Chapter Seven
Farren
Zev nods, “Yeah, he thought you had died.”
I wince, “I nearly did. If he hadn’t gotten through to me when he did, then I wouldn’t have woken up from that sleep.”
Zev stops and pulls me into his arms, and one of my hands comes to rest on his chest as I look up at him curiously.
I love that they’re so comfortable touching me now. I want all the gentle touches that I can get, which is interesting because I really thought that it would have gone the other way, and I wouldn’t want any touches at all. I think with anyone other than the guys, I would feel that way.
“It was that close?” Zev asks, his eyes full of shadows.
I nod and answer honestly, “Yes. I was ready. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I wanted it to be over.”
Anger and sadness war for dominance in his expression, before he briefly closes his eyes and then opens them again, he slowly brings his hand up to cup my face.
“I am so fucking happy that you are as strong as you are, and that you fought like hell. I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through, and how difficult it was,” he says sincerely, his eyes meeting mine.
I nod and glance away. I’m not great with feelings, and he makes me feel all sorts of things.
He gently turns my face back to him and studies my expression.
Moving slowly to give me time to stop him, not that I would ever want to, he bends down, his lips meeting mine in a soft kiss.
As soon as his lips touch mine, a searing need rushes through me, and I throw my arms around his neck, thankfully remembering to drop the sword before I do.
A rumble builds in his chest, and he pulls me tighter against him. His tongue runs across the seam of my lips, and I open for him, as our tongues dance and my desire for him climbs even higher.
The only things that exist in this moment are him and me, and that’s it.
My hands move under the hem of his shirt, and he inhales sharply as my fingers move over the dips and grooves of his stomach. His hand moves up my back and threads into my hair. He holds the strands tightly, and I can’t help the moan that escapes me.
His lips tilt up against mine as he realises how much I like it, and his grip on my hair tightens again, my arms wrap around him as my nails dig into his back, and he groans, using the grip on my hair to deepen the kiss.
Damn.
I have no idea how long we stay pressed up against a tree in an unknown forest, our tongues exploring each other's mouths, but apparently my survival instincts are still turned on, along with the rest of me, because I hear a twig snap nearby.
Within moments, I find my position switched with Zev’s as he shifts me so that my back is pressing against the tree, and he’s crouched in front of me, my sword in his hand as his eyes scan the area.
He’s so broad that I can’t see anything in front of me, and I gently place my hand on his back as I move around him.
That was fucking impressive.
He definitely isn’t just a seer.
It was also seriously fucking hot, and now that I’ve had his lips on mine, I know just how good of a kisser he is, and I want to see what else he’s good at.
“Farren, you’re going to need to stop looking at me like that. We’re in a possible hostile situation, and I don’t have the time that I would like to pin you against the tree, and make you scream my name.”
“Then you shouldn’t say things like that because now I want you to make me scream even more,” I reply simply with a shrug.
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, his green eyes darkening with heat and a slight warning.
I smirk, “Fine, I’ll behave myself. I’m definitely not thinking about your dick.”
“Farren,” Zev growls, the heat unmistakably present in his tone.
I chuckle quietly and call a sword from the Void. He groans, and I glance at him questioningly.
He shrugs, “You look exceptionally hot with your hair all messed up, kiss swollen lips, and holding a sword.”
I smirk and retort, “Focus, Zev, we’re in a serious situation.”
He rolls his eyes and chuckles quietly, before becoming serious again.
Glancing around, I can’t see anything that would be concerning, and the sound that stopped us doesn’t happen again.
“It must have been an animal,” Zev suggests.
I shrug, “Probably. Other than something flying in the sky, I haven’t seen anything or anyone else.”
“Well, that’s a bit odd,” he says. “Come on, which way did you want to go?”
I point with my sword, “Straight on.”
“Let’s see why you want to go this way. I’ll follow you,” Zev says with a smile.
I nod and we start to carefully move through the woods, keeping an eye out for whatever broke the branch in case it wasn’t an animal and was instead something that wants to eat us. An animal couldn’t want to eat us too, I suppose, though.
We don’t see anything though, and I mean absolutely nothing that’s alive other than the plant life.
There is no skittering of tiny feet trying to get away from us as we disturb them, no bigger animals, nothing.
Hell, we can’t even find any bugs. The only sound coming from around us is the breeze rustling the leaves on the trees.
That’s it.
“It’s really quiet,” I mutter.
Zev nods, his grip tight on his sword, “Yeah, it is, which is not normal for a place like this. It should be teeming with life.”
“This is a dream though, could it have something to do with that?” I ask him.
Zev frowns, “It’s possible, but usually dreams take on the place that you’re dreaming about. They don’t usually leave important things like animals and life out of it.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too promising,” I mutter.
I share a look with Zev. If something isn’t doing what it should do, then the chances are that something bad is going to happen.
At least that has always been true based on my experience.
We carry on walking, moving as quietly as we can, and as we do, I start to recognise the unofficial path that we’re walking on.
That can’t be right.
I know that I have never been here before, so it should be impossible for me to recognise it. Unless, because it’s my dream, I’m pulling memories from places that I have been before, and that’s why I recognise it?
After we’ve been walking for a few more moments, Zev crouches down, and I pause, scanning the trees around us just to be safe.
