Chapter Twelve
Zavier didn’t stew.
He didn’t sit around having long thoughts.
He’d been forced into inactivity with shackles for ninety-six days when he was captured. And every one of those days, he’d sworn to never again be still. To never again take for granted the movement of his body.
Those soap operas in the eighties, where people always had to “go away and think”? The ones Gideon forced all three of them to watch three weeks a year to keep up with changing times? He wanted to beat up the writers who put that in there.
You thought on your feet.
Brains worked better in action.
So instead of brooding in the big leather couch at the WatchTower, he was hitting the heavy bag.
He’d been at it for an hour…and he still hadn’t decided what he’d do if his blood ended up killing Liss.
It’d been an even ten hours since her eyes opened. She was sleeping now, two floors below. She seemed…herself. Normal, for a human.
Zavier didn’t dare have that much hope.
Everything had happened so fast. Finding her near death. Realizing there wasn’t time to try anything but one radical solution he’d read about sixty years ago. Squeezing his blood into her, drop by drop. And then leaving her as soon as she awoke to go pummel an even two dozen more Nephilim who needed their egos pricked.
He was fine when things moved fast.
It was now—in the quiet—that he had time to think about the implications of what he’d done.
One straight-arm punch sent the heavy bag off the chain and into the wall.
Again.
Shit.
Gideon flew through the door. Scowled down at the bag, and then turned that heated golden stare onto Zavier. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Working through some things.”
“We’ve got a woman here recovering from almost being killed. A death metal band at an arena show makes less noise than you just did.”
“I thought you dosed Liss to make her sleep?”
He’d stayed far away once they brought her to the WatchTower. He didn’t want Liss to suddenly realize that she didn’t want to be some unknown hybrid mutation and decide that she hated him.
At least, not while he was hovering at her bedside.
Gideon shook his head. “Too risky. There’s already a lot going on in her body. Evangeline drew her a bubble bath. Maisy made her a mug of lavender tea. I put on some binaural beats to help her subconscious slow down.”
“Did it work?” He’d been there: injured but too keyed up and worried to sleep. It wasn’t a unique sensation.
“It did ,” Gideon said pointedly. He landed with a small wobble. Most wouldn’t notice it. Z did. Knew it was from Jophiel stabbing his wing in the seventeenth round. “Until you decided to demo our wall. Good chance it woke her up.”
“I should go see—”
Gideon flared his brown and gold wings to block the doorway. “You’ve done enough for one day. For one lifetime .”
The guys had laid off bitching at him once Liss regained consciousness. Then there’d been the tournament to concentrate on. Guess that truce was officially over.
Zavier raised his hand, pulling off the gloves. “Hold off. Before you tear into me again, are Maisy and Eva still with her?”
“Eva is. Maisy’s going to sleep for a few hours, and then they’ll swap out.”
“Good.” Just not quite good enough. “You’ll check on her, too? Maisy won’t know what to look for.”
Gideon gave him a stare cool enough to frost over Niagara. “Um, wings? Think they’d be pretty obvious. Maisy’s smart enough—even for a semi-human—not to overlook that.”
“There could be other side effects. Dangerous ones.”
“Silver blood oozing from her pores?”
“Don’t be a jackass.” They were all pissed off about the transfusion to rip him a new one, but not to take every last precaution with Liss? How did that make sense?
Gideon stalked closer. “I can be anything I want, after the stunt you pulled today.” Then he paused, held up a hand. “Let’s get all the updates on Liss out of the way.”
“Please.” He had to know that she was, at least for the moment, all right. If it required begging to get the info, he’d do it. On bended fucking knee, if necessary.
“We’re taking precautions. Pricked her finger right before she fell asleep. Her blood’s still as red as ketchup. And…she’s in a containment room.”
It took a second for Zavier’s brain to accept the reality of Gideon’s words. Then he remembered the dungeon level they’d only had to use once since taking over the WatchTower. “You locked her in a fucking cell ?”
“For her safety. And ours.”
