Chapter 7 Zayn
~Zayn~
It had been a long time since I’d set foot inside this place.
Hell, it felt like a lifetime ago.
But it was definitely a comfort that Glacialis Arx—the frost castle come to life—had remained the same welcoming, warm, and safe place it had been to me when I’d sought refuge here for a little while as a boy.
The floors in some spaces were marble, and in others, sleek gray stone, depending on the specific room.
The pale stone walls and the corridors were covered with pictures of the family in humorous or loving poses all throughout.
There was plush furniture in amethyst, ivory, forest-green, and soft blues.
The gothic arches framing the tall windows did the job of lighting the place in the daytime—or what was the artificial daytime inside this Rifted Cradle that was similar to a pocket dimension situation—while at night the crystal lights shaped like starlight hanging from the ceilings were turned on.
As I looked around Winter’s childhood bedroom, I took in the extras, the stuff that was all him.
The cobalt-blue cozy armchair over by the arched window, two of its legs resting on a purple and blue rug with a geometric pattern that was kind of like the one in their living room.
Beside it was a storage table that had one of his motorcycle helmets on top.
Just beyond that was a massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, which I knew he’d made hella good use of, given that his time outside in the world had been so limited before coming to Loxley Academy just a couple of months ago.
The shelves were full of fantasy and adventure books, research about real places in the world, even stuff about war and strategy.
That last thing was clearly Cassius’ influence, always with the bigger-picture eye on things.
Actually, that was also his grandpa, Remnant’s deal, come to think of it.
There were pieces of all of them in the room, parts Winter had taken and made his own.
Lazriel with the motorcycle thing, Cassius with the strategy stuff, Ketheron with the tourist-like books.
Then Velra with the little jewelry-making table over on the other side of the room where there were wire spools, metal hammers, pliers, gemstones, and scraps of metal.
But Winter had made it his own, in that he didn’t make jewelry, he twisted the wire into made-up magical creatures—wrongly-shaped things, like with two heads, or extra limbs, or strangely shaped fangs, tails growing from odd places.
Then he decorated them with gems and stuff.
He’d told me it was about taking something that seemed wrong and frightening and making it sparkly and beautiful.
My gaze went to his desk at the far end of the room opposite the bed and adjacent to the closed ensuite bathroom.
It had his journals on it. His feelings journals.
And some of the pages were pinned to a corkboard above, all charcoal drawings.
I’d heard that Sylas had been all about the charcoal drawings when he’d operated as a loner before meeting his loves.
But unlike him, Win didn’t consider technique or style, nothing like that.
He just found it faster and more therapeutic to swiftly and often roughly draw out his feelings into a picture rather than write them down.
And that connected to him spelling that painting into my dorm room, the one of me that would change magically depending on my emotional state—well, what I was shoving down and denying.
Like now.
Like what I was fucking trying to shove down now so I didn’t lose my shit all over the place about Win being kidnapped, hurt, and the offender still being free out there.
And… and… Win lying here tucked up in his bed unconscious.
Still.
Winter Nox.
He wasn’t just anybody.
Him being hurt in a way that actually managed to knock him out like this—for hours now—was no small thing.
He didn’t even look peaceful as he slept. There was a pained grimace on his face. Velra’s shadows swirled around him. And inside them on Win’s right side was Ketheron’s bear with the button eyes, Maximus. On his left side was Evira’s plush polar bear, Nuvri, that she’d brought from her dorm room.
So much comfort, but comfort he couldn’t feel right now. Or maybe he could feel the shadows aspect?
I rubbed my bracelet, my thumb brushing back and forth over the fuchsia worry stone.
“Zayn?”
I started at the sound of Vaxan’s firm whisper, and spun toward the door.
Fuck me. He was shirtless.
All that hard, defined muscle was on display. A pair of luxurious black silk pajama pants hung low on his hips, and he was even barefoot. His spiky black hair was all mussed too, and he wasn’t wearing his crown.
He’d been resting in the guest room down the hall after I’d called in Cassius when Evira and I had noticed he hadn’t been feeling well after channeling all that Celestial power from Ketheron earlier.
