Chapter 3 #2
“Does anybody want to tell me why there are no stars in the sky?” Iyana asked weakly.
Zane and Emmeric glanced at each other. He had seen the stars streaking across the sky until it was empty, but Talon had taken most of his attention.
Now, though, with Tal breathing, he was free to think about what it meant that all the stars had fallen.
But he still didn’t understand what Altair had done to Iyana.
The star had obviously betrayed them all, and he could only imagine how Iyana was feeling about the entire situation.
What in the nine hells had he missed while he’d been with his father?
He didn’t even remember how long Uther had detained him for; how long he had to withstand the former emperor’s special brand of attention.
Zane pushed thoughts of those days out of his head; there was too much directly in front of him that needed to be dealt with.
It could be stored with the rest of his trauma for the time being.
“Let’s just get to the ship first, Mouse,” Emmeric said. “There are some things Zane needs to know, and you should rest first.”
“I don’t need to rest. And put me down, Em, I can walk.”
“You absolutely cannot,” he replied sternly. Then, softer, he said, “Close your eyes, Mouse. I’ve got you.”
Iyana muttered something underneath her breath, to which Emmeric only chuckled and told her again to close her eyes. This time, the Aztia listened, falling asleep mere seconds after her eyelids had fluttered shut.
Talon still lay on Kaz’s leopard form. They were able to convince him to wrap his arms around her neck, and he hadn’t let go since.
At some point, the panic on his face had dimmed, but his blinking was still slow, and he had not yet said anything.
Zane was trying to not let it concern him, but he was failing. Badly.
When they finally made it to the shore, the moon had begun its descent, and dawn was visible on the horizon.
Uther’s ship was in a flurry of movements, the crew shouting orders at each other.
The noise was so incongruous with the Dead Lands—a place with no sound, no smell, no life—that Zane wanted to tell them all to be quiet.
The new emperor was impressed, though, when none of them balked as a large leopard with a man on its back walked up the gangplank.
Kaz confidently lead them across the deck, down a set of stairs, and through a maze of wooden corridors, eventually pawing at a pair of double doors with ornate gold handles.
The cries of the crew above them were muffled.
Zane hauled open the doors and instantly realized this was his father’s personal room.
In his mind, Zane had once likened Emperor Uther to a dragon jealously guarding its hoard of treasure, and this room was no different.
The first thing he noticed was the obscene amount of gold that adorned the walls in the form of sconces and gilded decorations.
The posts of the large four-poster bed were most likely solid gold, too, with intricate, hand-carved details on each one.
Zane knew if he were to inspect it closely, it would match the throne back in Athusia.
The bar cart, the glasses, the gauzy curtains—hells, even the mantel over the hearth—were all made of gold.
The amount of wealth shoved into this one room made him nauseous, and he was sure the attached bathing room contained more of the same.
A silent rage built inside Zane, his hands clenched into fists, and his entire body began to shake until he saw a bright flash of light and he realized that human Kaz was struggling to keep Talon upright.
Zane launched into motion, helping the shifter get him situated in an overstuffed wingback chair.
Brushing Tal’s red hair back from his face, Zane saw his blue eyes were still dull and unseeing.
Zane sighed. He turned to see Emmeric placing a still-sleeping Iyana onto the bed and drawing the blanket over her. The Kanaliza looked towards Kaz.
“How did you secure the ship?” he asked her.
“I introduced myself as the crown princess of Nyr and commandeered it for my kingdom. Don’t worry, Your Majesty—I’ll return it to you.”
Zane couldn’t care less about who owned the ship. “And they just…let you do that?” he asked. It couldn’t have been as easy as simply asking for it. Did nobody question where Uther was?
“Well, the captain was arguing with me, but I took care of it by biting him.”
“Gods, is he okay?”
“Of course he is. I used my human teeth. And my hands. And my—”
“We get it, Kaz,” Emmeric interrupted. She pouted, but then threw a mischievous wink to Zane. Em rolled his eyes at the shifter’s antics.
“Where are my father’s men? The ones who ran off?”