He fisted his hands. Rose a foot off the ground. The sound of his wings slowly beating to keep him aloft was twenty times louder than when he spoke. “Get her out. Now.”
“No.” Gideon crossed his arms. He’d changed from tournament gear into sweats and a hoodie. “Liss specifically requested it. She said that if she turned into a monster, she didn’t want to hurt us.”
Yeah. Noble sentiment. He wasn’t concerned about the rest of them—only Liss. And she’d mentioned that her parents used to leave her alone when they performed. Basically all over Europe the pattern repeated—Liss, alone in a small hotel room, scared and abandoned. And now they were the ones forcing her to relive that?
“But she’s alone in there.”
“It’s been upgraded since we held the Kuranda demon in there. We brought in a bed. Snacks. Left my tablet in there for her to use. And there’ll be someone right outside the door around the clock.”
It still sounded scary. Dark. Lonely. Zavier’s worst nightmare brought to life again. “I don’t like it.”
Gideon’s jaw clenched before he spoke. “Well, you put her in there. So suck it up.”
Rhys flew through the containment field that kept the roar of Niagara to a low murmur. “Oh, good. You don’t have much of a head start on me. Let’s kick the shit out of Z together.”
Gideon pointed at the heavy bag, bent against the wall and covered in plaster dust. “He’s taken care of that himself.”
“And you think that’s enough? I call it the amuse-bouche of the ass-kicking he deserves.” Rhys took off his leather jacket and flung it into a corner.
“Where’ve you been?”
Rhys grabbed a towel from the shelf unit and rubbed a dusting of snow off his head. “Hariel did us an enormous service today. I was paying our debt.”
“How?”
“Thought it might be tough to get him to actually tell me how we could thank him. But this list ripped right off of his tongue. He requested an In-N-Out burger. Macadamia nut wine from Hawaii. A peacock inflatable for the pool. And a lime Diet Coke.”
“Seriously?” Despite all his stress and worry, Zavier laughed.
“Yeah. Not so bad, right? I was worried he’d want a woman.”
“He’s a full-blood angel.” Gideon waved off the suggestion, backing away. “They’re celibate.”
Riiiiight. Zavier went ahead and pointed out the obvious—which Rhys had clearly also figured out. “He’s been living with the Nephilim for centuries. And they’re not .”
“Hmmm.” Rhys stroked his chin. “Maybe, when he comes to do the blood ritual with us, we should set him up. Nothing serious, but a nice night out with someone out of Gideon’s vast roster of women.”
“Sure. I’ll get right on writing him a Hinge profile. ‘Handicapped librarian seeks mate. Willing to hold out for a woman only five millennia younger than him.’”
Wow. Even though Gideon was head over heels for Eva, he clearly didn’t want to share. “You should probably get Evangeline to help you write it. She’s classy. Mature.”
“Let’s hope Liss gets the chance to mature,” Rhys shot back.
Z tried to swallow down the urge to punch him. “Ouch. How about we not talk about our friend as if she’s two breaths away from kicking it?”
“Because she damn well might be. A fact that you blithely overlooked.”
Not even a little bit true. “I didn’t.” He’d known it was a Hail Mary play. He’d just chosen to go with the fact that even shitty odds were better than no odds at all.
Rhys chucked the towel into a corner and advanced until they were toe to toe. “You sure as hell waited to broach the subject until we left the room. Knowing we’d never let you do it.”
“Timing is everything.”
“Now who’s joking?”
Fuck.
Arguing about it now, though, didn’t matter. Arguing about it at the time might’ve run Liss out of time. So sure, he’d let his friends rant. Drown him in blame. Hell, in their position, he’d probably be just as pissed.
But it hadn’t been a team decision. No polling the partners.
Zavier shouldered all this responsibility and wouldn’t so much as blink. Because he’d do it again. In a split second. If he truly believed it was the only way to save Liss.
He’d do anything .