“I think this is actually a path,” Zev says, glancing up at me with surprise.
I crouch down next to him, “Oh, really?”
He nods as he starts to brush off some of the dirt and debris, and sure enough, he starts to reveal the same kind of cobblestones that made up the street that I arrived on.
“So this was a pathway or a road at some point then,” I say as I brush off some more of the debris. I love exploring, so I add with excitement, “Come on, let’s see where it leads.”
Zev grins at me as he stands up and we move forward with more speed and less caution since we haven’t actually been attacked by anything.
“Look,” I say, pointing up ahead.
“Is that a set of gates?” Zev asks, sounding as intrigued as I am, as we rush forward.
When we get there, my smile widens. The gates are absolutely ginormous, they’re covered in vines both alive and dead, but from what I can make out after I brush some of it off, it’s made from some kind of metal, and it’s pretty ornate too.
The metal has been twisted into the shapes of vines and flowers, some animals that I have no name for, and right in the middle, high enough that even Zev can’t reach it. There is some sort of crest.
Calling on my air magic, I try to shift the vines that are covering it, but they won’t budge with even the strongest gusts, so I give up before the use of my magic announces our presence.
“It’s not just gates,” Zev says as he points to the side of us.
My eyes widen. How the hell did I miss that?
On either side of the gates, spreading as far as the eye can see, are massive stone walls, and as I look up, I see several guard houses spread out along the top, including one on either side of the gates.
I was so focused on the giant gates that I completely missed the guard houses. It’s a good job that they’re empty and have clearly been empty for a really long time, or I would have been shot, or eaten, or whatever it is that they do to trespassers in this realm.
“Let’s see if we can get in?” I suggest.
Zev grins, “I was hoping you were going to say that.”
I know I just stopped myself from using my magic to move the vines off the crest on the gate in case the use of it alerted someone here to our presence, but the thought of being able to explore more is too much of a temptation, and considering that we haven’t run into anything, apart from whatever was flying, I’m willing to bet that no one is still around.
It certainly looks that way. I’m willing to risk it.
“Here, hold on to me, and I should be able to use my air magic to get us both up to the guard house, and then we can go down the ladder on the other side. Guard houses always have ladders on the inside of whatever they are guarding,” I suggest.
Zev grins and wiggles his eyebrows as he moves to stand behind me and wraps his arms tightly around me. I sink into him, and any tension that I was feeling leaves me.
He kisses my neck and says, “I’ll never say no to holding on to you.”
“Good,” I reply. I wriggle my ass and smirk as he groans, and he tightens his grip around me.
Before we can get thoroughly distracted again, which I am absolutely going to do, because Zev’s kisses are addictive, I use my air to propel us upward and keep us steady as we get to the window of the guard house.
“Ah, it’s not as abandoned as we thought it was,” I mutter as Zev reluctantly lets go of me to climb through the window, and then I follow.
I would float us straight over the gate, but we have no idea if there’s some kind of magical defence in place which my magic could trigger, so it’s just safer to do it this way, since half of the guard house is overhanging the wall.
Of course, it could still have spells or wards on it, but it's too late to worry about that now.
My excitement is clearly clouding some of my judgement in this case.
We carefully move into the guard house, and I study the pile of bones that’s left scattered across the floor.
“Well, there’s an arrow mixed in with the bones, so I’m pretty sure that we can assume that he didn’t die of natural causes,” Zev points out.
“Agreed, come on. Let’s get out of here and see what they’re guarding. From what I could see, there were quite a few guard houses along the walls, which means whatever they were protecting was important.”
I look out of the door of the guard house, and see that there are bones wearing tattered clothing scattered everywhere. It reminds me of the hallways in Hades' half of his castle, except there are no newer bodies here. They’re all very old.
“There was a battle here,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
Zev nods grimly, “Yeah. There was, and it was a long time ago, judging from the bones and how overgrown everything is. I can just about see a cobbled road under the plants that are taking over.”
I nod, “I guess we’re following that then.”
“Yeah, let’s hope we’re not about to run into some survivors who are going to wonder what the fuck we’re doing here,” Zev replies as he glances down the ladder to make sure that it’s safe and then starts to climb down.
I follow him, and when we get to the bottom, I say, “I would hope that if there are survivors here, they would have come to get their dead, not just left them out here.”
“Unless they were too scared to,” Zev points out. “Fear does strange things to those who were once brave.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” I agree. “Okay, we’ll approach with caution, then, I guess.”
Zev raises an eyebrow, “We weren’t, anyway?”
I shrug, “I wasn’t.”
He chuckles at my response and shakes his head.
We head up what used to be a driveway, at least that’s what I’m assuming it is, since it leads away from the gates and into the surrounding trees.
As we move, we have to navigate around the bodies that are scattered all around us.
“This was a pretty epic battle,” I say.
Zev nods, “Yeah, it looks like it. If it hadn’t happened so long ago, we might have been able to recognise some of the creatures, and it would give us a better idea about where we are.”
“Yeah, that would have been helpful,” I agree. “Although it probably would have made the situation a lot more dangerous.”
We move quickly, making sure that we stay vigilant and keep an eye on our surroundings, but just like outside the gates, there is nothing alive here except for the plant life. That is the only thing that seems to be thriving.