Chapter 10 Zara
Zara
It was happening.
It was actually happening.
She kept her glare sharpened because if she didn’t, if she let even a fraction of her stupid, starry-eyed, heart-melting grin show, Hektor would shut down, go silent, hide behind Drakkon stoicism and duty and professional boundaries.
So she folded her arms and scowled up at him.
“Well?” she demanded. “I’m waiting.”
Hektor stood there, broad shoulders tense, jaw clenched, eyes flaring with that molten Drakkon heat she’d only seen once right before he kissed her.
His voice came low, uneven. “I couldn’t.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You couldn’t what? Watch someone be nice to me without combusting?”
“Drekhar,” he winced. That was a yes.
“You dragged me away from a date,” she went on, words sharp, “because?”
That got him.
His eyes snapped to hers, gold deepening, pupils thinning to slits for one vulnerable heartbeat.
“I couldn’t let him kiss you,” Hektor bit out.
Zara’s stomach flip-flopped, but she held her expression, practiced boredom layered over adrenaline.
She tilted her head. “And why is that?”
He stared. She waited.
Any other creature might’ve sweated, fidgeted, or cracked. Drakkon didn’t crack; they brooded harder.
Finally, his voice tore out of him, raw and too honest:
“Because I haven’t stopped thinking about our kiss.”
Her breath caught, but she only blinked once, slowly. And he wasn’t done, she could see it. She could feel it, his certainty snapping into place.
“And,” she said softly, “what else?”
His throat worked, and she watched each micro-twitch.
She knew he had to say it, completely, out loud, without it coming from her.
He stepped closer, shadows and heat wrapping around her the way his arms had once, briefly.
“You can’t be with him,” Hektor said, voice lowering further. “Or anyone else.”
She forced her voice light, teasing, because if she let her actual heart speak, she’d probably choke. “Why not?”
His breath shook, not a big one, barely visible, but she caught it.
“Because,” he said, eyes locked to hers like a vow, “you are meant to be with me. Not with a basilisk or any other male. Only me.”
The parking lights hummed, heat rising from stone, basilisk taxis coiled in silent judgment.
Zara didn’t breathe.
He said it. He finally said it.
She swallowed, pulse sprinting. But she lifted her chin, still pretending to be unimpressed, because the minute she softened, he’d retreat.
“Are you telling me you want me,” she asked lightly, “or that you’re jealous and confused and don’t like sharing?”
He didn’t blink. “Both.”
That cracked her composure, just a tiny hitch of a smile she couldn’t stop.
He saw it. Of course, he saw it.
“So,” she whispered, “what do you want, Hektor?”
“You.” His answer didn’t stumble. Didn’t falter. “In any realm, in any city, in any form. You.”
Her heart bolted against her ribs.
She kept her tone steady, almost bored. “Well,” she said, “since you interrupted my date…you owe me a new one.”
Hektor blinked. “…A date.”
“Yes, a date,” she said, jabbing a finger at him. “A proper one. With dessert. And feelings. And eye contact. And no brooding.”
He exhaled something close to a laugh, but too shaken, too earnest.
“Okay,” he said, eyes softening at the edges, “I’ll take you anywhere you want.”
Anywhere.
She let herself smile, actually smile.
It was happening.
Finally, irrevocably, undeniably happening.
Zara inhaled because she knew she couldn’t, shouldn’t, keep what she had been doing with Pythorus from him. And she braced for the blowback he’d surely deliver.
“There’s…something I need to tell you,” she said in a rush.
Hektor straightened, jaw tight, eyes still storm-dark from his confession.
“There is no other guy,” she blurted. “Pythorus isn’t…he’s not my date. He’s gay. We’re just, we vibe, okay? As in, talk-about-books-and-hate-the-same-gods vibe. We were tricking you.”
Hektor blinked once.
Then twice.
Emotionless. Too still.
So she rushed on, words tripping over themselves.
“I didn’t know what else to do; you weren’t reacting. You pretended everything between us didn’t matter, and that was the only thing that made you have feelings like a normal being and—”
He shook his head.
Her stomach plunged. “I know, I know. It was stupid, immature, manipulative, and—”
“I’m relieved,” he said quietly.
Zara stopped mid-ramble. “You…what?”
His shoulders dropped, tension unclenching. “I thought I’d already lost you, that I’d waited too long. That he got there first.” His voice softened, cracked, honest in a way she’d never heard from him. “Knowing it was all pretend…I can breathe again.”
Her heart squeezed, suddenly too full.
“Oh,” she whispered, and it was all she could manage.
He stepped closer, slow, deliberate, giving her a chance to pull back.
She didn’t.
“I didn’t know how to make you see me,” she said, voice small. “Not just the girl who reports to you. Not just the younger colleague you have to guide and keep out of trouble.”
