13. Stealing the Hot Guy’s Name
13
Stealing the Hot Guy’s Name
You
Two can play at that game .
He’s so close, smirking as he holds your jaw with one hand. Like he might kiss you.
He’s definitely just trying to tease you. You’re sure of it.
So maybe it’s time you tease him back.
Before he can drop the act and pull away, you lean forward, pressing your lips to his.
His eyes widen momentarily, and you’re expecting him to jump back. To ask what the hell you’re thinking.
But he just rolls with it, smirking into your mouth as he threads one hand into your hair and pulls your face harder to his. Kissing you with wide, glinting eyes. Kissing you like it’s a dare. A challenge.
So you stare back, kissing harder. It’s a strange sort of battle, and he deepens the kiss, his tongue working against yours as he parts your lips, pulling you closer against him.
He picks you up off the chair, and you wrap your legs around his waist as he lifts you in the air.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, a little voice of reason is still saying, this was supposed to be a joke .
Shush, little voice. Let it happen.
Hot Book Guy’s eyes flash with golden magic, electricity sizzling through your lips, a spark echoing between you. Maybe this is the bond forged by whatever magic is linking you together.
And… there …
“ Ziros ,” you whisper, his name forming on your tongue before you can hold it back.
Yes. His name.
You don’t know where it came from. But it’s suddenly there, so sharp and certain, there’s no room for doubt.
He freezes.
His lips still against yours and darkness gleams in his eyes. Anger?
He pushes your back against the wall, pulling away long enough to whisper, “ You sorceress .”
Your denial is muffled by his kiss as he presses his lips back to yours, one hand still hooked behind your head.
He draws away a moment later, staring into your face with strange reverence echoing in his eyes. Like he’s impressed.
“You wicked , wicked sorceress,” he growls in your ear, but his eyes are laughing when he looks at you. “That was a dirty trick, you know. You stole my name right off my tongue. That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”
“I…I what ?”
You stare up at his face, dumbfounded. Legs still wrapped around his waist, his hand still hooked behind your head.
Stole his name!?
You did no such thing! You were just trying to get him back for teasing you.
You only kissed him.
That’s all. No magic involved.
Not intentionally, anyway.
He glances down at your legs, and you blush, slowly unraveling them from around his waist and sliding awkwardly back to the laminate floor.
He turns away with a laugh, shaking his head. Mumbling to himself as he paces.
“This is crazy. She acts like she’s just a regular, weak little human. And then she goes and does that .”
“What? What did I do? You sound like you’re impressed.”
“I am impressed, little human.” He crouches down in front of you, lifting your jaw. Steel blue eyes bore into yours, framed by messy, dark hair. “What do you say—shall we go at it again?”
Your face flames. “What?”
“Best of three,” he says, smirk growing. “This time I’m trying for your name.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t,” he says with that slightly evil smirk, running the sharp points of his teeth along the edge of your jaw and down your neck. “You tricked me. You did that on purpose.”
Before you can explain that you definitely didn’t know that would happen, he bites your neck, making you gasp.
What the heck. Is he actually a vampire!?
But maybe he’s still messing with you, because that bite wasn’t hard enough to break skin. Just enough to catch you by surprise, and he pulls back with a smirk as he gazes into your eyes. “You got my guard down and then stole my name. And now I’m gonna steal yours.”
He’s going to what?
He doesn’t know your name. That realization swims through the back of your mind.
“So what do you say, human?” His fingertips graze along your jaw, sending sparks dancing in their wake. “Shall we go again?”
The hot guy is asking if you’d like to kiss him again, you realize, still dazed.
You should probably answer. Instead, you just stare up into his face from where you still sit with your back against the floor, wearing your cute little panda bear pajamas. Little probably being the key word here.
He laughs softly, pulling away slightly.
“What? Too charmed to speak?”
And he is handsome.
A real book boyfriend, with a strong jaw and the kind of gaze that pierces straight through your soul. Metaphorically speaking, anyway.
Probably .
He starts to stand, but you grab his arm, pulling him back.
“Wait, I—”
Maybe the magic is intoxicating. That must be it. Because you seem to have forgotten how to form sentences.
Not to worry.
Hot Guy—Ziros—seems to get the picture just fine.
“Wait?” He straddles you, cupping your jaw in one hand. “Wait, as in, don’t go . As in, kiss me again, Mr. Hot Book Boyfriend? ”
Your heart races and breath catches.
Hang on. How did he know you’ve been calling him that?
But that doesn’t matter now. All you can do is nod.
He leans in, pinning you against the wall with another kiss.
It’s a hungry, urgent kiss, his tongue searching against yours as he pulls you up against him.
If you got his name on accident, who knows what you could learn about him if you try. Maybe if you just test—
At first it seems to work. There’s a flash of memories, all scenes too fast to parse.
Then the strangest thing happens.
Energy surges around you, a strange, sizzling magic. Dizzy . You’re suddenly dizzy, and you slump forward against his shoulder as he pulls away to catch you.
No! No, wait, you’re not supposed to pass out on the hot guy while he’s kissing you.