He shrugged. “Yes, I waited. Deliberately did it behind your backs. Because it was the only way to save Liss. For all your dire warnings about how we don’t know what could happen to her over the next day and a half? Nobody is saying that we had any other option.”
Rhys’s ice-blue eyes literally frosted over as his anger accidentally channeled the elements. “You put our mission in jeopardy.”
Nah. He’d only take the hits he deserved. “We were back in the arena before the break ended. Nobody knew anything went down besides us scarfing lunch.”
“What if she’d died? Then we wouldn’t have made it.”
Z felt a lick of flame pop out across his eyes in fury. “What if I’d done jack shit and she’d died? That’s the bigger question. Because I sure as hell couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d sat on my ass and watched Liss die.”
Gideon joined them. He leveled about two thousand pounds of accusation at Zavier in a single half-lidded glare. “You might have doomed her to something worse than death.”
Yeah, that hadn’t been his concern at the time.
It sure as hell was his concern now , though.
“Well, we’ll know in thirty-two hours, won’t we?” They all agreed—along with Hariel—that any reaction Liss might have to Zavier’s blood would happen within two days. So it was a waiting game for the sun to set twice.
A nervous, panic-ridden, terrifying wait.
He crossed to the lab area and stuck his head under the faucet. Took some gulps, then drenched his hair to wash away the hours of sweat. Zavier craved a shower. Fairly certain that the guys wouldn’t be done yelling at him any time soon, though.
Rhys pulled up a stool on the opposite side of the wide counter. “Z, we’ve always trusted each other. This…this is not getting our buy-in. This was a violation of that trust.”
He was right.
He felt like a complete shit for fracturing that bond with them.
But Zavier still didn’t regret it. Or he regretted hurting them, but he sure as hell wouldn’t go back and change it, even if he could.
Hands gripping the edge of the sink, water dripping down his bare back, Z stared at Rhys, unblinking. “Listen to me. I. Save. Humans. It is my duty. It is literally all I’m good for.”
“That’s not true.”
“Kind of is. Otherwise, whoever gave Caraxis the order to let me keep moldering in that cell would’ve found me worthwhile to rescue.”
Gideon gripped his forearm “Z. We did. We know your worth. But that’s not why we rescued you.”
“I know. I provide balance. I keep you two from fighting too much. Provide the tie-breaking vote in mission planning. I finish the toast when Rhys burns it so his feelings aren’t hurt.”
“ Hellfire . That’s all extra confetti on top of the real reason. The trophy that is Zavier Carranza in our lives. Your unswerving loyalty. Your never-say-die attitude. The way you used to recklessly charge forward into fun and not just fights. You’re our brother. If you never fought another day beside us, that’d be enough.”
Shit.
That was unexpected.
They never talked about feelings. When you’d been best friends since before you could walk or talk, a lot went without saying. Actions counted for more in their world, anyway.
But it turned out that the words mattered, too.
A lot.
Zavier put his hand on top of Gideon’s. “Thanks.” It was all he could get out of his suddenly thick throat.
Rhys came around to throw his arms around both their shoulders. “Gideon’s the eloquent one. But everything he said goes double for me. Brother.”
How was he so damned lucky? If it weren’t for these men, he’d still be chained in a demon’s dungeon. It was impossible to pay them back. For that, and for every day.
He cleared his throat. “Gotta say, this beatdown’s going really well from my point of view.”
Rhys cuffed the back of his head. “Oh, we’re not done. Not by a long shot. Think of this as the first intermission.”
They could go round in circles until dawn and it wouldn’t change anything. Zavier toweled off. “How about we cut to the chase so at least the two of you can go to bed after this shitstorm of a day? Liss was in the Order’s stronghold because of us. To help us. Not saving her was never an option. Not for me.”
Gideon backed away a few steps. Cocked his head to one side, and then the other. Then he slapped his hand on the counter, setting the glass beakers rattling. “You like her.”
“Uh, we all do.”
“You like her,” he repeated.
