Chapter 22 #3
I glanced sideways at him. Did it really heal?
My treacherous mind started spinning a thousand theories, and I wondered if she was someone here in Interion.
I was itching to know, but I preferred to stay in the dark.
It could be someone I already knew, and then I wouldn’t be able to act normally.
How would I act knowing Zion had already slept with her?
I felt my cheeks flush. This jealousy was completely irrational.
“When I kissed Aish and Hiro, it wasn’t because I wanted them or because I liked them romantically,” I explained. “I just wanted to experiment. I didn’t know what a kiss was like.”
Awkwardly, I stared at my hands and took a bite of pizza. He didn’t seem to know what to say either. Nervousness hit me like a truck, and I started swinging my legs.
“Did you like it?”
I choked on my food and coughed to clear my throat.
“Do you really want to know?”
He seemed uncomfortable. I could almost hear his thoughts screaming about how crazy that had driven him, but Zion swallowed his feelings, as he always did with anything that might expose his true self.
“Yes. I can’t give you those experiences as your partner. So I at least want to hear about them.”
I crossed my legs on the couch and turned to face him. We were so close that if I reached out, I could touch his cheek—yet somehow, he still felt far away.
“You can’t or you don’t want to?”
And there we were, both facing the question that would make all the difference.
I had spent five years waiting for this, and whatever the answer, it would leave my heart satisfied.
Being ignored was worse than being rejected.
With the first, you just imagine the situation and drive yourself crazy wondering why.
With the second, you know—and that certainty gives you the power to decide how to deal with it.
Zion sighed and looked me in the eyes. Then, slowly, he reached out and touched my hand, resting our hands on my thigh.
He held my fingers, caressing my skin with his thumb, and the touch made my heart skip a few beats.
This time, I couldn’t even blame the damn biological compatibility—it was dormant.
“I can’t,” he forced out, as if purging something that had been lodged in his throat.
My eyes widened. If he couldn’t, it meant he wanted to—and maybe my idiot heart wasn’t ready for that confession, because now it was swelling with so much hope it might burst out of my chest. “Okay,” I thought, composing myself enough to analyze the situation as a whole.
He couldn’t, and that meant there was a problem.
“Why can't you? Does it have to do with your ex-girlfriend?”
He let out a humorless laugh.
“No. That's far from the truth. I can't—” He seemed to choke on the words, then tried again, but his voice failed. Zion took a deep breath, his face flushed. “I can't talk about it, Kyller.”
I didn't understand what was happening, but he looked like he was in pain. I wondered if it might be some kind of trauma.
“It's okay.” This was a difficult subject in our relationship—I felt like I was walking through a minefield.
One wrong step and all the progress we'd made today would go up in smoke.
“I wish I could know all the whys, the limits, the subtext, but knowing it's because you can't is better than thinking I'm being rejected.”
His expression shifted from neutral and distant to uncomfortable.
“I'm sorry for being a shitty partner,” he said, looking at our hands.
“I... can't tell you a lot of things, and besides the problem with the bond, I've got years of military service behind me, Kyller.
Years of death, state secrets, and information that would put your life and others' lives in danger.
I need to keep all of that locked in my head, and with the bond, that's impossible.
I don't want to drag you into the middle of this... problem.” He let me absorb the words.
“It's not about you—the problem is that I simply... can't.”
I saw the pain in his eyes, but looking past it—past the guilt—I understood this wasn't a personal choice.
It was duty. Zion was, above all, a general; his soul had been shaped and forged for this.
My only question was whether living that way was really worth it.
Still, I couldn't shake the splinter lodged in my chest. Why didn't he just tell me?
Why keep up this mystery for five years?
If he had some kind of trauma, he just had to say so—I deserved to know.
I felt hurt by it. It was as if he only saw his own pain, his own problems, as if he didn't see me in his life.
And I realized something else: if what he was telling me now was true, Zion had lied that day at the military academy, making it seem like I was the problem—that because it was me, he wouldn't tie the bond.
