21. ~Vorzyr~ #3
Kai waved his hand dismissively. “Can we not get into that?” He eyed me. “The answer to your first question is yes. It’s just you and Nyx.”
“Huh. I never would have guessed. Until tonight with the starry-eyed way you were over it.”
“Starry-eyed?” He scoffed. “You’re rewriting a great deal there, V.”
“Strongly disagree.”
A smile cracked and he winked at me. “It was a glorious experience. I absolutely won’t deny that.”
“Same for me.” I took another sip of my drink, curious now. “So, what about women then? It can’t just be Ariana. You’re too… skilled… for that to be the case. I assume the skill when it comes to men is due to Nyx’s extensive experience, him teaching you, right?”
“Damn straight,” Nyx said, wiggling his eyebrows at Kai.
Kai grinned at him. “Well, he’d only accept the best.”
“Hey,” Nyx said, laughing. “That was your obsession with obtaining knowledge thing.”
A self-satisfied smirk spread over Kai’s face as he told us, “You see how that benefits everyone?”
I chuckled, then took another sip of my drink. “And women?”
“A couple of girlfriends, only one was a sexual partner.”
I gaped at him. “What? You’re not serious?”
“Sure am,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Marlise was the sexual partner, right?” Nyx asked. He looked out at me with amusement. “Kai used to play that sort of thing very close to the vest, all respectful and everything with the approach of a gentleman never tells .”
I sprayed some of my drink across the table. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope,” Nyx confirmed. “Absolutely true.”
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked Kai, stunned.
Nyx made a show of whispering, “Ariana Martel happened.”
“Can we not?” Kai said, tensing up now, and no longer taking it all in his stride. “Especially drop the Marlise thing. Before Ari comes back.”
“I doubt she’d care,” Nyx told him. “When you fucked Marlise was years ago, long in the past.”
“Marlise Leroux?” Ariana’s voice came, and I shot a look over my shoulder to see her now approaching the table.
I was so relaxed that I hadn’t even registered the approach.
Maybe it was the alcohol also dulling my senses.
And me unleashing earlier, which took a lot out of me and tended to put me in a lulled state for a good long while.
As she took a seat beside Kai, she eyed him curiously. “I liked her. She was sweet and a talented sorceress, too. I believe she’s one of the Maven Coven’s most revered new-generation magic-wielders now, yes?”
“She is,” Kai admitted.
“And your ex.”
Kai did a double take. “You knew?”
“I might have kept an eye on you.” She winced. “More than you realized.”
Oh, no. He looked far too pleased about that. We were never going to hear the end of it, I could just see it now.
“Stalking me, sweetheart?” he said, slapping his hand to his heart. “I’m honored. All this time and I really was irresistible to you, hmm? You just couldn’t let me know that.”
“Do you want me to stop letting you know it now?” she bit back at him, but with humor.
He reached out and played with her hair. “Aww, that won’t be possible. I’m engraved far too deeply under your skin now.”
“Shut up,” she said, laughing, then batting his hand away.
“See?” he told her, before planting a soft kiss on her cheek. I heard him whisper, “I’m just kidding around, sweet Ari.”
She beamed out at him.
And she wasn’t the only one.
I liked this side of him.
Although, with him whispering, he was clearly still having issues acknowledging it beyond her, or maybe even to himself.
There was a level of vulnerability to it—especially emotional vulnerability—and Kai didn’t like that, as I’d learned both from observing him and from Nyx.
The way he gushed about Kai often had other things leaking out in the process.
Luckily for them, all of that was safe with me.
It always would be.
They were mine now. Just as I was theirs.
“How about you?” Nyx put to Ariana.
She arched an eyebrow. “Me?”
“Kai said you were with an Ancient vampire-sorcerer, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Who?”
She snatched up her glass, the thing making me smile, because it was the same drink I’d prepared for her during our picnic—a crimson elixir that tasted of dark berries and spiced cherries. “Uh… just… Corvin Morvain,” she said, before taking two big gulps from it.
Nyx shot Kai an alarmed look.
“What?” Kai was snapping in the next moment. “ That fucker was your first? That piece of shit charlatan? That conniving sociopath?”
“Wow,” I uttered. “Who is this person?”
With my whole life spent in the Dracoryn Realm up until recently, I didn’t have the knowledge base that they did when it came to certain figures in this realm. Aside from the most widely known like Ariana’s family and Kai’s.
“He’s more widely known as Masquerade,” Nyx told me.
“He is the masquerade,” Kai added. “The living embodiment of falsity cloaked in charm and allure. He’s a fucking user.”
Ariana brought her hand to her face. “It was years ago. And , as I told you, it didn’t end well. He got hurt, remember?”
“He used you. He only wanted you for your infamy and power,” Kai told her.
“Then that worked out well, because I used him, too. For his durability.” She rolled her eyes at our reactions. “It wasn’t a love match, guys. It wasn’t a relationship. Let it go.” She sucked in a breath. “It’s not like I enjoy reliving that night with the trauma and embarrassment attached to it.”
Awkward silence fell over the table at her words.
I couldn’t stand it.
Not for her especially, seeing her ill at ease.
So, I cut through it, blurting out, “I was a whore.”
All eyes were on me in a second.
Nyx looked amused.
Kai was curious as usual.
And Ariana looked surprised and relieved that I’d shifted the subject.