What was Gideon getting at? “She’s a fighter, a scrapper. Doesn’t give up. Brave when there’s no reason to be. We get each other, is all.”
“That’s nowhere close to all.” He snatched up their longest glass stirring rod and poked Zavier across the counter. “What have you done?”
Shit.
He’d figured it out. On top of already cracking their trust today, Zavier couldn’t lie. Suddenly, the exhaustion of pummeling people for twelve hours landed on him with the weight of one of Metafora’s cargo containers. He slumped down along the wall until his butt hit the floor.
“I don’t know. Probably fucked it all up.”
“Somebody gonna fill me in?” Rhys asked.
“Zavier and Liss…” Gideon waggled his eyebrows. Slowly jammed his outstretched fingers together.
“No.” He looked over at Zavier. “No way.” Then back to Gideon. “What?”
“Yeah.”
Rhys crossed his arms. “You slept with her?” His question was half curiosity, half accusation.
He’d wanted to keep this under wraps for a while. Until he wrapped his head around the dichotomy of how much he wanted Liss, and how very much he knew he couldn’t be the man she needed.
Zavier nodded. “Yeah.”
“And now you like her?”
Why was it so hard to believe? “Will you stop asking that? We all like the woman. She’s very likable. And beautiful. And with a mouth that won’t stop.”
A smug, smarmy smile oozed its way across Rhys’s mouth. “You like her.”
“For fuck’s sake, yes!” he roared. “I screwed up. I tried not to. I tried to tell her that I’m no good. Liss wouldn’t listen. She’s very stubborn.”
“Welcome to my world,” Rhys drawled. “Stubborn women are so annoying. So irresistible.”
“Completely,” he huffed. Zavier was mad at himself for being so weak. Mad at Liss for being so intriguing. Mad at the universe for shoving temptation at him.
“This, uh, sounds like more than a hookup. This sounds like you care about her. In a way you have never before, for any woman.”
Why did Rhys keep poking at him? Was it part of his punishment? “Trying to rub salt in the wound? On top of Aamon threatening to kidnap her? Force me to say that I’m wild about her, but I know I’m no good for her. That she deserves someone—”
“Only half as broody and stubborn and broken as you?”
“Yeah.” And that was the understatement of the century.
“Agreed—but isn’t that her decision?”
“Not if I take the high road. If I’m the better person and stay far away so she can find some happy, hapless human to be with.”
Rhys snorted. “Sounds boring. Not her type at all.”
“Look, I think we can all agree that,” Gideon held up one finger, “we’ve got no clue as to the consequences of Zavier leading with his dick in this particular situation, and,” he popped a second pointer, “you’ve probably screwed everything six ways to Sunday.”
“Because you’re no good when it comes to feelings. Empathy. Connection. Matters of the heart.” Rhys grinned. “I can go on, if you want me to.”
None of this was breaking news.
It was a restatement of all the reasons he’d used to resist Liss…
…until he couldn’t anymore.
Zavier fisted his hands on top of the island. “My self-sacrificing plan was to keep my distance. But then she was dying. I…I couldn’t let that happen. So now maybe I saved her. Or maybe I saved Aamon the trouble and killed her myself, by this time tomorrow. Maybe turned her into God knows what. Which leaves me with no new plan except for watching the clock tick. And we debrief. There’s no way that loogaroo being at the Order was a coincidence.”
Rhys and Gideon exchanged a glance. Rhys jerked a head so they’d follow him over to the lounge area. Which was good…but also an indicator of just how pathetic he must appear to his friends.
Gideon poured them hefty tumblers of Plantation XO rum. “Our plan for the tournament worked. All these bruises, aches, and cuts are worth it. I had four Nephilim tell me, on the arena floor, that they wanted to help us.”
Zavier heaved a sigh of relief. “I had seven say it.”
“Three healers approached me with the same message when I walked through the medical ward. And reported ten more Nephilim blindsided and killed at waterfall portals.” Rhys stroked his chin, covered with a heavy layer of dark stubble. And a fresh line of four stitches along his jaw. “Do you believe them?”