But it’s too late.
Darkness rises around you, pulling you under.
And you swear you feel him calling your name.
Not hear it.
Feel it. Like his voice echoes there, deep in your soul. And it’s not a name you recognize. Not directly, anyhow.
But you can feel it all the same.
He’s calling for you as the dark drags you under, too strong and heavy to resist.
* * *
You wake to the pounding drum of your own heartbeat. What is this?
There’s nothing.
No light.
No ground, no sky, no stars. No wind. Nothing but a strangely intoxicating scent lingering on your clothes, and a tingle at your lips that makes you draw two fingers to your mouth, trying to remember where the feeling came from.
But everything is fuzzy now.
The void presses down around you, as empty as deep space, as heavy as the deep sea. Standing up takes all your strength, like your body is three times its normal weight. And you crumple again to the nothing-ground.
What kind of sick, strange, magical prison is this?
Did Ziros send you here? Was his kiss a trick to get you off-guard?
He thinks you’re a weak little human, after all.
And maybe he’s right.
Even keeping your eyes open is taking too much energy. So you lie down, letting them drift shut.
Just a little nap.
Then you’ll be all better—
Everything is so cold, and you shiver where you lie in the deep dark empty, hugging your knees to your chest.
You thought he liked you. For a minute there, you thought maybe he was enjoying that kiss, too.
But no.
It was all a trick
Somehow, it was all a trick.
The heavy, drowning need for sleep pulls you under, and even thinking takes too much strength.
How much time passes?
A minute?
A year?
“Anzelika!” A low, angry voice echoes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, stirring you from your sleep. “Wake up,” growls the voice, filled with urgency. Strong hands flip you onto your back, fingers pressing to your neck. Feeling for a pulse?
Anzelika .
That’s the name!
That’s the name you felt earlier, when you were falling into the void.
Warmth floods your lips as your rescuer crouches over you, pressing his mouth to yours. Crushing you with his kiss.
And with every second, heat floods your body, the oppressive weight slowly lifting.
When he finally pulls away, you feel like you can breathe again, a little better than before.
It’s him .
Hot Book Boyfriend.
Ziros.
He swears, pulling you into an embrace that could shatter bones.
“You’re alive,” he mutters as he finally pulls away, staring at you in the dark. He glows softly, a faint, fuzzy halo glimmering from his skin. He mutters another oath as he asks, “How the hell did you get in here?”
Wait.
“You didn’t put me here?”
He laughs, a soft, dry sound.
“No. I need you alive, remember? This is no place for a human. Any longer and you’d be dead.”
Oh .
Panic rises in your stomach, making your heart race.
“Where exactly is ‘here’?”
“It seems you’ve fallen into the prison meant for me,” he says grimly. “ How you managed it, I can’t say for sure.” He gently taps your forehead with one finger, and his touch sends sparks of relief sizzling through your body. “Yet here you are, little human.”
“Why is everything so…heavy?”
“I’ll explain later,” he says, sliding one hand beneath your legs, the other behind your back. “First, we need to get you out of here.”
His touch is strong and warm, his body heat burning away the cold.
You sink into his arms, melting into his embrace.
* * *
You wake up in your bed, the sound of cabinets opening and closing echoing from across the tiny apartment.
Was that all a strange dream?
“So you’re awake,” Ziros says when he appears around the kitchen wall. “Good. You need to eat.”
You’re so exhausted, all you want to do is go back to sleep. The heavy pull drags your head back toward the pillow, and it takes all your energy to fight it.
But he’s probably right.
“Was that…was that a dream?” You ask as you sit up, not sure if he’ll know what you’re talking about.
You’re half-expecting him to tell you he’s got no clue what you mean.
But he just shakes his head grimly. “Not a dream.”
Oh.
“How long was I in there?” You ask, slumping heavily into a chair at your little dining table.
At least it’s still dark outside. That means you couldn’t have been in there more than a few hours.
Hopefully.
“That’s the trick of the place,” Ziros says. “You can’t tell a second from a century. Yet it still drags just as long.”
“It couldn’t have been that long. Right? My apartment is still here, after all.”
“Probably five minutes,” he says, glancing at the clock on your microwave. “Give or take.”
Relief washes over you. And disbelief. “That’s all?”
It felt like an eternity.
If five minutes were that painful, how did he survive so many years trapped inside the nothing-void of that prison?
You stare at his back as he turns to your fridge, pulling out a half-empty bottle of juice. He’s strong. Even through his shirt, you can see the outline of his muscles as he leans over.
Everything in the void felt so heavy. Just existing was a workout.
Maybe that’s how he got so damn ripped.
Or he was bored in there. Not much else to do, after all.
Maybe it was both.
“Catch,” he says, chucking you the jug of juice. “Drink it all. And then we’ll find you something to eat.”
Why is he being so nice? Before, he seemed annoyed to be stuck with you.
Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want to die. If you die, so does he.
Sure. That’s totally all it is.
Ziros is definitely not becoming attached to you, whether he wants to admit it or not.