Chapter 10
Zoe
I was giddy. I just hugged my bodyguard, who was evidently going through some shit, and it was the best feeling in the world. My heart raced, my body warming pleasantly. I almost growled when he pulled away, his blue, narrow eyes settling on my face with an unreadable expression.
But then, he was right to step back. We weren’t friends, ultimately, even though it felt so natural to treat him like one. I already knew there was a world of pain locked behind those electric blue eyes and I itched to tease it out and kiss it all better.
Wait… what?
“What did you mean when you said you know enough?” Vodyan asked, sounding hoarse.
I had to think for a moment before I understood what he meant. We were still so close that I sensed the coiled strength in his body towering above me, but we didn’t touch. My heart squeezed with the longing for more.
Get a grip, girl .
“Oh, right,” I said, a small laugh falling out in my embarrassment. “Well, uh. You took a while, so I had time to put it together. The stuff I talked about before you lashed out, and then the face you made, and, uh… Like, please, don’t hate me for figuring it out. You can also tell me I’m wrong and I’ll forget all about it, I swear.”
The scales covering his brow ridges rippled in a frown.
“Figured out what?”
He didn’t sound angry, just curious, but I knew from experience people who hid pain and trauma didn’t like it to be seen by others. I didn’t want to lie to him, though, and he asked.
“That you carry some unresolved pain from the past,” I said vaguely, wincing when it came out too esoteric. “Well, from your childhood. I suspect it’s some really bad shit, to make you react so strongly. But I don’t know. I’m not a therapist or whatever. I just talk to a lot of kids and teenagers who open up to me, and I kind of know the signs. Not that you’re a kid. Far from it. Oh, God. I’ll shut up now.”
I shot him a panicked look, expecting another shout or maybe derision. It could go many ways, none of them good. But Vodyan surprised me with his calmness as he rubbed his forehead with a long sigh.
“Unresolved,” he muttered before looking up with a tired expression. “Well, what would you tell one of your kids in this situation?”
I nodded, my fingers itching with the need to touch him.
“I would tell them that they have a right to hurt. That whatever they went through, it was unfair and they didn’t deserve it. That they deserved to be loved and protected then, and they deserve it now. And I’d also say that they are bigger than whatever bad shit happened to them in the past. You might feel smaller and like it controls you, but there are ways to take control back. There are ways to make the shit so small, you barely know it’s there.”
He stared at me, the intensity of his gaze making me squirm. I’d had a glimpse into his soul, but I didn’t know if I was right, and he didn’t confirm it. His face was utterly blank, and I had no idea what he was thinking.
“Thank you for this conversation,” he finally said, courteous and reserved. “I’d like to establish a boundary now. I don’t feel comfortable touching you anymore unless it’s necessary, but I am open to talk.”
My mouth grew slack, disappointment stabbing my gut. Ridiculously, I felt rejected, even though there was nothing to reject. But how could he hate the hug I gave him when to me, it was such a gorgeous experience?
Though maybe I was just starved for touch, and that was why it felt so good. Just like food tasted so much better when I was hungry. Yeah, that made sense and also made me feel slightly better.
But not much.
“Of course,” I said, trying to recover. “Yeah. You got it.”
I shuffled away, feeling awkward as Vodyan watched me, his expression still neutral and cold. Unable to keep looking at him when I felt hot tears prick my eyes— ridiculous, idiotic —I turned away, heading to my room.
“So, uh, if you need me, just holler,” I said, already slipping through my door.
In my bed, I hugged a pillow, trying to wrestle myself under control. I shouldn’t have cried about this. I shouldn’t have felt much of anything, so I spent a good while suppressing all the stuff that shouldn’t be there before I remembered how pointless it was.
The feelings were there, for better or worse, and if I wanted them gone, I had to let them flow. No matter how painful, uncomfortable, and humiliating they were.
So I cried into my pillow, feeling like an idiot, but at least it brought me relief. I felt almost normal after I was done, so I washed my face and came out to find Vodyan doing pull-ups using the bar in the living room.
“Holy shit,” I murmured under my breath, watching as the muscles in his arms bunched, his teeth bared .
All his tentacles lifted off the floor as he came up with a sharp exhale, his entire torso rippling from the effort. I stared at the muscles in his back, each chiseled and defined under the shimmering scales. He looked like a sculpture.
I didn’t know how much exactly a vodnik weighed, but it was obvious it had to be a few hundred pounds, at least. And he was able to lift all that using his arms alone. It was beyond impressive, and my fingers spasmed with the urge to trace the beautiful, symmetrical shape of him.
Uh-uh. Bad Zoe.
“So that’s how you train?” I asked when Vodyan let go of the bar and turned to me. I expected to see sweat, but of course, vodniks didn’t have sweat glands. They regulated their temperature in other ways.
“A well-rounded routine includes surface stuff, yes,” he said, a small shadow crossing his face. “Though I do most of my exercise in the pool here.”
I rubbed one socked foot over the other, feeling strangely self-conscious. I was never big on fitness, and I suddenly felt inadequate compared to him.
“I should probably move more, too, since we’re stuck here and I don’t walk around as much as usual. I feel so squishy,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh, running my hand down my stomach.
Vodyan stilled, his tentacles freezing halfway through a movement. His eyes were glued to where my hand was at my hip, and I clenched it instinctively into a fist. His eyes dropped away. He swallowed, his throat working.
“Squishy,” he muttered under his breath. He seemed angry, though I had no idea why.
