Chapter 7 Zayn #3
I wanted to ask him what had happened with Ruxnoth, what had been done to him.
I needed to know. How could I act in the right way without that?
What if I said or did something that made things worse for him?
But the fact he’d cut me off when he’d first walked in, and even erected a spell to ensure nobody outside this room would clock him being awake made it clear he was avoiding doing that. Like, actively. At least for right now.
He sidled closer and turned into me so he was pushing right up against me, all that softness from his robe and fuzzy pajama pants brushing against my bare legs and arms, and slamming all my focus to the sensation of it.
“Winter?” I uttered, my voice coming out kind of raspy.
He moved closer still. “I need you.”
He was killing me.
It was taking me a shit-ton of effort not to reach out and touch him as it was, to not even take his hand, cup his cheek, offer any physical comfort, because I didn’t know if something awfully physical had been pushed upon him by that demented True Celestial.
I mean, something must have. To keep Winter Nox anywhere against his will would mean powerful restraints. That was bad enough, but if anything else had… if it had gone beyond that… urgh, just the thought of it made me sick to my stomach.
I cleared my throat and eased back a bit as I said, “Anything. Just tell me what I can do to help, to make you feel better.”
He grasped my hand, urging me back to him, not wanting the distance.
“I’m… I’m cold.”
I frowned. “Cold? I don’t—”
“Like… an unbearable emptiness. A void. It feels like… like I’m… more defective and deficient than usual. And… and it… it hurts.”
Fuck it. I had to ask. I fucking had to now. “What did he do to you?”
He snatched his hand back.
“Win?”
He turned his head and sucked in a shuddering breath, before shifting back to me and imploring, “I just need you—your help.” His gaze dipped to my hands. “Your Ifrit flame.”
“You want the connection?” With somebody who wasn’t that fucked-in-the-head True Celestial.
“I need to stabilize before they wake up, before they see me like this and it worsens their panic, which is no doubt already through the roof. It’s gonna be touch and go as to whether they’ll lock me down in this house again as it is.
I can’t push that over the edge. I need to be fine by the time morning comes and they’re all awake. ”
“Win, you don’t fucking need to be fine. You don’t. People don’t just suddenly snap back or get over shit like what happened to you. And that’s okay. It’s part of—”
“It’s not okay, though. Not for me. Never for me.”
“What do you—”
“The world around me doesn’t allow for that.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I can’t be seen as unstable. In any way whatsoever.”
Shit. “Win—”
“Please, Z. Just help me with this.”
“Okay. It’s okay,” I said softly.
I tucked my legs under me, then moved up close and eased his double robes open, baring his hella muscular chest beneath.
His breath hitched, and I blinked his anticipatory reaction away, forcing myself to focus as I pressed my palms to his skin.
Averting my eyes at the intensity coming off him went to hell in the next second when he grasped my biceps for grounding.
What it did to me… I couldn’t allow myself to acknowledge it too deeply right now, or it could mess with my focus.
Him needing me like this was already doing a shitload to me as it was.
I sucked in a steadying breath and carefully called my fuchsia flame.
He hissed as it sparked into being, emanating from my palms against his bare skin.
His eyes rolled back in his head.
But he didn’t push back with his Wraith frost.
He didn’t counter.
Didn’t balance.
“Win,” I pressed. “Now. It needs to be now or I’ll damage you.”
He stared back at me. “I’m fine.”
“What?”
“Keep going,” he insisted, grinding his jaw. Against the heat—or a rush of sensation as he would register it—I was inundating his body with, his body that he was leaving unprotected, even as my flame spread outward beyond his chest, up his collarbone, to his arms.
“It’s gonna burn you. I’m talking tissue damage, Win.” He fucking knew that.
“Don’t… care. Don’t stop… please.”
He went to grab my hands to anchor them to his chest, but I jerked back, breaking contact.
I grimaced as he let out a pained cry, tears swimming in his eyes.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he choked out, scrubbing his hand over his face.
“It’s all right.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “No. It’s really not.”
“Did it help at least? Or are you hurt? Shit, or both?”
“I’m already healing.”
So it had hurt him, then.
I swallowed down the distress of that—and a lecture. Now really wasn’t the time.
He wasn’t… right.
And in the next few moments, he started shuddering again, revealing it hadn’t even at least helped. So he’d just sustained that damage for nothing.
I hated this.
I hated seeing him like this.
Distressed. Desperate. Pained.
“Feed from me, Win.”
He jolted. “You can see I’m not fully stable… emotionally either. Mentally. Using your fire is one thing. It’s in your control. Feeding, though, that’s on me.”
“I get it. And I’m still telling you to go right on ahead if you think that will help.”
“Z, what if I go too far?”
“You won’t.”
“We don’t know that.”
