Chapter 4 Vaxan #3
Looking just to the right of Winter, I took in the pathetic scene unfolding beside one of the alcoves.
And, yes, it involved Zayn Riene.
His pink fire was blazing forth as he battled against an icy blue-gray stream being fired forth by Keuric Glastor.
I’d been paying attention to my surroundings while I’d been interacting with Winter, something that had been driven into me deeply because I came from a species that had been persecuted for centuries.
Through that, I’d listened in and out with my supernatural hearing and determined that Keuric didn’t like that Zayn was garnering the majority of the attention, apparently used to being the one whom that was lavished upon.
That ridiculous egomaniacal tension had now culminated in this.
I saw Evira make a move to intervene, breaking from the circle of powerful women surrounding her who she’d been enjoying herself with—the vampire couple, four Light Fae, a wolf, and even that Celestial who had accompanied Winter here. She called out for Keuric to calm himself.
Actually, to “cool off”, which was rather amusing coming from one ice dragon to another.
I heard a grunt from Winter, then saw him now turned toward the situation, about to move off his stool to see to it.
I grasped his hand on the bar top, stilling him. “Stay your hand.”
“I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can. It’s not your responsibility to rescue the Ifrit.” I gave a shake of my head. “As much as he’s clearly come to rely on that.”
“Vaxan—”
I tightened my hold on him. “Heed my words, little death. This needs to be done.”
His eyes sparkled at the endearment that had slipped from me. Uncanny… things didn’t just slip from me; I calculated and planned everything.
He sank back onto his stool. Yet, he noticeably didn’t pull his hand from mine. In fact, he kept looking between the violence transpiring and where we were joined.
We observed as Evira strode into the fray.
The moment that happened, I had to tighten my hold on him further and I could see the strain for him to remain on the sidelines with the added presence of her.
I had been correct about his affections for the ice dragon also, then. A great deal was muted there, so it had been much more difficult to discern. They had both erected protective walls to conceal it, which made a great deal of sense given the way dragonkind saw death-touched beings.
Unlike Zayn, though, the dragon princess didn’t mean Winter any emotional harm, nor was she continually teasing and tormenting him, so I bore her no ill will. There was also the fact that she was… magnificent.
However, as she fired a blast of her frost through the colliding streams of Zayn and Keuric, which weakened both for a moment, she hesitated when she should have followed through.
Keuric made a despicable derogatory comment toward her that was extremely personal and sexual in nature that served to intensify that hesitation.
It actually had Zayn reacting on her behalf, surprisingly taking offense for her.
And then the situation worsened.
I saw others gathering, some willing the fight on, others moving to intervene.
We were in a cavern beneath the earth. As a being very familiar with that living situation, I understood well what the damage of further magical interference in an already volatile magical battle could do. Burying us all alive, for one.
I twisted my fingers, my citrine magic sparking on my fingertips.
Then I flicked it at the fools in question.
The moment it hit, it froze them both in a state of mild petrification.
It also froze their streams, and I actually took it further, forcing my power into the magic, targeting its lifeforce and fully petrifying it, turning it to stone.
Then, with another flick of my power, I crushed that stone to ash, which then littered the cavern floor.
I released Zayn and Keuric in the next moment, and then many students were between them urging them away from one another to opposite sides of the space.
Eyes were drawn toward me.
Not surprising, seeing as though I was the only Basilisk attending this academy.
Awe collided with fear.
Good. That boded well.
I snuffed out my magic, then turned fully back to Winter.
His eyes were wide as he stared at me, mouth slightly agape.
“Well, that was impressive. Swift, precise, and with absolutely no mess.”
“Naturally,” I said, grinning at him.
He laughed one of his beautiful laughs again.
We were about to settle back into our conversation when a hurried approach caught my attention.
Zayn was there in the next moment standing before us, glaring at me, then gazing at Winter with desperation.
He laid his hand on Winter’s shoulder and lowered his voice. He was in such a state that he failed to enact an auditory reduction spell. Lowering his voice wouldn’t do much of anything in a space filled with supernatural beings, many of whom possessed enhanced hearing capabilities.
“I need you. Right fucking now. Outside, babe?”
Winter ground his jaw. “No.”
“It’ll be whatever you want.” He whispered in his ear, “On my knees for you, taking it anywhere, Win.”
Winter hesitated.