“Where they belong,” Kaz said, frowning, an expression of pure murderous intent crossing over her face. “Down in the brig. I’ll let you decide what to do with them.”
They all staggered forward as the boat left the shore. Zane wouldn’t breathe easy until his feet were back on Arinem soil. He was only too happy to be leaving the Dead Lands behind. Glancing towards Talon, he said, “I should have them all thrown overboard.”
Emmeric followed his gaze. “We all know that’s Uther talking. Tal wouldn’t want you to do that.”
“Don’t talk about him like he’s gone,” Zane snarled.
Em raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not, Zane. He’s right there. We all see him, he’s okay…” Maybe physically, but what about his state of mind? “He just can’t speak for himself at the moment, and I know he would not want you to exact justice that way.”
And, suddenly, it was too much. Everything his life had become. The loss of his mother, of his childhood, of Jax. The deaths of Geoff and Gordon. The days or weeks of torture he’d endured to attempt to keep his friends safe.
Everything he’d done his entire life had been to keep himself alive.
Then he’d met Talon, this gorgeous, wonderful man who retched every time he was forced to take a life.
Who hated losing at poker. Who put his friends above himself.
Who had started to teach Zane there was more to life than simply surviving.
It was why he threw himself at his father in front of the library—he wanted a better world, a safer world, for himself and his newfound friends, and he was finally willing to conquer his fears to achieve that goal.
Now, that man who was once full of life sat listlessly on a chair, staring at nothing.
If Uther hadn’t been such a tyrant hells-bent on ruling the continent, then Iyana’s village would have never been attacked.
She wouldn’t have called down Altair for aid, she would have never met Emmeric, and then Talon never would have been caught up in this crazy mess.
Talon wouldn’t have died. He wouldn’t have had to make the impossible decision of staying in the paradise of the Everlands or coming back into the hellscape their world had become.
Sure, Zane may have never said more than two words to the man, never known what his laugh sounded like or how his lips tasted, but he would have been safe.
He would have still been alive, in body and in spirit.
He wouldn’t be sitting on a ship leaving the Dead Lands.
With a scream of despair, Zane tipped over the bar cart, sending bottles flying, glass and alcohol spraying through the air.
He tore down a sconce from the wall and flung it across the room into the hearth.
There was shouting around him. Someone tried to pin down his arms, but he broke free, ripping the gaudy wallpaper away from the walls.
Next, he took a glass knick-knack of some kind and threw it against the bared wood, delighting in the pinpricks of pain from the shards breaking into his skin.
There was a rushing sound in his ears. He wouldn’t stop until this entire room had been destroyed.
His father was the cause of all his misfortune, and since he was unable to kill him on the battlefield, Zane would do the next best thing and ruin everything the emperor had loved more than his own son.
But then calloused hands were gripping his face. The scent of oranges and spiced rum finally broke through Zane’s all-consuming rage. That smell was home.
“Zane, my heart,” Talon whispered. “Stop.”
Emerald-green eyes met warm blue ones that were finally, finally, looking at him instead of through him.
A sob lodged in Zane’s throat, and a tear broke free to streak down his cheek.
Tal wiped it away with his thumb, then pressed their brows together.
Zane gripped his shirt tight, refusing to let him go. Not now that he was up and talking.
“I’m here, Zane. I heard you. I came back for you, and I won’t ever leave you again.”
“You promised me that once before, and then you left me, anyway. You died, Talon. You—” The words stuck in his throat.
He did not want to acknowledge that his man had ever been ripped away from him, and wished instead to live within the delusion that it had never happened.
But that was impossible. Not after he’d held Talon’s broken body in his arms, the image of another dead lover superimposed on top of him. “You died,” he whispered.
“I know. I know, Zane. Gods, I’m so sorry.
” Talon pressed a kiss to his brow, then pulled him in close.
Zane clutched onto him. He knew it was wrong for Talon to be comforting him in this moment, but he couldn’t change the way he was suffering, just as he couldn’t change the past. So instead, he absorbed the warmth from this living man—although he could still feel how cold and clammy his skin had been not that long ago—and he wept.