I reached out and fingered his soft dark hair. “I do. I know you. In bad times and good. In calm and in your obsessive states. In solid judgment and fucked-up judgment. In joy and pain.” I winced. “In passion and heartbreak.”
His eyes swam with more emotion.
He grasped my hand on him, stroking my fingers softly.
“What if this doesn’t even help either, what if the risk is for nothing. What if nothing will?”
Nothing will.
Those words had an unsavory memory slamming into me, and forcing itself to the forefront.
“You cast me aside. Repeatedly. Even that last time we spent together. Then when I got here, you made a show of putting your hands all over your lovers in front of me and demonstrating just how open for business you are.”
“I did that last part because you didn’t even acknowledge me when you got here!”
“You… are you a child?”
“I’m a year older than you. But… yeah… you know I’m not perfect.”
“Well, I guess that absolves you of everything then, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not what I’m saying or—argh!”
“Yes. Please go right on ahead, Z. Fly into a rage. That will most definitely help this discussion along.”
“I’m not flying into a rage. But while we’re on that track, your sarcasm isn’t exactly gonna help either.”
“Nothing will.”
I blinked back to see him inching closer.
I’d failed him before. I’d failed him so many times until I’d finally gotten a clue recently.
I wouldn’t let him down again.
“There’s no such thing as ‘nothing will’. I’ll never accept that.”
His eyes shone and I saw him register my deeper meaning.
Then with a spark of my magic, I sliced open the right side of my neck, drawing a deep enough wound for him to work with.
“Drink, sweetest thing.” I pulled a Vax and winked at him. “I told you, didn’t I? I’m here now. I’m fucking here with you now.”
He wiped his eyes. Roughly, like he was pissed that he was in this state.
Of course he was. He felt like he had to be perfect, present himself like a fucking infallible being. Not possible. For anyone or anything.
I tilted my head, giving him better access.
And then he grasped my shoulder and leaned in.
His frost breath whispered over my skin, making the open wound tingle.
His tongue darted out, licking the blood I could feel dripping down to my shoulder, and an involuntary gasp escaped me.
His mouth was on me in the next moment.
He began the draw, slow and easy like usual.
I dug my fingers into the couch cushion as pain and pleasure collided in one fuck of a head-spinning crash.
No. Hold it together. It’s just about the blood. Lifeblood as he called it.
Moans and groans started spilling from him, and I could feel the vibration of it rolling through me.
He drew harder, his free hand sliding into my hair and fisting.
Usually he’d let up a little and sink into it.
That didn’t happen this time.
He went harder, deeper.
A massive head rush assaulted me.
And then he was on me, straddling me on the couch.
He started grinding against me. In this situation it didn’t exactly take long for me to get hard as a fucking rock.
No. Get a grip. He’s not right.
I snagged his hips, stilling him, and it was enough to settle him.
His hand in my hair shifted to my nape and he cradled my head against him, as he let up with the aggressiveness of the feed, slowing.
The head rush was becoming too intense, meaning there’d been too much blood loss to allow him to continue much longer without causing me damage.
And while I’d take it for him, he wouldn’t do well with that.
It would add guilt and shame into the mix.
He was already dealing with a fuck-ton as it was. Clearly.
“Enough. Ease off now.”
He grunted and resisted.
“Winter. Now.”
He stilled, but didn’t ease back.
I slapped his back.
The contact grounded him and he pulled back.
Although, I didn’t like what I was seeing in the next second as he did.
His eyes were glazed.
Not in that slight just-fed way I’d seen from him before.
It was different this time. Like he was… high? Deeply fucking high.
Shit. This had been about more than I’d realized for him.
Maybe more than he’d realized.
He registered my concern and hastily climbed off me and sank down on the couch beside me, while I remained there prone, trying to blink away the head rush.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I croaked.
“What if it’s not?”
“That’s not an option and you know it.”
“Z?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“No worries.”
“It was hard to stop. I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect it and—”
“It’s me, Win. I don’t need an apology. I know you. Inside and out. It was out of your control in that moment, I get it. And yet, you still stopped. Keep that in mind.”
He slipped into quiet then at the same time as I closed my eyes for a few moments.
“You know what Vax says… we’ll see to it.
And that sexy know-it-all is pretty much always right when he puts that out there.
He thinks the same thing about all this surrounding us now.
And remember, you’re not alone in this. You just…
please stop operating that way. You promised us.
Please don’t let this undo that, yeah? The four of us are together on this. On every fucking thing going forward.”
I waited, but there was no answer.
I forced my eyes open with some struggle, and peered out through blurry vision to see Winter slumped against the couch.
Sound asleep.
He was no longer shuddering.
He didn’t have that grimace on his face that I’d seen all over him when he’d been asleep earlier.
The feed had worked.
I smiled and reached for one of the throws and haphazardly in my out-of-it state, managed to drape it over him.
Then I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you. You know that?” I whispered. “Fucking love you, Win.”