Chapter 17 #2
Too late, we heard the light footsteps and the plunk of wood on the floor outside our door.
“Guess what, y’all—” Ash flung the door open and took a step inside, but froze with a comical look of horror on his face. Silence hung in the air for a solid five seconds, then all three of us sprang into action.
Yelping like he had been burned, Ashkade retreated as fast as he could, slamming the door behind him.
“Fucking hell,” Reiven growled. He leaped out of the bed and nearly stumbled in his haste while I fixed my nightdress.
There was nothing to do about the purplish marks on my neck and chest, though.
“Ashkade Taleus Synnex, don’t you dare go anywhere!
” Rei shouted, storming out the door to drag a whimpering Ash back inside by the collar.
He slammed him against the wall. “This is why I told you to knock, you shrimpy ditz!”
“Because y’all are doin’ that? I-I mean, I didn’t see anythin’!
” Ash hurried to correct himself at the rough shake to his shoulders.
He threw me a look, and I couldn’t interpret if he was begging me to intervene, or just plain scarred for life.
“I gotta go burn my eyes out so I can never see anythin’ again. ”
Scarred for life, it is.
Rei scowled. “Look, we were just—”
“I don’t wanna know!”
“Zephra, tell him!”
Tell him what, that we absolutely weren’t sleeping together? Because while we technically weren’t, if things had gone longer…
“We weren’t having sex.”
Ashkade yelled incoherently, as if that might stop him from having to hear me. “Now my ears are bleedin’ too! Make it stop, lemme go, please!” He tried to slink out of Rei’s grip, but his bodyguard was far too strong, and held him there with one hand.
“You listen to me,” Reiven said. “Stop acting like you walked in on us fucking, because we weren’t doing that. And even if we were, we’re both adults, so you don’t get to act weird about it.”
The horror hadn’t left Ash’s face, but he listened intently to what Rei said, looking up at him with such innocence.
The two of them couldn’t be more different: Reiven with his dark hair, tall and muscular, compared to fair-haired Ashkade and his frail body.
Clearly of different parentage, and yet they never looked more like brothers than in that moment.
It sent a spike of warmth shooting through my heart, despite this uncomfortable situation.
Reiven continued, “So, tomorrow, you could make this awkward for everybody, or we can all pretend this didn’t happen. Got it?”
“Y-yes sir! Nothin’ happened, I didn’t see nothin’!”
“And the next time you even think about coming in here, you’re going to knock, damn it!”
Ashkade yelped another agreement, his face the shade of a steamed lobster as Rei released him.
He tiptoed towards the door, eyes darting between the two of us like he couldn’t unsee whatever his hormone-driven imagination was making him see.
“L-lock the door next time!” he cried, whirling to limp away at the speed of light.
Reiven did lock the door and returned to me, grumbling under his breath.
“I think we may have traumatized him,” I said, earning a half-cocked grin as he sat down on the bed.
“Kid can’t be traumatized. He didn’t see anything.” Reiven stretched his arms above his head, as if relieving himself of the tension that had filled the room before Ashkade had burst inside. “I'll sleep on the floor.”
“What? No.” I seized his hand to keep him there.
“There's only one pillow.”
We'd figure it out, I decided. I wasn't about to let him sleep on the floor, especially when all those confusing feelings demanded I stay close to him.
I lay on my side with my back to him, while he tried his best to keep his distance.
But since we shared the one lumpy pillow, his face ended up buried in my hair, and his breath warmed my neck and shoulder.
“Reiven?”
“Mm.”
“About that void you’re trying to decide if you want to jump inside…Don’t do it.”
He stilled.
“I’ve been on the edge before, too, and I know what’s inside. There’s no beautiful sea of stars. It’s just pain.”
After a beat of silence, Reiven curled his arm around my stomach and pulled me back against him. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I felt something soft graze my shoulder.
“You know me, Blue. I’m a sucker for pain.”
The last time I stood on the edge he spoke of, staring down into a dark chasm of mystery, it had been because of Vaetrik.
I left behind my senses and leaped inside, only to find myself not in a pretty void, but in the hold of his ship in chains.
Reiven didn’t know the pain he was in for.
It would probably be more severe than his curse.
Then he’d learn his lesson, like how I did with Vaetrik.
Reiven took a deep, slow breath and pressed his lips against my shoulder again. He whispered against my skin. “I hope that if you find yourself on the edge again, you’ll trust that you’ll find beauty in the void instead of pain, Zephra.”
His soft words drew me closer to the edge of the new chasm I found before me. One that I had been keeping my distance from, because I knew in the end there was nothing good waiting for me there. And yet…I let myself be pulled closer. Closer to him.