“What?” I asked, folding my arms on my chest.
“Nothing,” he bit out. “That word just surprised me.”
He disappeared in the kitchen, and I went to the bookshelf to get the dictionary, afraid I’d used the word incorrectly. It happened more often than I cared to admit, especially when I was nervous or spent a long day surrounded by kids. They were masters of using language in creative ways.
The dictionary didn’t reveal anything strange, though .
squishy , adj. of a soft, yielding, and wet quality.
I blinked a few times at the definition, finding nothing wrong with the word. I was soft and yielding. Maybe not exactly wet , though if someone squished me hard enough, I was pretty sure wet stuff would come out, so it was accurate.
Great. And now I thought about someone squeezing my guts out of me. If Matthias Carver employed people as big as Vodyan, with muscles that bulged massively and could lift a 600-pound weight, then it was definitely a possibility.
Could Vodyan squeeze me until my body yielded ? Hot and warm tingles bloomed across my nape at the image, shockingly not unpleasant. I shivered and shook my head. Yeah, it was time to end that line of thinking.
With a resigned sigh, I set the walking pad in front of the TV and put on a movie. At least that way, exercise wouldn’t bore me to tears.
When Vodyan came out after his meal, he joined me without a word, and we watched the movie together in companionable silence. It was another action flick, this time with motorcycles instead of cars. I spent a ridiculously large part of the movie forcing my eyes to stay on the screen instead of glancing at him every ten seconds or so.
He was so oddly magnetic, and I didn’t understand why.
Overall, that day was a very welcome breakthrough. After that, we hung out every day. Two weeks passed, and I found them surprisingly perfect compared to the first one, because now I had company.
While each of us had some alone time, we spent most of every day together. Vodyan mostly listened while I talked to him, telling him about my job, my family, my neighbors, and anything that came to mind, really.
I told him all my funny stories. About how I got a potted plant as a present and watered it religiously for a full year before I realized it was fake. Or how I told my friend a lewd joke on the phone in the bathroom at my first job, and after I was done, my boss came out of the adjacent stall, having heard it all.
She gave me that arch, unimpressed look, and when my eyes widened in panic, she burst out laughing. We became friends after that .
I talked about my cat, who passed away, and friends I drifted apart from, because so many of them were now paired off and raising kids while I was single.
One night, I cracked the mini-bar open and had some supposedly luxurious whiskey that burned like shit and went down really badly, but I drank it, anyway. I only stopped when my hands jerked in my lap with the need to grab fistfuls of Vodyan’s tentacles and press them to my face.
That urge was ridiculous and something I fought almost constantly. It was like his boundary made me crave his touch—forbidden fruit and all that. But I held back, because I wasn’t about to make him uncomfortable, no matter how much I wanted to glide my fingers down his muscular shoulders and feel him tense, then relax, under my touch.
I fantasized about touching him when I was alone. It was really embarrassing, even though it was also pretty innocent. I just wanted a hug and maybe some friendly caresses.
When we talked, I avoided sensitive topics, so I barely mentioned my volunteer work. And even though Vodyan was an attentive listener, and I loved to talk for hours on end, I was infinitely curious about him, so I did my best to pry him open with questions.
What was his favorite food? Did he like his job? What other things did he do before he became a bodyguard? Which superpower would he choose, invisibility or flying? Did he have a favorite insect? Coffee mug? Brand of tinned tuna?
After a few of my questions coaxed brief smiles out of him, I got hooked. I came up with more and more ridiculous ones, and it was like a game. I awarded myself points: two for a brief smile, five for a big one, and ten for a full-on laugh.
He hadn’t laughed yet, though. But I was determined.
“Would you rather date a Sagittarius or a Gemini?” I asked before popping a handful of peanuts in my mouth.
We were in the living room, and I lounged on the couch while Vodyan sprawled on the floor, his tentacles spread wide all around him as he leaned back against an armchair. His eyes were hooded, expression soft, and I had to make myself look away every now and then to not stare like a creep.
It was a stupid question, and I cringed internally, because obviously, I was a Gemini. I felt a bit like a teenager fishing for proof that their crush liked them back. And fine, maybe I did have a bit of a crush on my bodyguard, but that was all there was.
And it was caused by the touching ban, I was sure of it. I wouldn’t have developed this unhealthy obsession if he wasn’t forbidden.
“I have no idea what those mean,” he said, swallowing a piece of sushi that he made from canned fish. “But regardless, I don’t date.”
My brows furrowed in surprise. “You don’t? Not at all? But you’re so breathtakingly hot, so why…”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, hiccupping when I realized what just fell out of my mouth. Vodyan sat up straighter, shooting me a piercing look. We stared at each other, and I just knew my face was all red.
That was the downside of having a mouth that chose the worst possible moments to disconnect from my brain.
He frowned, parting his lips to say something, but then his frown deepened, and he pressed them together. I closed my eyes in embarrassment, and when I opened them, Vodyan was closer, his gaze roaming my face.
“Zoe, I…”
He didn’t finish that thought, though, because a booming alarm blared through the safehouse, making me shriek from shock. Vodyan shot to his room without a backward glance, and I was left on the couch all alone, peanuts scattered all over me.
A moment later, he was out, his mouth set in a grim line.
“We’re under attack. If I don’t come back in an hour, hit the big red button in my room.”
And then, he was gone, the door of the lock hissing shut behind him. I sat motionless for a terror-filled moment before I scrambled to my feet and ran to look at the security screens.