Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I twist my head. Ozias is standing there, a short distance behind me. He holds out his hand. With great effort I lift my brow from Ninon’s to hold her gaze. After a time, she nudges me with her nose, the touch conveying that we’re both fine. She’s right. I’m okay. She’s okay.
I briefly lay my hand on the side of her face.
Then I turn and take Ozias’s hand, grounding myself in his touch.
I will stay here in this form. Nothing will take me out of it, despite the incessant press I feel in my bones, begging me to shift.
The itch of my skin, enticing me to transition to my smooth, armored scales, pulses like a drumbeat in my ears.
Ozias pulls me along the pathways towards the Alcazar. I remain silent, knowing we have much to discuss, but not having the energy to bring it up or explain myself.
When we make it to the top of the Alcazar, Ozias releases my hand and walks out onto the terrace overlooking the Sere all the way to Dyēus. I join him, the bracing wind sweeping my hair away from my face.
“You saved Atlanta tonight,” he murmurs.
“She saved me first.”
Ozias turns to me then, his gaze flitting down my figure and back up before returning to Dyēus. “Zhoric doesn’t leave Dyēus unless he must. You’ve done it, Kaisa. He cares for you.”
I look away, out across the Sere, catching on the northernmost and largest island. The castle. I pin the place where Zhoric’s chambers are before answering. “Impossible. There’s been such little time between us. He doesn’t even know me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
A frown pulls tight on my lips. I don’t know why that bothers me.
Ozias holds his posture, his breath, before releasing a sigh that seems to melt his form, and in a liquid motion he turns, hooking his thick, muscled arms around me, burying his face into the top of my sea-salt-washed hair.
He breathes in deep and slow, and I turn into a puddle at his touch.
The anxious energy buzzing under my skin, shouting at me to shift, ebbs away until all I can focus on is the scent of him, the warmth of him, the taste of salt as my lips press lightly to the center of his chest.
Ozias lowers his mouth to my ear. “Are you falling for him?”
I recoil, but he doesn’t let me go as I pin him with a fierce, hard look. “No.”
Zhoric could have killed Ninon tonight with his recklessness.
He’s harmed me and countless women from the time he took the power of a god to the moment he sealed my baby niece.
Despite all I know of his past, of what he’s shown me of his character, I grasp tightly to my hate.
I push down the twisting desire to turn into my dragon so I can see him again.
“Does he think you are?” Ozias questions.
I draw in my lips, considering. “Possibly.”
“He showed up for you today, Kaisa. That is no small feat. But then again,” Ozias searches the planes of my face, a tenderness almost like sadness smoothing the hard angles of his brow, “you are easy to love, Kaisa. It’s no wonder he’s already fallen for you.”
My eyes are hot and my tongue thick with a tide of tears I manage to hold back. I’ve not felt easy to love in my life, but hearing Ozias say it fills me with an unimaginable hope I hadn’t realized I’d been holding onto.
“Kiss me,” I murmur.
He sweeps his eyes up and down my face, holding himself rigid, hesitating. I think he’ll rebuff me again, but then, he lowers to press his lips to mine, soft, gentle and cautious.
It’s not enough, though. I need more. “Touch me, Ozias.”
His breath hitches, like he’s surprised at my boldness. I may have kept things from him, but I’ve never been shy. My hands trail the length of his arms and slip over the backs of his shoulders. I press myself closer to him, until my chest meets his.
With our faces close, the knowing whisper of his question ghosts across my mouth. “What do you want, Kaisa?” It’s a question he knows the answer to, one he teased me with not long ago, and one I have no qualms answering.
“You once offered to show me your bed. Does that offer still stand?”
Ozias presses his face into the crook of my neck. He stays like that for a long moment. “There are reasons why we shouldn’t,” he admits.
The beat of his heart is frantic against my own. “Please,” I say, grasping the muscles along his back. “Stay with me. I don’t want to go to him tonight and I’m afraid if I’m not with you, I’ll transform. I don’t know how to stop myself from going.”
Ozias squeezes me so hard I can’t draw a single breath of air into my lungs. We stay like that for a long time until finally he agrees. “Okay…Okay.”
When it’s not a resounding, uproarious yes, I doubt his desire for me. I suddenly want to take it back. “We don’t—”
“No,” he says, stopping me. “I want to. First though, I need to show you something.”
“Are you…” my gaze flicks down between us, “well?”
Ozias growls deep in his throat, pressing his hardening length against my lower stomach. “It’s perfectly fine, I assure you. What I’m going to show you has to do with bonding.”
I open my mouth. “Oh. I see.”
“You’re close with Zhoric, which means another event like today could happen.”
My brows furrow for a brief moment while I try to figure out where he’s going when my mind alights with a thought. “An opportunity to get close to him again. To force the bond with him.”
“It’s less forcing and more like slicing through butter with all the feelings he must have for you by now.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“He has enough feelings for you that he came to your aid in a time of need. That is more than enough.”
I lick my lips and squirm against his body. I clear my throat. “All right. Show me.”
Our eyes are soft on each other, his words softer.
“Come to my bed chamber.” He doesn’t need to ask me twice, and so I follow him in the dark of night through the place I’ve only seen in daylight.
We go through the entrance I’ve never set foot past before, and into an untidy room with a collection of things on nearly every surface.
It’s not a neat display like Ninon’s would be, but it’s about the amount of things she’d have in her own room.
Ozias settles me down next to him on the bed, angling us so that our knees touch. I get more comfortable, sliding one of my legs up onto the plush mattress. He lights a lantern on the bedside table, the soft glow stark against harsh edges of the night.
“The bond is a soul connection.” He takes my hands and tucks them against his chest where I can feel the steady rhythm of his heart.
