29. Yaaf
YAAF
S ullha made a small sound against Yaaf's mouth, and it traveled through him like an electrical current.
He'd believed he remembered desire. He'd experienced it before the enhancement program, filed it away as something that had taken so much of his bandwidth that there hadn't been much left to devote to higher thinking.
Not that there had been much room for higher thinking after the brutal training either.
He'd welcomed the muting of it, had felt liberated by it, and had pitied the other males who were ruled by it, soldiers who spent their entire allowance in the brothel.
Not that there was much else to spend it on unless they were into expensive watches.
But kissing Sullha was not what he remembered from before.
That had been an itch, while this was a tide that was rising through channels he'd thought were sealed, roaring into places that had stood empty so long he'd forgotten they existed, and every place it reached lit up and demanded more.
Her waist under his arm. The warmth of her back through the thin dress.
Her fingers curling into his shirt, over his heart, which was hammering like it was trying to escape his chest.
His fangs itched, filling with venom even though a kiss alone shouldn't have done that.
He couldn't bite Sullha, and he had to somehow pull back and command his fangs to retract.
Kissing her around them required precision that took more discipline than he had ever needed for anything, because his fangs were not responding to his will.
They had their own opinion about what should happen next, and that was sinking into her throat.
Not yet.
She would choose the when and where. But the need was a live wire, pulsing with bursts of unconfined energy, and it was all his, except that it couldn't be because nothing was ever completely his anymore.
At the edges of his mind, he sensed the seven pressed against the privacy walls they'd erected and were struggling to hold.
What was going on inside him was too enormous to contain in the small corner of the hive mind that he had carved for himself.
Not even with all of them doing their best to allow him privacy.
Wonder leaked through the link like light under a door, seven minds tasting the echo of what was flooding him and pulsing with awe, because none of them had felt this before either, not ever like this, and he was too far gone to resent the audience or begrudge them the experience they all hungered for.
More beautiful than we remembered, someone breathed through the link, barely a whisper, and Yaaf ignored it, because Sullha's hands had slid up to his shoulders, and she was kissing him back.
Then the sound of heavy footsteps stomping down the corridor broke the spell.
Boots striking concrete with a deliberate, evenly spaced thunder that no Guardian trained in silent movement would produce unless he was doing it on purpose.
The performance grew louder, stopping just outside the open door, and then someone cleared his throat with a sound like a clogged engine rattling.
Sullha broke away from him and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, with a sheepish look in her eyes that was adorable. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was messy, and the last thing Yaaf wanted to do was let her go, Guardian or no Guardian waiting outside the door for permission to enter.
"Sorry about the interruption," Alfie said, still standing where they couldn't see him and he couldn't see them. "I got a call from upstairs, and I texted you that I'd come get you in ten minutes, but I got no response."
Yaaf pulled his phone from his pocket and saw the message sitting on the screen.
Party's winding down. The little guy is asking for his mom and for you .
"I didn't hear it come in." Yaaf held out the phone for Sullha to read the message.
"You don't say." Alfie sounded amused.
Sullha got up and brushed her hair with the fingers of one hand while smoothing down her dress with the other, but she still had that adorable sheepish expression of a woman being caught doing something naughty and not regretting it one bit.
"How do I look?" she whispered.
"Radiant."
"Seriously."
"Seriously. You look perfect." He rose to his feet and took her hand. "Let's go."
When they got back to the penthouse, it looked like everyone had been waiting for them to return to wrap things up. Plates sat abandoned on the tables, the buffet had been cleared, and Bianca was asleep on Rohilah's shoulder with the rabbit dangling from her fist.
The seven turned toward him as one, caught themselves, and turned back to their mothers in a staggered, deliberately casual sequence that fooled no one who was actually paying attention.
Tomek scrambled up from his pile of toys on the rug. "Mama! Yaaf! Where were you? I won four races and Lady Areana won two, but I think Esag let her win, and I ate three desserts. Nana said I could."
"Nana said one," Leehy corrected from the couch. "He sneaked the other two."
Bardov turned to look at Yaaf, his happiness washing over the collective like a wave made of warm honey.
He'd been the only one of the seven who didn't have a mother to keep him occupied while Yaaf was gone, so he'd felt the tide come roaring back more than the others, understood what it meant for all of them, and was now too full of it to hold it in.
"It's true, then," Bardov said. "What was muted didn't die. It's waking up again, and it's beautiful. I never knew it could be like this. None of us did."
Sullha went rigid beside Yaaf.
Bardov had meant it as a celebration, the hope and joy shining through the link, bright and guileless. After two years of winter, Bardov was welcoming spring, but that was not what Sullha had heard.
The languid afterglow from their kiss vanished between one heartbeat and the next.
Bardov's words brought back the reality that intimate moments with Yaaf were never truly private, and that what she'd thought she was giving him in the privacy of his room in the dungeon had been felt by the other seven as well.
Worse, Bardov had just said so in front of her mother, her son, and her friends, as well as the goddess, the harem ladies, and their partners, current and former.
Yaaf doubted they had understood what Bardov had meant, but Sullha had, and that was enough.
"Tomek." She crossed to her son, gathered him up, and hugged him hard, her face in his hair.
Tomek submitted to it for a generous four seconds before squirming. "Mama, you're squishing me."
She let him go, fixed his collar, and didn't look at Yaaf.
Did I say something wrong? Bardov sent, stricken, the joy in the link dissipating.
Nothing that was untrue, Yaaf answered, and kept his face even while something in his chest shrank.
"Sullha." Zohara stood up. "Did you take pictures of the dungeon for us?"
"She probably forgot," Mirumah murmured into her coffee cup. "She was busy."