“That day at the academy...” I began, but he cut me off. As if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he did—after all, the bond was there regardless.
“I was trying to push you away.” His eyes seemed to hold an apology and a certain degree of shame.
“I understand,” I murmured, pulling my hand from his.
I stood up and collected the plates. He watched me intently, and the silence began to weigh on us both. I cleared my throat and answered his earlier question:
“The kiss was good.”
I started organizing the kitchen to give my hands something to do.
I felt bad about the academy situation—I'd been a wreck for weeks after that argument, and now he was just saying it wasn't true.
Still, I swallowed my wounded pride, wondering where all these unspoken words I kept locked inside would go.
Zion got up and came to help me.
“Just 'good'? What else?” He flashed that crooked smile—that damned crooked smile.
“I was drunk and don't remember it that well, but it was good—a first kiss that tasted like vodka,” I insisted, sticking to my answer.
The truth was, the kiss was good, but a simple smile from Zion did more to my body than Hiro and Aish's kisses combined.
“No fireworks? Racing heart, or even butterflies in your stomach?” He tried to study my face, and I avoided his gaze. It was irrational, but I was afraid he'd see the truth in my eyes.
“None of that—just some lunatic pounding on the bond and stealing my attention.”
“I'm heartbroken about ruining your first kiss,” he mocked, drying the plates as I set them in the dish rack.
“At 287 years old, shouldn't you know how to control your jealousy by now?”
“It's not jealousy.”
“Then what should we call it? Territorialism? Inability to think straight? Lustful fury? Emotional instability?” I ticked them off on my fingers, mocking him.
“Call it whatever you want, but it's not jealousy.”
I let myself laugh and felt the blood flowing faster. Zion seemed to notice the metallic smell in the air but played it off.
“It is jealousy,” I retorted.
“And what adjectives should we use to describe your training with Adele?” he asked with a smug smile. “Or do you prefer to call that jealousy too?”
I stared at him, jaw dropped, then raised an eyebrow and tried to hold back my laughter as I replied:
“Touché!” I watched his smile grow even wider at my admission, then spoke again.
“At least I don't lie to myself—I own my basic partner instincts,” I shot back while wiping down the table.
I hadn't even planned to clean the house, but I didn't want to go upstairs to the bedroom and be alone.
His company was like a juicy steak to a starving lion, and I'd keep cleaning just to have an excuse to stay by his side.
“I could hardly believe it when you sent us to the ring. I thought you were bluffing.”
“I told you I never bluff. But that specific day, I was confirming my suspicions.”
“What suspicions?” I asked, afraid to know what his cruel mind was scheming.
Then he turned to me, and I knew from the look in his eyes that it certainly wouldn't be anything good.
“In most training sessions, you don't even try. You don't fight badly because you lack skill—it's because you don't want to fight.”
Zion crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter. Remember that truce we had? It was probably being shattered at that very moment, and now there was no point hiding the obvious. I considered it a miracle he hadn't given me this lecture sooner.
“Why should I try? If I score well on the practical exam, the board will send me outside the walls as a military medic.
I don't want that. I can just be mediocre at combat and excellent at healing.
I looked at Ambrose and Lorenzo's grades when they joined the hospital—they were excellent with their gift and hopeless with a sword.”
Zion took a deep breath, clearly trying to stay calm. Instinctively, I braced myself for the lecture. It was only a matter of time before he started in on me.
“Lorenzo and Ambrose, unlike you, are Interians who will never be attacked on the street because of xenophobia.
Forget about the hospital and academy—focus on what's best for you,” he began.
“You can be good and pretend you're not during the military tests.
Unlike the old trainer, I won't report your progress to the board, but in the meantime, learn everything you can. Last night...” He paused, probably searching for the right words.
“Last night you almost died. If you'd been properly prepared, you could have fought them off.”
“There were five of them, and I'm just a healer. There was nothing I could have done.”