Chapter 31 Ezekial
As soon as her body softens, I scoop her up onto one arm, cradling her legs and back with ease. She hangs slack against me, head on my chest, as I flit to the bedroom.
She’s still trembling as I lower her onto the bed and settle beside her, drawing the cover over her bare skin. Her eyes stay closed, relaxed, and I brush my fingers over the vivid warmth colouring her cheeks.
“You’re beautiful.”
Her eyes flutter open, searching mine, then she smiles. “You know,” she murmurs, voice drowsy, “that’s not the first time you’ve called me that.”
A smirk tugs at my lips. “Isn’t it?”
She lifts a brow, her smile tilting with mischief. “Before my first day working with Kacey, remember? I wouldn’t forget a Lord saying that.”
“I didn’t mean to say it out loud,” I murmur.
“Mmm.” Her voice is soft, eyes half-lidded. “Wondered why you went all sheepish.”
I laugh quietly. “Sheepish?”
She’s still smiling and beautiful no longer feels adequate. Divine, caelestia, hilidingira. I can’t find the word. Maybe there isn’t one.
“But I also remember how it felt,” she suddenly whispers. “How you felt when you said it. How you meant it, even then.”
My fingers trace her face as I lean in, brushing her lips with mine. “You have no idea how much I meant it,” I murmur before kissing her, slower and softer this time, sealing the words.
When I draw back, she watches me for a moment, before she laughs under her breath.
“I can’t believe you just withheld an orgasm to get me to stay,” she murmurs, shaking her head, but her smile never leaves.
I lay down on her pillow, face-to-face. “Even if you said no, I would’ve made you come.”
Her eyes narrow at my admission, but there’s a smirk lining her face.
“Not letting you come would’ve been just as painful for me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh really?”
I shift closer. “Yes. Now I know what you sound and feel like when you…” I close my eyes, brushing my lips softly over hers as my hand moves to her stomach. “You’d never have to touch me, and I’d always be satisfied by just watching you come undone.”
Her fingers thread into my hair, and a soft groan escapes without thought.
“But what if I want to touch you?” she whispers.
“Yes. Please. Anywhere,” I blurt out each word, desperate and needy. But I don’t give a fuck, not when she’s laughing like that.
Not when I feel the smile on her lips as she kisses me.
I try to keep the kiss going, pushing forwards when she pulls back, but her fingers tighten in my hair to hold me. Normally, I’d let her know just how much I enjoy the tugs on my hair, how I’d like her to do it harder—especially the next time I taste her.
I want her to control me, seek all her pleasure from me, use me… but that might be too much in one night. So when she leans away again, I let her.
Then she levels me with a more serious expression. “This stays between us, Ze.”
Ze.
Has she ever called me that before? No. I’d remember it, because I’m never forgetting this. Because she’s given it to me.
I nod, already agreeing, even if I’m not quite sure as to what.
She must see the flicker of confusion, because she adds, “Just like what happened last night. That and this, it stays between us.”
I wince. She frowns, eyes scanning my face, then her mouth pops open on a gasp. “You didn’t.”
I suck in a breath. “I swear, I won’t tell them about this, but…” I scrunch my face. “Apparently, they were able to… hear you last night.”
She blinks, then slowly shakes her head. “How?”
“They didn’t say they heard me, so I think…” I begin cautiously, “maybe you unintentionally shared some sounds through the bond.”
“Right. So, what’s to say they didn’t just—”
“I’m pretty sure I’d know by now.” I smile, hoping to reassure her, but she doesn’t look entirely convinced. And after what we just did, the last thing I want is for her to feel exposed. “And I proactively placed a barrier around the apartment when you came inside.”
She lets out a breath, her expression softening.
“Also,” I murmur, fingers brushing her stomach. “Being physically together, touching, helps with the mental blocking.”
“Because of your…” she trails off, fingers slipping from my hair. “Your ability to…”
She’s being cautious, but why? I’ll tell her anything. All she has to do is ask.
“Meld minds,” I say. Blunt, but not harsh. She needs to know nothing is off-limits with her. Never. Not even this. “Yes, that helps. But ask me what you really want to know. Whatever you want, I’ll answer.”
She glances away. “I… I don’t need to know. I don’t want to make you remember.”
I take her chin gently, guiding her gaze back to me. “I want you to ask. I want you to know me.”
She swallows, eyes searching mine. They’re pale now, that soft pinkish hue her irises take in low light. So beautiful.