"I didn't forget." Sullha pulled out her phone. "Here. Start with the door, it's the best part. Thirty centimeters thick, and there's a slot at the bottom for meals."
The women clustered around the small screen.
"That's not a dungeon." Zohara sounded disappointed. "That's as nice as our new houses in the village. Just much smaller. Still, the lap of luxury compared to how we lived in the dormitories."
"No chains?" Mirumah asked.
"None," Sullha said.
"Boring." Mirumah sat back down.
The gathering dissolved into leave-taking after that, goodbyes, embraces, and promises of meeting again soon.
When it was Yaaf's turn to say goodbye to the goddess, he inclined his head. "Thank you for the invitation, and for everything else you arranged today." He let the words carry their second meaning, and her eyes glinted, acknowledging receipt.
"You are most welcome. I enjoyed this very much, and I'm already planning the next gathering."
"I'm sure everyone would love a repeat, but may I ask a favor?"
Areana looked surprised. "Of course. As long as it is within my power to provide it. After all, I'm a guest here just like the rest of you, and I'm limited in what I can do."
"Can you please invite the scientists and their partners? I feel bad about them being the only island escapees not included."
"I considered it." Areana folded her hands. "But most of the enclosure women speak no English, and I wanted the mothers to be comfortable in their own tongue. One human was manageable, but four additional guests needing translation would've made everything feel awkward."
"I understand, and I'll take it upon myself to take care of them. I'll translate for them."
Areana looked at him for a moment, and then she smiled with a glint of mischief in her eyes. "That's a generous offer, but I suspect that next time you'll be even busier with your lady."
Heat climbed up Yaaf's neck and into his cheeks.
He felt it happening, and the absurdity of it made it worse. He was a killer. He'd terminated immortal warriors with his bare hands, and he was blushing because the goddess had acknowledged what was happening between him and Sullha? Because she'd called Sullha his lady?
"I'm sure I can find time for both." He leveled his gaze at her. "I'm very good at multitasking."
She laughed. "I bet you are."
The elevator could only take so many at a time, so the goodbyes stretched out. When Sullha's turn came, she stood in front of him with Tomek's backpack on her shoulder and her mother waiting by the elevator doors, and she smiled at him, but it had a wall behind it.
"I'll call you tonight," she said.
"I'll be waiting." He took her hand, and she let him.
He looked into her eyes and searched them with nothing but his familiarity with her and her expressions. He did not reach into her mind for answers.
She squeezed his fingers once and let go.
"Bye, Yaaf." Tomek waved at him through the closing elevator doors.
It took two trips for all the ladies to go down to the parking garage, where the Odus were waiting with the van.
The Eight rode down with Alfie last.
The gym? Ravsoh proposed as they exited on the dungeon level.
"Not me," Yaaf said aloud. "I'm not in the mood."
The others didn't comment or even look at him, letting him stew in his own misery without trying to contain it this time.
They were busy containing Bardov's guilt.
It's not your fault , Yaaf sent. There are worse crimes than feeling happy .
He peeled off at the fourth door and walked into his room that still smelled faintly of Sullha.
He sat on the couch, on his side of it, and looked at the empty cushion beside him, and then he clicked the television on and stared at it without seeing what was on the screen.
The noise helped, filling the space between his ears and giving the seven other currents in his head something to wash against.
He needed that this afternoon. He loved them, and he owed them his sanity and his life, but he didn't want to hear a single one of them right now.
What was muted didn't die. It's waking up again, and it's beautiful. I never knew it could be like this. None of us did.
Every word was true. That was the trap of it. Bardov hadn't done anything wrong to Sullha by saying that, and she hadn't done anything wrong to Bardov by flinching, and Yaaf couldn't find anyone to be angry at, which left the anger circling with nowhere to go.
She'd kissed one man, and all eight had felt the sun come up. To his team it was a miracle. To her it was a theft, an intrusion, and both of those things were true at the same time, and he didn't know how to reconcile them.
On the screen, people in bright clothes were arguing about fixing a house.
His phone rang.
Yaaf looked at the name and answered it before it could ring again. "Sullha."
"Hi." The van's engine hummed in the background. "Are you somewhere you can talk?"
"I'm in my room. What about you?"
"I'm in the van, but no one here has super hearing.
" She took a breath, and he heard her move, maybe turning toward the window, curling around the phone.
"I didn't want to wait for tonight to tell you that I'm sorry I overreacted.
I heard what Bardov said, and I got angry, but I shouldn't have.
I replayed it in my head, and I know now that he wasn't mocking us.
He sounded giddy, like a boy finding something precious that he thought was lost forever.
Something that was taken from all of you came back today, and he couldn't hold it in.
" Her voice dropped lower, steadier. "It's just that I forgot for a moment that we are never truly alone.
It hit me hard. It's complicated, but we will make it work.
We'll have to talk about what's yours and what's everyone's, but I didn't call about that. "
"You didn't?"
"No. I called to tell you that I love you."
The sound of the television faded, and Yaaf held his breath.
"I've said it to you before," she went on, before he could suck in air, "not properly, though. I attached reasons to it. I love you for this, and I love you for that, but this time I'm not attaching anything. I love you, Yaaf. All of you that there is, however much of you that turns out to be."
Yaaf sat on the small couch in the room that used to be a cell, with the television producing background noise, and for the second time in his life, Sullha's words floored him.
When he'd told her he loved her, he hadn't said it properly. It had been roundabout too.
"I love you, Sullha," he said. "No reasons. All of me that there is loves you with everything I have."
At the edge of his mind, seven minds tried to stay very still, holding the walls of his privacy with everything they had, and failing.