15. ~Vorzyr~ #3
He was in a state, though, his eyes glazed and his body sweating and shaking from the infection. “He’s entering delirium from the infection,” I told Ariana, trying to take the edge off for her. And, maybe for me, too.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Nyx spoke, frowning down at Kai as he stroked his hair, his whole body trembling with his worry for him.
I fought to push past the emotion of it all, something that had ramped up because of Kai’s apparent confession that might not actually be rooted in delirium.
“Let me try,” I said, pushing forward and settling down beside Ariana as she gazed at Kai forlornly, caught between wanting to save him and respecting his wishes.
“I don’t think dragon healing can overcome Celestial Light,” Ariana warned me, trying to be diplomatic and respectful about it, rather than being anything even resembling arrogant given the fact that she had goddess-level abilities.
The truth was, nothing should be able to overcome that sort of thing.
It wasn’t a matter of “think”, she knew it for a fact.
And so did I.
Or, I should have.
But, just like the strangeness that had occurred inside the Unity Council building, where I’d been able to break Kai free, an instinctual sensation was rolling over me, pushing me to act, telling me that I could where this was concerned.
And as I touched Kai’s destroyed arm, it surged with a primal ferocity.
My magical red flame—not the destructive white-hot dragon fire—burst into being in the form of a violent glow, almost of its own accord as soon as it felt the infection.
I latched onto the feeling and pushed harder, and I watched, fucking stunned, as my red glow seeped into Kai’s arm and sparked against the black, charred damage that had spread toward his chest now, too.
In moments, it started to recede.
I held it steady, my whole body shuddering from the assault of what I was doing, which shockingly, seemed to be executing dominance over the infection and forcing it to back down and leave Kai’s system.
That same white smoke from earlier rose from his arm and spread out and up before me and Ariana, swirling there and forming a spiraling sphere.
It kept drawing out, until there was no more that I could sense within Kai, and Nyx and Ariana’s gasps sounded around me as all that was left in its wake were second-degree burns on Kai’s skin.
His skin—no longer that charred mess it had been.
As I pulled back, breathing heavily, I looked to see Ariana absorbing the ball into herself, until it snuffed out between her palms. She grunted, then slapped her hands to the ground, panting like me.
We exchanged a look and I saw her shock at my actions, at what I’d been able to do.
“You said you possessed abilities beyond other dragons.”
“This wasn’t one of them. I didn’t know about this,” I told her.
My focus was on Kai’s still wounded arm then. Although he was no longer at risk of death, it was still a nasty burn and we knew it had been created by something that regular magic couldn’t heal.
So, I straddled him, grasped his arm, then slicked my tongue over the damage. Healing burns was kind of my thing, being dragon and all. At least that was something that was normal about me and just par for the course with regular dragon kind.
After a few moments, as I saw the burns beginning to heal, he groaned and fisted his other hand in my long hair, tugging, while he rolled his hips beneath me. That reaction only happened when there was already great desire between me and whomever I was healing. Just like it had with Nyx.
“Fuck me… that’s a lot,” Kai breathed.
“Damn, I know,” Nyx said, with a chuckle.
“Ungh… V,” Kai choked, grasping my belt, as shudders of pleasure rolled through him.
In the next moment, he really tested my concentration and control as he tightened his hold and tried to rub against me.
I resisted, holding him off so I could focus on healing him.
I had to use my dragon strength to press his hips to the ground and keep them there.
I kept healing him, but looked out at him, taken with him in such a state for me, all roadblocks down for him.
“Almost done,” I told him.
I felt his strength returning, feeling his extreme power emanating from him again.
The whole thing was incredibly intoxicating.
Thank goodness the healing process was completed in the next few moments, because I was right on the fucking edge with everything that had happened. I could honestly devour all three of them in a blink.
I pushed off Kai and stepped back, and fought to recalibrate and hold on to my control.
Nyx went to help Kai to his feet, but Kai literally bounced back himself.
“Well, to say all of that was unprecedented really doesn’t do it justice, hmm?” he said, shoving a hand through his hair.
His tone made it sound like he was unaffected by it all, by almost fucking dying. But the emotion he was trying to hide and distract us from by avoiding direct eye contact and shoving his hand through his hair, indicated he most definitely had been impacted by it, that it had hit him hard.
Given how he was, it was concerning how that would manifest with him.
“How do you feel?” Ariana asked, stepping up to him and looking him over, her urgency and worry for him clear.
With a sweep of his magic, he fixed his melted and shredded coat and his shirt beneath and he was back in perfect shape again. “Good. The damage is completely healed.” He eyed me. “Thanks to you.” He wiggled his fingers and rolled his shoulder. “I feel absolutely fine again.”