I rose from my stool and came around to his other side. As I laid my hand on his shoulder, he craned his neck to look up at me in surprise.
I kept my hand there and stared out steadily at Zayn. “We were engrossed in conversation. Your interruption isn’t appreciated.”
Zayn’s eyes flashed. “I don’t give a fuck. I’m talking to Winter, not you. It’s not your business.”
“Seeing as though Winter has already agreed to play with me tonight, it very much is my business, rageling.”
“Rageling? What the—” He eyed Winter incredulously. “Is this true? You’re hooking up with this new guy?”
“Why not?” I cut in. “I believe you’ve hit double digits in the last five days alone.”
He jolted. “You’ve been watching me, creeper?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Zayn’s eyes blazed in fury at me.
I narrowed mine, bringing the serpentine element to the surface, while I also had my citrine magic flame.
He sucked in a breath. “Winter?”
Winter looked from me to Zayn.
Then he grasped my hand on him, holding me to him. “Go,” he told Zayn. “Find somebody else to use. I have company for the night.”
“To use? That’s not what… I didn’t mean for it to… I don’t…”
“Come to think of it, we’ll go,” I said, guiding Winter up with me. “This event has lost its luster.”
And then we left Zayn staring after us as I wrapped my arm around Winter and strode us out of the venue.
“That wasn’t merely performance, beautiful,” I breathed at Winter’s ear.
He turned to me, eyes shining. “Message definitely received.” He grinned excitedly. “My place or yours?”
My back hit the wall of my dorm suite.
Winter pushed against me, his bulk and height dwarfing mine as he slapped his palms down either side of my head, then licked along my clean-shaven jawline.
The sensation was truly mesmerizing as his sandalwood scent infused me.
As was the feel of him crowding me.
It should have technically been interpreted as a move of threatening dominance, given the positioning, but it wasn’t with him and his gentle nature. Instead, it was his hunger inundating me and colliding with mine.
I only just barely had the wherewithal to snap my fingers and send a spark of my citrine magic at the door to seal it shut.
Movement outside in the corridor drew my attention and I smiled inwardly when I managed to discern the source. It wasn’t difficult to do even in my distracted and rather discombobulated state, because the rage coming off the voyeuristic culprit was so stark that it easily gave him away.
And it was that rage and his despicable sense of entitlement that had me considering forgoing re-erecting the privacy ward around the room.
“Winter… the privacy ward is down and—”
He licked my jawline again, sending a shock of the most incredible freezer burn sensation through me. “I don’t care.”
Had he felt the interloper too? He didn’t possess animal sensing like me, but he could feel familiar magic.
I frowned. “You’re certain?”
“Yeah.” A sweet little smirk pulled at his lips. “You?”
“Fine with me.”
Let him hear.
Let him know.
Let him feel in his bones what his deplorable behavior toward Winter had cost him.
“Do it again,” Winter breathed against my throat, a soothing coolness bathing my skin as little puffs of his frost were expelled as his need briefly commandeered his supreme control. It was absolutely invigorating.
I gazed up at him, feeling my eyes hooding, and morphing to their serpentine form in shape and also color, the usual gray giving way to a yellowy-green.
I was rewarded with awe and intrigue.
However, that wasn’t what he’d asked for.
I grasped his hands pressed to the wall either side of my head and called my scales forth.
A delighted sound escaped him as he took in the black snake scales laced with glowing citrine veins that formed a pattern reminiscent of a cobra’s markings.
He turned his hands and ran his fingers all over them, surprised once again at the fact that they were actually smooth to the touch, yet also capable of withstanding a great deal of damage.
I’d called them to my right hand as we’d emerged from The Caverns and grasped his hand to teleport us to my dorm suite, because I’d needed to test his reaction to them—I’d needed to make it clear what he would be dealing with.
He already knew of my petrification ability and my venom, but this was lesser known, and one such ability like those other two that could be viewed as unappetizing.
But not only hadn’t he been put off, he’d been rather taken with it.
As he was further demonstrating now.
“Oh, yeah,” he uttered on a highly aroused breath. “So incredible.”
I freed my right hand from his grip and reached out, running my thumb over his bottom lip. As a little groan escaped him, I exerted more pressure, enjoying the cooling sensation of his soft skin against my currently scaled pad. He opened his mouth and I pushed inside, stroking over his tongue.