9. ~Kai~ #2
“Yet, necessary. And don’t let the angelic image fool you, she definitely enjoys the crude and dirty. To be honest, I didn’t realize how much she would go in for it until I pushed it a little and she responded very favorably.”
“Huh,” he said, trying to take it all in. “And, here I thought you blew in here intending to rip my head off—or try to.”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“It’s a good thing I responded more favorably than you’d predicted.”
The corner of my mouth turned up. “Indeed.”
“Out of curiosity, if this had actually gone a bad way, how exactly were you planning on putting me down and nullifying the threat you initially believed me to be?”
“There were several options available. One involved putting you on ice, so to speak.”
“Nothing can overpower my dragon fire for long.”
“There was also accessing Hellfire.”
“Damn. You’re fucking vicious.”
“And don’t you forget it.” I reached past him, brushing right against him, and I smiled to myself as his breath hitched.
I snatched up the scarf that Nyx had accidentally left behind, then stepped back with a smirk at his reaction that he’d been unable to hide toward me. “Interesting,” I said, before turning on my heel and sweeping out of the room.
I heard him grunting after me, knowing that he’d given me something he hadn’t wanted to at this stage.
This entire thing was definitely proving to be a thought-provoking development.
One I needed to keep a tight handle on, because Vorzyr Titanus was a wildcard.
I made my way down the corridor to my shared room with Nyx, and pushed open the door.
As I shut it behind me, I found him pacing up and down by the study area, tugging at his hair, in clear distress.
He spun at my entrance, his eyes wide. “About what you saw, Kai, I just—”
“I’m not upset.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’re not?”
“Did you get the relief that you needed?”
“I… I mean, yeah.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
“I don’t think it’s all that matters.”
I tossed him the scarf. “You left that behind.”
He fumbled to catch it. Given how incredibly agile and athletic that he was from his Incubus side, it really spoke to how nervous, out of sorts, and upset that he still was, despite my assurances.
“He and I have made peace.”
“You have? Just like that?”
“He makes a better ally than an enemy. And his intentions toward Ariana aren’t detrimental. In fact, they fall in line with mine—to an extent that I’m satisfied with, anyway.” At least, for now.
He frowned at me.
“What?”
“You’re all about controlling things to your liking. It’s a defense mechanism you developed because your whole life was mapped out for you by your parents and—”
“Refrain from the psychoanalyzing, and state your point instead.”
“Right, I almost forgot how much you hate that.”
“Impossible. You’re obviously pissed off at me. Is it because you misinterpreted me being pissed at you when I walked in on you getting your cock serviced by someone who was virtually an enemy to me at the time?”
“Wow… so it did bother you?”
“I told you that I’m not upset about it.”
“About the act itself, is what you mean. You’re talking around it like you usually do when feelings are too complicated or unsettling to you.”
“Stop reading my emotions.”
“You’re giving me no choice when you’re not being even close to transparent. Do you really want something like this festering between us?”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “It bothered me that you went to him when, at the time, we were on opposite sides. That you, my brother-in-arms, would go to an enemy of mine. But I also understand why you did it. You realized that he wasn’t impacted by your abilities, what he could give you, and that wasn’t something you could pass up.
I’d imagine that it was absolutely intoxicating. So incredibly freeing.”
“Did you really manipulate Ariana’s repression against her in order to get what you wanted from her?”
I started in surprise. “ That’s why you did it? That was a factor, too? Your faith was shaken in me at the time?”
“No. It is what threw me off track when I was dreamwalking with him, though.”
“He pointed that out to you.”
“He fed me a memory of what he’d overheard between you and her.”
“He’s good, I’ll give him that.”
“Kai, if that’s what you actually did—”
“Fuck, I had to!”
He jolted at my explosion.
It wasn’t exactly like me.
But things were… building up.
Not just this thing with him and the dragon. It was the fact that I’d gotten so close to reaching Ariana again, only for her to literally run from me, and then shut me down.
For her to let that fucking fear rule her and overcome everything for her again.
Only for me to fucking lose her to it once more.
I slammed my fist down on my bed. “The stakes are too high to allow anything to be off the table!”
He started shaking his head at me, pain and disappointment vying for top billing. “That’s definitely the wrong answer, Kai.”
“I know how personal it is to you because of your own issues when it comes to repression, but—”
“But nothing. This won’t end well. And joining forces with Vorzyr to get what you want, and whatever it is that he apparently wants from her… it’s fucking dangerous. All of this is. It’s fucking madness. You can’t control everything. And she falls into that category.”
“I don’t want to control her.”
“Then, what exactly is it? What’s at the root of this obsession that you have with her? You’ve never said and whenever I’ve brought it up, you’ve just shut me down or changed the subject like you always do when you get close to emotional vulnerability.”
“Stop.”
“I can read emotions, Kai, yet I’ve never been able to when it comes to your fixation with her.
You guard it so tightly. So possessively, actually.
You’re crushing on her, yet you also resent her?
I don’t understand that. And I wonder if you even do.
So, doing what you’re doing, something so despicable and extreme as using her fears of her own powers against her, I want a fucking answer, and I want to make damn sure you actually have one too.
” He stepped up to me, getting rarely aggressive, because this subject matter hit so deep for him.
“So fucking tell me. What the fuck do you want from her?”
“Everything!” I found myself yelling back.
“That’s not what you’re gonna get by approaching things this way!” he bit back at me just as fiercely.
“You don’t fucking know that!”
He stepped back, shaking his head again. “All you’re gonna do is cause a shitload of pain. For her and for you. And it looks like you’ll be taking me along for the ride as well. So think long and hard about it, all right? Reassess it all, at the very fucking least.”
Before I could get a word out, he pushed past me and stormed toward the door.
I spun. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t be around you right now. I need to process what you did.” He threw the door open. “And you should do the fucking same!”
He actually startled me as he used his magic then—from his sorcerer side that he hardly ever employed—and slammed the door shut with a bolt of his vibrant-blue fire, the force of it rattling the entire room.
“Fuck,” I gritted out, slumping down onto my bed. “Fucking shit.”