“Good. I’m really glad,” Ariana told him.
But then she suddenly came at him and slapped him across the face.
He grunted, his head snapping to the side, and he stumbled back from the force of it.
“Whoa!” Nyx cried.
I grimaced. Not that I hadn’t wanted to engage in a little violence with him once or twice over our time together.
He eyed Ariana incredulously. “You seriously just bitch-slapped me? What the fuck?”
“You’re lucky it wasn’t a punch, or it would have broken your face.”
“And you don’t want to do damage to all this rugged handsomeness.”
She glared at him. “Don’t you ever beg me not to save your life again!”
When he just stared at her, stunned, she pushed at his chest, demanding, “Do you hear me, Kai? Don’t ever do that to me again!”
“Or me,” Nyx interjected, coming over to Kai’s other side and glaring at him.
Kai blinked and stared between them, trying to comprehend the stark emotion coming off them both, struggling to.
“I did what needed to be done,” he spoke, his voice strained.
“That’s not good enough,” Ariana bit at him, pushing at his chest again.
“So, you really do care?” He pressed his hand to where she’d pushed him. “I’m deeply touched, sweetheart.”
I shook my head to myself as he used humor to divert and try to transcend the emotional impact of everything.
“Kai,” Nyx protested.
Kai sighed and reached out and stroked his cheek. “I’m okay now. Really.”
“You almost died,” Ariana told him. “Do you get that? You were seconds away from the Celestial Light infection reaching your heart.”
“I’m well aware.” He drew in a breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, all indications of him actually being impacted by what had happened.
I stepped forward. “You said that magic was calling out for Ariana?”
He looked so grateful for me shifting things to business.
“It was. I don’t know why or how, but that Celestial Light…
it shouldn’t have been a safeguard in there, over that scroll.
The Unity Council doesn’t have access to Celestial magic.
You know that I researched the wards before coming here, and there was no indication of that being present.
This has been employed without the knowledge of the Unity Council.
” He glanced at Ariana. “There’s Celestial inference here, without a doubt.
There’s something much bigger going on, something in that test that the True Celestials are hellbent on not being known. ”
“For real,” Nyx said. “It almost killed you , Kai. That means anyone who touched it would have suffered the same fate. Like, they’ll kill anyone from knowing what’s contained within it.”
Kai nodded. “And any Celestial content is beyond the knowledge of the Unity Council. The members aren’t privy to that level of things. Even at the Guardian Compound, the Archives are sealed off where anything of a Celestial nature is concerned.”
“Do you know what it is?” I asked Ariana.
“I know as much about it as you do about that ability that you used to save Kai tonight.”
So nothing then.
“But I can find out,” she told us. She held out her hand to Kai. “Hand over the trace magical properties you obtained and I’ll take it from here.”
“Ariana,” Kai protested.
“No,” she said firmly. “You’ve done enough. You helped me. The mission is complete.”
“It sure as fuck isn’t.”
“I’ll take it from here.”
“I’m not just going to—”
She grasped his hand urgently. “You almost perished. It’s too dangerous. And I’m so sorry I brought you in on this and put you in danger. I didn’t know this extra… safeguard… would be there. I never would have asked this of you if I had.”
“Sweetheart, I know. We all know that. But this is bigger than just a test now.”
“And it’s my problem, so I’ll see to it.”
“You’ll need help,” he insisted.
“Kai, hand it over.”
He cursed under his breath, but then twirled his right hand, his magic sparking, a moment before the trace magical properties floated in the air between them.
Ariana snatched them up with her magic and locked them away from view in the next second. “Thank you.” She looked out at me. “And thank you for saving him.”
“Yeah, fuck, if you hadn’t been here…” Nyx said, emotion welling in his eyes.
“I was, babe, and everything is well now,” I reassured him, walking to him and tucking him into my side.
“You might feel okay right now, but that infection would have taken a toll. You need to rest up for a couple of days, Kai,” Ariana informed him. “You should be fine from then on, but if anything strange crops up, let me know right away.”
“Understood,” he told her easily. Far too easily for him.
But her mind was clearly elsewhere, on the Celestial issue of it all, for her to notice that he was actually giving in so unlike him. “Head back to the Academy,” she told us, looking at us each in turn.
And then, without another word, she did that aggravating thing of teleporting out when things got too real or serious for her in any way.
“This is bad. She can’t go it alone,” I grunted.
“She won’t be,” Kai told me.
I cocked an eyebrow. “What? You heard her and she just took the test as well.”
He smirked at me. “And I made a copy.”
Despite everything, a rumbling chuckle escaped me. “Of course you did.”