“How… how does it work?” She pulls in her plump lower lip, swollen, teeth sinking in. “The mind melding? Because I’ve noticed, I mean from what you’ve said and what I’ve seen, ours don’t really seem… the same.”
I tear my eyes away from her mouth, because she’s asked a question, and we promised we’d answer anything.
“I haven’t met many beings who can meld minds, but it’s always slightly different for each individual,” I explain. “I’m able to access, alter and erase memories.” Her eyes widen a little. “I can’t create something from scratch, but I can make you see things, like when we were on the phone…”
“Thank you for the… reminder,” she says a little breathless. “But it’s different for me. I can’t do that. I don’t really understand what I can do.”
“From what I’ve seen, your empathetic abilities have been enhanced, or amplified by it.” She nods slowly. “But specifically… Can you describe what you did when you last used it?”
She thinks for a moment, then her cheeks bloom. “I… I used it on Julien.” I arch a brow, waiting for her to clarify. “I wanted him to imagine… well, to just think about another vampire… biting me…”
“Wow.”
She winces. “I know, stop. I just… I just pictured what I wanted him to see, and it happened.”
“You can create realities,” I murmur in awe.
That blush never leaves her cheeks as she adds, “And, before that, I’ve used it to make people do things.” Her eyes can’t quite reach mine, and I know she’s being hesitant for a reason.
“Jasmine, I once locked a being in a nightmare where he drowned for three days.” Her mouth parts, but she has no idea that was one of my lightest punishments. “Whatever you’re about to say, I doubt it’s worse than what any of us have done.”
“I made someone slit their throat with a broken bottle,” it tumbles out of her.
“At The Inferno, that’s when I—we—first realised I maybe wasn’t just an empath.
But that only works on certain beings, they have to have this…
” She purses her lips together in thought.
“This feeling about them, it always makes me feel a little nauseous. Like those guards in the cell, it was easy to make them…” She trails off, and I realise it’s because the shadows began creeping forwards the second she mentioned that memory.
I blink it away, feeling my light burning the edges. “Sorry, it’s hard to hear about that.”
“How do you do that?” she asks, her voice a little too light, almost sounding a little… awed herself. I frown and her eyes dart back to the shadows now scuttering from us. “You didn’t even move, and the shadows just… dissolved.”
“Using the light I have,” I say simply, letting her know it isn’t a secret, that she can keep asking whatever she wants.
“That’s how I create barriers, it’s how I ground the others when they need it.
But unlike the dark, you can’t always see it.
” I raise a hand, allowing slivers of light to form and weave between my fingers. “But it’s there.”
As they dissolve, a small wisp lands on Jasmine’s cheek, before sinking into her skin.
“What exactly are you?” she blurts in nothing more than a whisper, then immediately winces. “Sorry, that was… really rude. I should know, I’ve been asked that before, and it really is none of my—”
“Did my brother tell you where I was taken from?” I keep my voice soft, easing her panic before it spirals. She cautiously nods. “Demons reigned over the Dark Realm, and the Light Realm was always ruled by…”
“Angels,” she whispers, the word softening her previous concern. “I wasn’t sure they really existed. I’d heard of them, I just… never met any.”
Never met any? So she still doesn’t know.
“But they weren’t called angels, not back then.” My thumb slowly grazes the curve of her lip.
“What were they called?”
Our eyes lock. “Immarus.”
She frowns as a small sound escapes her lips, I only catch it because we’re close. But it isn’t one of surprise, more of recognition.
“Immaru,” she repeats, beautifully. She transforms that single word into a seraphic hymn.
“You’ve heard it before?” I smooth the crease between her brows with my thumb.
“Kane… he called me that, once.” She looks away, embarrassed.
But why? She is the epitome of an angel, she exudes sublimity, sacred murals aren’t worthy of her face.
“I don’t think he meant to, he was thinking it and it just… slipped out. He shut down right after.” Her brows pinch together. “I know empaths are usually from the Light but I’m… I’m not…”
“Empaths have always been one of the purest beings of light. They’re a type of immaru.”
She frowns hard. “But I’m impure, I’m not full of light.” And she sounds… repulsed, like it’s something rotten in her throat.
And I suddenly want to destroy whoever made her doubt the light she emanates.
“You’re not just full of light, no. We all have both, but you have more of each. They’re balanced. That doesn’t make you impure.” My voice sours on that word, so I soften my tone. “You’re more.”