“I never saw you as someone I had to manage,” Hektor murmured. “I saw you as the one person I shouldn’t want, because you’re young, because we work together…and the only woman I couldn’t stop wanting anyway.”
Heat wrapped around her ribs, not fiery but warm and steady.
“Zara,” he said, voice low, “no more pretending. Not with other males. Not with indifference. Not with distance.”
She nodded, breath catching. “Okay.”
He lifted her chin, thumb brushing her lower lip, a question, not a demand.
“Can I?”
She almost laughed because of how ridiculous, after all this, that he’d finally ask.
“Yes,” she breathed.
The kiss was not the fevered, accidental one from before. This one was slow, anchored, reverent, like he’d been waiting his entire dragon-cursed lifetime to do it properly.
Zara closed the smallest distance between them, her fingers catching lightly at the front of his shirt.
When the kiss finally ended, his forehead rested against hers. He wasn’t trying to pull her closer or let her go; it was like he just needed that nearness a little longer.
She could feel it in the quiet between their breaths: not possession, not confusion, but the soft, steady relief of finally being seen.
“Just like that,” she searched his face, disbelief still wrinkling her brow. “You’re okay?”
“Yes,” Hektor exhaled. “Mostly because it was…hell. Seeing you with him. Wanting each smile and laugh you gave him that wasn’t mine.”
Her breath hitched at the quiet confession.
“And now that none of it was real,” he continued, voice rough but lighter than she’d ever heard it, “I can finally stop pretending I’m fine and…move on.”
She raised a brow. “So, you’re good at compartmentalizing.”
“Yes,” a corner of his mouth lifted. “Something like that.”
“I’m still mad at you,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said, lips curving. “Means you’ll kiss me again just to prove it.”
She rolled her eyes, but her smile betrayed her.
And, she didn’t hide any of it.
He cupped her jaw gently, thumb brushing her cheekbone as if he needed to memorize the shape of her.
No rush. No panic. Just him, finally choosing her.
When he kissed her again, it was slow, almost cautious, his mouth lingering over hers like he was relearning softness.
She leaned into it, smiling before their lips even fully met, her breath catching at the gorgeous rightness of it all.
His nose bumped hers, a little awkward, and the surprise of tenderness instead of urgency made her giggle, a light sound she tried to swallow but absolutely couldn’t. It bubbled up between them, softening everything.
Hektor pulled back half an inch, brow furrowing like he’d broken her instead of delighted her. “What?”
“You,” she whispered, still smiling against his lips. “You don’t have to look like you’re mapping battle strategy. It’s just…me.”
His face eased, and he dipped down again, kissing her like he was grateful she’d laughed instead of run.
This time, she didn’t giggle.
She melted.
A sharp clang broke the softness between them. Zara startled back just as a chorus of shouting erupted near the stairwell. A knot of basilisks spilled into the parking lot, all tail-lash and ego, their scales catching the lamplight in irritated flashes.
They weren’t truly fighting, not yet. More like posturing, the kind of loud, stupid, shoulder-shoving energy that only came when males, heat, and alcohol collided. One barreled into the bumper of a taxi.
Another hissed, “If you hadn’t ordered the wrong ceremonial batch, we wouldn’t look like amateurs to the elders—”
“It was literally one bottle!” someone yelled back. “And the bartender said agave, not ash-grain. Get your ears checked!”
Another basilisk whipped his tail in emphasis. It smacked the pavement with the dramatic flair of a toddler slamming a spoon.
Zara blinked.
Romantic moment: vaporized.
Beside her, Hektor let out a breath that was equal parts annoyance and resignation.
“They always like this?” she asked.
He nodded. “Drinking, full moon week, wrong liquor delivery. Classic basilisk meltdown recipe.”
One of the louder ones puffed up and shouted, “I said import-grade, not festival-grade! Do you want us banished to the outer dunes forever?”
Zara turned to Hektor, expression flat. “They’re arguing about the alcohol supply chain.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re threatening exile over it.”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “The universe could not let us have five uninterrupted minutes, could it?”
Hektor’s mouth ticked, almost a smile. “Apparently not.”
Another tail smacked the ground. Someone else shoved someone else purely for the principle of momentum.
Zara pinched the bridge of her nose. The moment had been perfect, fragile, and rare. And now…basilisk liquor logistics.
She glanced back at Hektor. “We are finishing that conversation later.”
He met her eyes, steady. “Yes. We are.”
But the tone—oh, the tone—said very clearly:
Even fate and drunken half-reptiles don’t get to derail this again.
Behind them, another shout echoed:
“WHO MIXED THE VIP STOCK WITH THE SUN-TONIC KEG?!”