Cassius had done something to settle his system, as he’d called it. Vax had then come down for dinner where they’d included specific foods that his strict Basilisk diet allowed, but he’d dosed off halfway through. Evira, with her sexy dragon strength, had carried him to bed.
Dinner had finished up but everyone was down there talking and having calming herbal tea—and blood, where Remnant and Lazriel were concerned. But I’d excused myself to pop to the bathroom—really, I’d obviously come up here to check on Win.
Vaxan stepped across the threshold, power rolling off him again, indicating he was feeling better.
“Everyone’s downstairs still,” I told him.
He nodded.
Right, Basilisk senses and all.
Hold on. “Did I wake you up? You know, inadvertently?”
He got my meaning and shook his head. “No. I woke up on my own.” He came to me, sliding his hand to my cheek.
“You’re doing extraordinarily well. Your power isn’t flaring or anything of the sort.
” He smiled. “You can be upset without burying it. You know that now, remember? You’ve been opening up for the three of us and doing so safely.
What happened today was a lot to absorb, so if you do actually need to unleash some of that, we can venture outside to the grounds and you can let loose.
It’s safe to do so here. There’s no shame in it.
But, smoldering beauty, I really don’t think you require that sort of containment at this stage.
You’ve come a long way with your control and allowing yourself to express sentiment. ”
“You’re saying with me no longer burying it, it can’t build up to the point of a crazy-ass dangerous detonation?”
“Essentially,” he said, his eyes sparkling as I turned into his hand stroking my cheek.
That sparkle faded as his gaze fell on Win.
And I saw it then, concern mixed in with something else. Something that hurt.
He dropped his hand from me, then scrubbed it over his face, trying to wipe it away, I guess.
“He’ll get it,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“You tagging him. Yeah, it’s gonna come out, because it’s Win.
He knows his shit and he’ll realize there was no obvious known way to track him down earlier.
No way through with the usual three—magical signature, scent, blood.
So he’ll ask, and the vibrational tracking will come up—you kind of marking him in a way. But he’ll also—”
“He wants to be free and he’s already not.
Something he is acutely aware of. Not with circumstances being what they were even before this deplorable development with Ruxnoth.
He was infected by that dangerous opportunist, and even though we don’t know of the precise details at this point, with the state of him, it strongly points toward him being violated in some manner during his captivity.
Then, to find out I tagged him without his knowledge or permission…
how on earth could that be understood, let alone accepted by him? ”
I frowned. He really was distressed if he couldn’t recognize the reason—or reasons. He was the insanely perceptive one, so attuned to everything.
“The reason you did it,” I told him.
“Yes, because I clearly couldn’t overcome my animal instincts, my territorial nature.”
“That’s not at the heart of why you did it.”
“What are you driving at?”
Wow. I grasped his biceps. No, not the biceps… too enticing.
I shifted to his upper arms and firmed up my grip, needing him to hear me, especially when his attention kept darting to Winter in his upset.
“You did it out of protection. Out of love, if we’re getting technical.
And not just you clearly actually loving Win—even though it’s probably too early for you to admit it even to yourself—but love for him as a person independent of your own feelings being pushed on that.
The purity of that without expectations and wants on your end, I guess is what I’m trying to say.
It’s also clearly a reaction to him taking off before and it scaring the shit out of you when you couldn’t find him when he was in such a state.
” I tilted my head, my lips quirking. “Also, don’t forget that Win is a territorial fucker too.
He’s even admitted that it can cross into obsession.
Hell, I’ve been on the receiving end of it, remember? So, yeah, he’ll get it.”
Vaxan stared at me for several long moments as I just held him there, thinking he was trying to absorb what I’d said, let go of all that worry and guilt about this.
But when he finally spoke, I realized it was more than that.
“I’m duly impressed.”
“Impressed?”
“That was deep insight.” He smiled. “And deep care.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Well, you know I’ve been working on it.”
He winked, then abruptly stilled, his serpentine eyes coming to the forefront for a couple of seconds. “We should head back downstairs. They’re starting to wonder why you’ve been gone for so long just for an apparent quick trip to the bathroom.”