Hard not to believe a warrior voluntarily dropping his guard to get close enough to whisper a message. “They were willing to take one hell of a beating to prove it.”
“Good point.”
Passing out the glasses, Gideon said, “Seems like they were the message bearers, and there’s no doubt more out there to be drafted. Can we trust them?”
“No. Not entirely.” The people they trusted completely were almost all in the WatchTower, with the exception of Hariel and Caraxis. And what a pivot that had been, finally trusting him again! “But it’s a start to assembling an army for good.”
Rhys lifted his glass to that proclamation. “And like every other army? We’ll stick to a need-to-know basis.”
That didn’t come close to covering everyone at the Stronghold. “What about the ones who didn’t fight?”
“Well, we did just kick the collective asses of every single Nephilim warrior who went up against us.” Gideon made a show of dusting off his hands. “I’d bet that more than half of them were too scared or too smart to sign up.”
“True. Now that this thing has momentum, we’re findable. It’s no secret that we own Metafora. They could go to the company website and send us an email pledging their support.”
Gideon arched one brow. “Would we buy that?”
“Not at first.” Rhys shook his finger side to side. “But it’s a reason why we can’t assume not fighting makes them our enemy.”
“But we should assume that for a certain percentage?” Zavier pressed. It was a half-impossible question to answer. But this was what they did. Talked through every eventuality, even if solutions didn’t come right away. It kept that awareness at the front of their brains, which made them exceptional warriors.
Rhys let out a half groan, half sigh. “It has been a hell of a day. Are you really going to make me do math?”
Good point. “Of course not.”
The three of them weren’t in any shape to be conducting a strategy session. But adrenaline still had them too juiced to head to bed. Thanks to the time difference between Buffalo and Turkey, afternoon sun still brightened the room to an excruciating degree. Albeit filtered through the clouds coating everything with fresh snowfall.
Not that Zavier would be heading to his bed at all. No, he planned to take a blanket down to the containment area.
Just in case.
Rhys hooked a thumb in the direction of the hallway. “Evangeline and Maisy managed to talk to several in the viewing stands. They’re all curious about Eva and her free run of the place.”
More proof to back up their newfound trust in the leader of the Order. “Caraxis kept his word, then. Didn’t tell anyone that she’s the first Dark Nephilim . That Eva’s desperately trying to piece together what that means and what her powers might be.”
Rhys shrugged one shoulder. Winced and grabbed for it. They’d all be sore as shit for the next few days. “It’d be a hard sell, anyway. Hey, after millennia, there’s a new half-celestial, half-Hell-spawned creature that’s all good. Want to be a test dummy to see if she can call down lightning and incinerate things ?”
“They don’t know what to make of her—but they see her fly in and out.”
“An air of mystery’s sexy,” Gideon said smugly.
Aaaaand there was a man who hadn’t made it all the way through a thought. “You really want those warriors seeing your woman as sexy?”
He blinked slowly. “ Hellfire .”
Chortling, Zavier said, “I didn’t think so.”
“Point is, they were given some messages of support, too. Eva and Maisy kept a running list of names in their phone apps and snuck pictures of the ones who didn’t bother with a full intro.”
“Smart. They might be new at this whole undercover reconnaissance thing, but they’re doing great.” Gideon beamed with pride.
“Liss probably gathered some names, too. Before…” Zavier’s voice trailed off.
Fear punched him in his gut again. It kept cycling back around. As soon as he relaxed—as much as you could relax while talking about gathering an army—it swooped in.
Rhys elbowed him. “Hey. She could be fine. She’s fine now, so that’s a good sign.”
“Plus? It isn’t like you infused her with demon blood.” Gideon flared his wings. “We’re half-angel. That’s the primo, top-shelf stuff. Gotta be good, right?”
Zavier was too worried to respond. He needed Liss to be okay.
If and when she was? Then he’d worry about what to do with all these feelings churning him up about her.