Chapter 29
Arax
“Did you enjoy your nap?” Vallon asked, gently poking fun at the drowsiness I hadn’t been able to rinse away.
It wasn’t just the nap I had enjoyed, noting how splendidly sore my self-gratification had left me.
“I did,” I said with a little laugh. “Getting nearly drowned over and over wore me out.” I gave Cyrus a piercing stare, hoping it hid the truth.
“You’ll live,” he replied, unperturbed.
I grabbed some food and looked around for a place at the table. The only one available was next to Konstantine.
I sat stiffly, trying not to let my nervousness show.
After what had happened between us in the pool, and especially after my gratuitous shower, being so close to him made me anxious.
Neither of us acknowledged the other, and after about a minute, everyone started eating.
I fell into a light conversation with Jesse, Jason’s younger brother, whom I hadn’t seen since the night I had arrived.
I reached for my water glass and took a sip while he told me how he was looking forward to going to abroad in a few months.
“Is this the first time you’ll be away from home?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied excitedly.
“You’ll love it,” I said. “I know I did. It was one of the best times of my life.”
He asked me a few more questions until Drake chimed in, and the discussion shifted to all women, parties, and the like. I listened and laughed as Drake selflessly offered to accompany Jesse to anything and everything as his wingman.
I was about to interject when I heard Konstantine quietly clear his throat. I turned hesitantly and found him looking at me.
“Are you done with that?” he asked with a ghost of a smile on his face.
“Done with what?” I asked in return, not knowing what he meant.
His eyes indicated the water glass I was holding. I looked around for a moment and realized I had been drinking from his, while my own lay untouched on the opposite side of my plate.
“Shit, my bad.” I bit my lip self-consciously, handing him the fresh one.
He said nothing, but our hands touched when he took it from me.
It was like this every time we made even the smallest of contact.
The heat from his fingers on mine was even more evident against the coldness of the glass, and my body reacted to it as usual.
Goosebumps were given their medium and they rose, flecking my skin from head to toe.
And Konstantine noticed. His eyes swept over my face, down my neck, across every surface of exposed flesh.
They came back triumphant, like he had just counted each dot and was going to throw the final tally in my face as a testament, knowing exactly what did to me and my body any time he was near.
It was almost embarrassing. Almost… because the truth was I liked it.
A little part of me was even starting to look forward to it.
I took the silence between us as an opportunity to speak.
“Hey,” I told him tentatively. “I just wanted to make sure you knew I never meant to come back here and impose.”
He took a second to respond. He fixed his stare on me, and my cheeks heated under his gaze. Visuals of my hot-and-heavy shower came to the forefront of my mind.
“I am rather curious, Arax. Why did you come back?” Konstantine’s voice was low.
His pupils had dilated considerably, and his lips were parted.
My god, the man just oozed sex without even trying.
It didn’t help matters any that I was just now noticing how green his eyes were.
They were naturally so dark that it was almost impossible to exact their color from a normal distance.
Yet here, sitting so close with our shoulders almost touching, I could see them clearly.
They were not grey, as I had thought before, but the deepest shade of emerald I had ever seen.
They had an ombré effect to them, hidden by the shadows, their hue most visible at the center.
The viridescence slicked as oil would over an ocean, appearing only in the right light and spreading across the surface before disappearing completely into the black.
Pulling myself out of their depths, I shrugged lightly. “Stupid answer?” I asked.
“If that’s all you have,” he deadpanned, which caused me to chuckle. His humor always took me by surprise.
I weighed my next words in my head and answered, slowly meeting his eyes, “I guess I wanted to be sure this was actually real.”
He thought about my response. “What part did you need to be sure about?”
The gravity of his tone caused my heart to beat rapidly in my chest. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, I found him still focused on me, like he was searching for more than the answers he was receiving.
I was at a loss for words, so I gave him the only answer I could.
“All of it,” I replied, my voice more clipped and breathier than I’d intended.
I swallowed hard and waited for his reaction.
“All of it,” he said softly to himself with a little nod.
I couldn’t think of what to say next.
“Earth to Stan and Arax. Hello!” Penelope snapped her fingers at the two of us.
“Sorry, what?” Konstantine and I said in unison.
“Geez, you two. We’ve been trying to get your attention for a while now.” Penelope scoffed. Apparently we had been so immersed in our conversation, we had shut everyone else out.