“Our bodies house our souls, and the closest physical connection we have with our souls is our blood. It’s the only thing fluid enough that a soul can tether to.
That’s why when something stops the heart, whose duty it is to keep the blood flowing, we die, because our souls can no longer hold onto us. ”
Ozias turns my hands so my wrists are facing up.
“A few arteries carry blood directly to and from the heart—our strongest soul points. The first is in your wrists, at the spot you can feel your pulse. The next you already know about…” He runs a finger along the inside of my thigh and I shiver at his touch, longing to feel the drag of his finger coast higher between my legs.
“And the third and strongest is here, alongside our necks.” He points to the spot along the column of his neck and the pulse of the powerful artery that lies beneath.
“This is where you connect our souls—this is where you make the bond.”
I look between his neck and his face. He told me where and what these points mean, but my mind isn’t lining up with the execution. “How?”
“You drink from me,” he says, tapping the side of his neck. “Right here.”
My face screws up in disgust. “Your blood?”
“You eat meat, I presume.”
“Yes, but—”
“And drink mares’ blood?”
“For ceremonies, and it’s mixed with the milk, but—”
“And is this not the same?”
I open my mouth. Because in a way, it is a ceremony. In a way, it is the same. I narrow my gaze. “I hate the taste.”
“Someone as bloodthirsty as you?” My narrow gaze sharpens and he smiles. “I promise mine’s sweeter than a mare’s blood.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” I say. “Actually, I imagine you’ve had your fair share of split lips and bloody mouths.”
“It’s like you know me.”
I know what he’s allowed me to, but even with the charismatic, open way he speaks, I don’t truly know Ozias.
I know what he’s doing, what he stands for, and that he’s attracted to me as I am to him.
But he’s had years of living. So much life that, even if we had eternity, I’m not sure I’d learn about every moment of it.
I’m not sure that he’d want to share that with me.
I tackle my mind back to our conversation.
“So what do I do? Make a cut, take a cup, and tip you over like a teapot?”
Ozias barks out a laugh, his smile genuine and beautiful.
“As much as I’m sure there are several people in this world who would like to see just that, it’s more straightforward.
If you could conjure your teeth alone, you could bite me and drink directly from the vein.
But seeing as that’s a bit advanced for your current skill set…
” He opens his hand and lets a talon come forth from his index finger, then he hovers the sharp claw just over his jugular. “Whenever you’re ready.”
My insides are twisting, both in anticipation of the action, and at having to actually drink his blood. “Wait. I’m…bonding with you?”
“No. I’ll stop you before it locks into place.”
My chest is sore from how hard my heart has thrummed today.
I feel exhausted, but I also realize he’s putting a lot of faith in me.
I know that if I were to follow through and bond him to me, I’d be in control.
And here he is, letting me do that. Putting his trust into me. I place a gentle hand on his wrist.
“You’re a good man,” I whisper. Ozias’s mouth draws tight.
“I’m not sure about that.”
“I think…maybe that’s how we’re all taught to feel. That we’re not good enough. Maybe it’s time to say, whoever we are, however we come…that in itself is good enough.”
His smile is tenuous. “I like that, Kaisa.”
My low belly tightens, a delicious, dangerous heat spreading through me. The possibility of us, like he once proposed, churns and tugs in the back of my mind. “I like you, Ozias,” I admit.
“I like you, too,” he says, his golden gaze piercing me straight through. “Are you ready then?”
I steel myself and nod. My insides vibrate, even if my body is motionless, even if the rise and fall of my chest is barely a whisper against my clothes. “All right. I’m ready.” The words come out surer than I feel.
“Come closer.”
My breath is a soft breeze as I rise up on my knees and lean over, bracing my hands on his shoulders, face close to the hand above his neck. Without further ceremony or words, Ozias slices into his skin, his rich crimson blood welling up to the surface. I’m stunned for a second, watching it flow.
“Kaisa.” Ozias’s hushed voice brings me back.
I open my mouth and place it against his skin.
The initial tang of his blood on my tongue is a mix of revulsion and ecstasy.
I lock my teeth over the wound to keep it open, lips flared out on his smooth skin.
Ozias hisses, hands coming up to grip my sides, just below my ribcage.
I suck in a deep draught of blood, and I hum.
He was right. The taste isn’t the problem.
The problem will be stopping the tide of feelings rushing through me.
The problem will be stopping when he tells me to.
My hand on his other shoulder slides up and around the back of his head, angling it away to grant me better access.
I hear Ozias suppress a moan, making it sound throatier.
Without meaning to, I press in closer at the third swallow, my chest pushing against his as my knee slides over one of his thighs, then the other, so that I’m straddling him.
He wraps his arms around me on my fourth swallow.
I grind into him on my fifth, and I feel him stiff beneath me.
On my sixth swallow he rocks me against him and my moan muffles into his neck.
He whispers my name into my ear, hot and rasping.
He presses his own mouth against my throat. “And if we were doing this, really doing this, I’d take from you here at the exact. Same. Time.” His words send a thrilling rush down my spine.
On the seventh drink, I feel it at the same time Ozias says, “There it is. Stop.”
The bond dances across my tongue, but I find the power to let it go and I feel it fizzle out in my veins. I pull away, his blood welling for a few seconds more before the wound closes up. I lick up the column of his neck, taking the last vestiges of his blood into me.
A shiver wracks his body and then he’s on me, one hand bracing the back of my neck, the other under my thigh, flipping me onto my back, pelvis grinding into mine before he stills. He’s shaking as he hovers over me, breath billowing his chest.
“I’m trying very hard,” he says through his teeth, voice gravelly, “not to come undone and bury myself in you.”
Heat and desire pool between my thighs.
“Do it.”