, so she pushes it away," I agreed.

"Holly, lie down," Kanik said as he made his way up the stairs to claim the footstool Tamin often used as a chair. "How far did this kissing go?" he asked.

"She kissed me," Rymar said yet again. "Once. Okay, and in full disclosure, she was drunk, was pawing on me a bit, and started grinding."

"Ayla?" Kanik asked.

"Drunk," Rymar said again. "So ,yeah. Seems our roommate has never tasted alcohol before, and you two keep refusing to offer her any. Well, she chugged." He rocked his head a bit. "I wasn't much better, but I can hold my drinks."

"True," Kanik said.

"So when she started pressing in and writhing, I stopped that. I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember that part, or doesn't realize what she did." He looked between us. "And neither of you will embarrass her about it."

"So what does this mean?" Kanik asked.

"It means," Rymar said, "that Ayla's finally feeling comfortable enough to experiment. It means she has been thinking about kissing both of you. I'm nice and safe, and since she didn't want to mess it up with one of the guys she seems rather interested in..." He grinned. "She wanted to practice on the safe guy." He pointed at himself.

"So, nothing," I said, paraphrasing that.

"No, it's something," Rymar promised. "Kanik, that woman thinks you are hot. She not only giggled about you, but also gushed."

"Me?" he asked.

Rymar nodded. "And Zasen, you are not out of the running, so don't even go there. Both of you are doing things she likes, but more importantly, you're doing things that make her feel safe enough to want to explore these new feelings she's having. And yes, it seems she's very straight."

I found myself staring at the decking. My mouth was doing some stupid half-smile thing, because I'd actually heard what he'd said. "She hasn't picked yet?"

"Yeah, um..." Kanik said. "So, you two should probably know she told me she doesn't want kids."

"We knew that," I said.

Kanik just shook his head. "No. She gets that it's safe. She still doesn't want to be a mother. She also doesn't want to get married. I mean, when we went fishing, we talked about it."

"Marriage and babies are still too much for her to handle," Rymar said.

Yeah, but I had a different theory. "Or those things have been pushed at her so hard, they're distasteful now." I paused to suck at the gap for my fang. "What Ayla wants is freedom. The thing that's been driving her this whole time is the hope that she can make her own decisions. It's driving her so hard, she picked up a gun and learned how to kill!" I swung my head between them, checking to make sure they were listening.

"And?" Rymar asked.

But it was Kanik who answered. "From the stories these girls tell, Ayla was the protector. She took the hits so Meri and Callah wouldn't, right?"

"I can see that," I agreed.

Kanik nodded, thinking as he spoke. "Down there, she couldn't fight back, but she wanted to. She picked the battles she could win. Now, we're giving her guns, training, and a dog!" He gestured to Holly, who wagged her tail, proving she was listening.

"Yeah?" I wasn't quite sure of his point yet.

"She fought for the right to decide," Kanik said. "And now, we're offering it up on a silver platter. She can be anything, wear anything, do anything, and go anywhere, right?"

"Uh-huh..." I still wasn't seeing the point yet.

"And she doesn't want that to stop," Rymar realized. "Fuck. Okay, that makes sense. Ayla has been chained her whole life. Kept in a cage. Whatever metaphor you want to use. Now she's free, so she's leery of anything that looks like it might be a trap, a cage, or a leash."

"Marriage," Kanik said. "Children. Things she can't run away from or destroy."

Which made Rymar huff out a laugh. "Okay, Zasen, I think we were wrong."

"About?" I asked.

He gestured to Kanik. "It seems our little warrior isn't going to end up with him."

"I thought I still had a chance!" Kanik said.

"No, listen," Rymar said. "We thought she'd go for monogamy. She's been so sheltered that anything else would terrify her, right? Dating multiple men? Feeling like she was being turned into an object? Never mind the thought of sex?" He shook his head at that. "Nope, to her, all of those are bad things, right? So one man." He tipped his head at Kanik. "Who is gentle, kind, understanding..." His words trailed off and his eyes lost focus.

"What?" I asked, aware his mind had just taken off on a tangent of its own.

A wistful little smile flickered across his mouth as Rymar looked up at me. "I was feeling like shit last night. The whole Qavan thing."

"Went bad," I told Kanik, catching him up. "He turned into a dick and tried to treat Ry like a fuck toy."

"Asshole," Kanik grumbled.

"Yeah," Rymar breathed, but he didn't sound upset about it anymore. "But I asked Ayla what anyone would see in me." That silly look on his face grew into a full-blown smile. "She said I was kind, gentle, understanding, and nice ."

"The same words you just used for me," Kanik said, nodding to show he understood. "The same things that made you think I had a chance with her, she thinks about you."

"And you like her," I pointed out.

"She's a friend," Rymar promised.

"Bullshit," Kanik snapped. "You don't get to give Zasen and me shit for liking her and try to take the high road. Sure, maybe she's a friend, but that's because it's all she feels safe being. And that's the thing. She needs to keep feeling safe," Kanik said.

"So stop avoiding it, Ry," I said.

He pushed out a heavy breath. "Fine. I feel comfortable with her. She's beautiful. She's..." He pulled in a breath and shook his head. "Ayla's just so damned pure - and I don't mean a virgin. I mean she is who she says, and she's not trying to be anything she's not. She's this amazing person who just keeps proving herself, so yes. I am impressed. I can't think of a single reason I wouldn't like her like that, but I'm also her friend, and I'm going to keep being her friend because she needs one."

"Same," Kanik said.

"And I'm going to make sure she knows how to say no," Rymar told us. "I want her to feel like she can refuse anything, and if someone tries to make her feel bad about it, I will destroy them." He looked at us in turn. "And I'm pretty sure I won't be alone."

"You won't," I agreed.

So he nodded slowly. "So yeah, I'll teach her how to say no, you can teach her how to say yes, Zasen. Deal?"

"And me?" Kanik asked.

Rymar leaned forward to see him better. "You're teaching her that it's okay," he said. "That there isn't any pressure."

"And that what she feels isn't wrong," I added. "She likes you, Kanik. To Ayla, that is probably the most terrifying thing she can imagine, and she's still not pulling away."

"But she kissed both of you?" he shot back.

"Mhm," Rymar said. "Zasen kissed her, proving it wouldn't be torture. I was practice for the real thing." And he pointed at Kanik. "Because Ayla never got to be a stupid adolescent kissing her mirror or friends. She's playing catchup, and it seems she hasn't written off the idea of any of us."

"Which means we'd better not fuck this up," I said, pushing to my feet. "Breakfast, Ry? I'm already cooking for one person with a hangover."

"I'll help," Kanik said, but when he stood, he looked at Rymar and nodded. "Thanks for making sure I don't give up."

"Slowly," Rymar said. "Ayla doesn't have all the emotional protections most of us do, but she's letting us in."

"Trusting us," I corrected.

"Both," Kanik said as he opened the door. "So let's make sure she knows how to recover from a hangover."