“We were thinking about a movie tonight. Are you guys in?” she asked.
As much fun as that sounded, I was still so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open. “I think it’ll be early night for me,” I said. “Swimming always does me in.” Among other things… things I shouldn’t—couldn’t—think about when their subject matter was unconsciously touching his thigh to mine.
“Party pooper,” Penelope said, rolling her eyes.
“I know, I know,” I replied regretfully.
“You better not pull any of this old-lady shit tomorrow night!” she warned.
“I’ll do my best,” I promised. I got up and said my good-nights to everyone and went back to my room.
What a day. I had changed into my pajamas and flopped into bed.
I really wanted to fall back asleep, but all I could think about was Konstantine.
I had never been in such proximity to him before, and I couldn’t say I didn’t enjoy it.
I already knew he was fit, but getting shoved into him had given me an even better picture of his mouthwatering physique.
Broad shoulders, pronounced abs, and strong, solid arms that had pulled me to him when he lifted me up and out of the pool…
I was a bit ashamed of myself, lusting after someone in such a way.
It was so juvenile. There was a quality to him that made my thoughts run wild though, a pull toward him I couldn’t explain.
It wasn’t just his looks, he had substance.
Whenever Konstantine and I spoke, there seemed to be something unascertainable that passed between us, as though our words carried a hidden meaning that we had yet to decipher.
I’m getting ahead of myself, I thought and let out a long sigh.
I lay down and closed my eyes, recalling the smell of his cologne.
The scent of melting snow giving way to new spring earth that always seemed to calm me danced in my nose, and I was eventually lulled to sleep by the vividness of its memory.
Singed skin with the char of smoke permeated the air. Burning bodies formed a circular wall, reaching far above my head. Screams, once sounds in the faraway distance, pierced my eardrums from their place beside me. I was not alone.
Claustrophobia set in. We were all prisoners of this monstrous hell.
Open your eyes, Arax, a voice commanded, an aria composed of fear, a refrain sang in terror.
Open them.
The fire licked my feet, bare and black with soot.
The only way out was up. I climbed the mountain of death, using the limbs and appendages as footholds.
They moved underneath my toes, still wriggling with the kiss of life.
They pulled me back, back, back into the pit.
Closer, closer, closer… until the wall loomed taller and caved in on me.
Arax, open your eyes.
OPEN! YOUR! EYES!
I listened to the voice and sprang upright, my heart beating into overdrive.
I was out of breath, and my whole body was trembling.
My scalp was damp and sweaty. I pushed the covers off myself and ran to the bathroom.
My hair was stuck to my face and wrapped around my neck like a noose.
I grabbed a tie and hurriedly put my lion’s mane of waves into a loose braid, then took a cold, wet washcloth to my face and neck, but it didn’t help the tremors that were shooting through my body.
This dream had been the worst one yet. I had never had one quite so graphic.
Never had I made contact with those who had burned.
The slimy wetness of stripped rotting flesh stripped of still tingled along my skin.
I stepped out of the bathroom, and my room felt too small. The dark was closing in on me.
I flung open the door and ran downstairs to the deck.
I hoped being outside might provide me some relief.
I stared at the waning crescent moon, its points standing out glaringly against the pitch-black sky.
No stars were visible tonight, and the moonlight cast glowing shadows across the landscape.
I had expected to be hit with the frigid night air.
We were deep in the mountains, after all, but instead of being teeth-chatteringly cold, it was somewhat pleasant—still cool enough to see my breath when I exhaled but not so much to induce the tingles of frostbite.
It was one of many oddities in this secluded place.
For as high up as we were, the climate was inexplicably milder than it should have been.
I harkened back to the previous year. I hadn’t noticed it at the time, being so distracted by my injuries and the circumstances that had led me here, but as I thought about it, the same thing had held true then as well.
I was quite familiar with the area, having returned so many years in a row.
This time of year, temperatures fell easily into the twenties or thirties, and even lower in higher elevations, as the sun went down.
Yet here I stood, sans socks. I hadn’t even thought to put on shoes, clad only in a pair of pajama shorts and a loose, cropped short-sleeved shirt, not freezing to death.
Though I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t mind at all and leaned against the railing, breathing in the stillness of the mountains.
It was when my thoughts wandered back to my most recent dream that an iciness settled into my chest. It came not from without but from within, causing me to shiver as it took hold, blanketing me in discomfort and leaving me overwrought and on edge once again.