I winked at her, then went on, “True story. Being a big deal in the Dracoryn Realm as the son of the leaders of House Titanus, there was a lot of interest thrown my way. And I reveled in it.” I eyed Ariana.
“Until a certain angel made her presence known to me and called to me in a completely undeniable way.”
“You’re a one-woman dragon all the way now, huh?” Nyx asked.
“All of yours,” I answered. “All the motherfucking way.”
Kai raised his glass. “Cheers to the four of us, the unity between us, our strengthening connection, our bond.”
We all clinked glasses.
“Let’s eat,” Ariana spoke. “And thank you for waiting on me.”
“Of course,” Kai said.
“It was just good manners to do so, huh, Kai?” Nyx teased, referencing our earlier conversation.
I chuckled, then said, “Nothing short of the reverence that our Ariana deserves from us.”
“Seconded,” Nyx said.
“Precisely,” Kai agreed.
I watched her as she tucked into her food, a spicy chipotle chicken pie with jalapeno cream, along with drizzled waffle skewers on the side that were topped with crisped bacon. Little sounds of appreciation came from her that had the three of us smiling.
We sank into enjoying our meals then.
Kai with his slow-cooked ribs in a wine reduction with dark chocolate, along with garlic mashed potatoes, and Nyx with his charred berry-glazed beef skewers.
“So, are you excited about starting your apprenticeship at the Guardian Movement?” Ariana asked Nyx.
His electric-blue eyes lit up at the question. “Definitely. I can’t wait. Warlow—your Gramps—even called me to let me know that the team now has a name. Crossborn. It’s a nod to hybrid beings having been created by the crossing of bloodlines, abilities, that sort of thing.”
“I like it,” I said. “Very on point.”
“It has a mythic feel to it as well,” Kai added.
“I know, right?” Nyx exclaimed, excitedly.
“He’s as excited as you,” Ariana told him. “This has been in the works for a while, and now it’s finally coming together.”
“It’s gonna be a game changer for hybrids,” Nyx said.
“It will be,” she responded, sounding so sure about it. “And it’s been needed for a long time.” She looked out at me and Kai in turn. “ This is how you do it, how to make things better, how to combat ignorance and improve the lives of hybrids.”
Before we could respond, Nyx spoke, “Yeah, I appreciate the sentiment, guys. You defending me, wanting to protect me, and the bigger picture even with the whole Puritas nightmare of it all. But I don’t want people tortured, especially not in my name.
Please, okay?” He downed a good portion of his vodka, then went on, “We have to be careful with things like this because where is the line? How are we better than them if we’re responding with sadism and vicious force, maybe even murder, right?
That’s what Puritas members do, they attack my kind in that manner.
” He put his glass down and scrubbed a shaking hand over his face. “Let’s draw that line here and now.”
“It doesn’t matter who it is, who they’re aligned with, who they’re backed by, if they come at you, or any single one of you at this table, they’ll be decimated,” Kai ground out.
I nodded. “As I told Ariana, babe, there are situations where a show of force is unavoidable, where nothing else will suffice.”
“That particular show of force won’t even be registered as such, or be able to function as a deterrent going forward, because it was covered up,” Kai pointed out, eyeing Ariana briefly, before taking another bite of his food.
“I did that to protect the two of you,” she bit back. “ And to veer you off going down that path in a more recurring way.”
Kai laid his hand on her shoulder and stroked her soft skin. “I know you did, Ari. I know it was to protect us. But there were consequences to doing that.”
She blew out a breath, but noticeably didn’t jerk away from his touch. “So, you’d still do it again?”
“If I had to, yes. You know me.”
She grasped his hand on her and used that patient tone with him again that I’d first heard in that basement earlier. “I also know that you’re rational and calculating, and that those are two of your strengths. That wasn’t employed with that mess earlier.”
“No,” he admitted, Nyx and I exchanging a shocked look. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Because it was about somebody you care about so deeply in Nyx.”
Kai smiled out at him. “Of course.”
“Well, things are different now,” Ariana told him, then looked out at me. “And I know this response to issues like this a part of your draconic nature.”
“Undoubtedly, gorgeous.”
“ But there’s also this now,” she said, gesturing between all four of us.
“This special connection that we’re building.
So, from now on, if we want that to continue, if we want it to grow, if we want it to actually work, we act together.
We assess any further situations like this as a unit and don’t act until we’re in agreement about how to proceed.
Especially when it comes to something involving the complicated nature of Puritas.
I’ve already reported Sorin and the situation to Warlow, and he’ll work with Guardian Movement members to root out any other Puritas followers from the Academy.
But, in spite of that, there will always be those who fear the likes of Nyx and myself—beings with power that they don’t understand.
So we need to be prepared, not only to deal with it, but in the way that we deal with it. ”
A lick of desire rolled through me at her take-charge and forceful speech. I saw a similar reaction from Kai with clear pride shining in his eyes also. Because she wasn’t turning tail, she was facing it head-on with us, and talking about doing that beyond as well.
“Understood,” I agreed.
“That’s more than reasonable,” Kai said.
Nyx was smiling out at the three of us. “Very good,” he uttered. “Really damn good.”
I reached out and stroked his nape, making him basically purr for me. It had Kai chuckling.
Things calmed down after that, and we all started eating away again, enjoying our meal and each other’s company.
It was pleasant, warm, and more than I’d ever hoped for when I’d been cast out from the only thing I’d ever known.
Now there was this.
There was them.