Chapter 18
All it takes is a swipe of my hand for the protection I placed over my door to drop. I’ll need to see if Briar can create the rune and disarm it, but that will have to wait. As much as I feel the need to train her and prepare her for what’s to come, I can’t ignore her more pressing needs, and she needs to know what’s going on. I could sense the fear and dread swirling in her thoughts when she realized I left the demon to watch over her. I know he didn’t hurt her, so there must be another reason for her anxiety.
Briar enters my room and does a quick scan of the area before crossing her arms under her breasts and eyeing me with suspicion. I take my time recreating the shield on the door, imbuing it with a few extra levels of protection since we’re in for the day and soundproofing the room for good measure.
“Is this private enough? We might as well rip the bandage off now,” she mutters under her breath.
“I’ve warded the entrance and made sure we won’t be overheard.” I offer her a seat with a wave of my hand, but she shakes her head in denial. I lower myself to the cushions.
Her body shifts, ensuring she’s directly in front of me at all times. I doubt she’s even aware she does it.
“What would you like to know first?”
That question seems to catch her off guard, because her brows furrow in confusion. “I… I’m not sure. No one has ever given me a choice like that. It’s a lot to think about.”
Taking the lead, I tell her, “I knew the demon would never hurt you, that is why I left him to care for you.”
“Watch me,” she amends, replacing my words with her own.
“If that is what you want to call it, yes, but it was to keep you safe,” I concede. This seems to make her even more suspicious, because her amber eyes narrow to little slits. Even as tiny as she is, she seems formidable, or maybe she only looks that way to me because I know how easy it would be for her to control me with just a few simple words. Keeping her safe will always be my top priority, but keeping her satisfied is a very close second.
“If it was so important to keep me safe, then why did you leave? What was more important?” She begins pacing in front of me, and I can’t take my eyes off her.
“The measure of importance was weighed with anger. What seemed important then isn’t now,” I hedge. I don’t know how she will feel when she learns I have her father locked away under the earth, being tormented as we speak. She could hate it and want me to let him go, or as she stated earlier, she could want to watch me hurt him.
“I’d rather you be straightforward and tell me you’re not going to answer than answer in riddles.”
“I don’t think I will answer you right now.”
“But you might later?” she mocks in a cheeky tone.
“It’s a possibility.”
“Which means it’s also more likely you won’t. Why leave me with someone you hate if you say it’s to protect me?” She slows her steps as if this answer is important to her.
“How we feel about each other doesn’t matter. I knew he would do anything necessary to protect you. That’s what matters.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would he protect me?” She points at me. “Or do what you ask if he hates you? It seems like the easiest way to piss you off is to do the opposite.”
“In this, his desire to protect you would be stronger.”
“Why? Is he loyal to the school or the headmistress?”
I could allow her to think that by just not answering her, but the truth will come out soon, and I would rather she not be pissed at me for misleading her.
“No, the demon’s loyalty is to you alone.”
“Me?” She gapes. “Why the hell would he be loyal to me? The male acts as if I’m noxious. I can’t get within five feet of him before he backs away like I’m contagious.”
It’s good to know he’s taking the proper precautions, but… “Why were you trying to get close to him?”
“I wasn’t trying to get close to him,” she scoffs. “It’s just obvious when he jumps backward the moment I get within reach, like he thinks I’m going to try to grab him or something.”
“He was afraid of just that.”
She scowls. “I wasn’t going to touch him, and I don’t have a disease.”
“His touch kills, little flower. Anything he touches dies painfully.” My statement seems to take the wind out of her sails, and she visibly deflates as she shrinks in on herself.
“Why?” Her pitch is colored with horror.
“That’s his ability.”
“Gods, that’s…cruel.” Her nose wrinkles up. “He can’t control it at all?” She looks to me for answers.
“No, and I don’t know anyone who would be willing to let him try.” I shrug.
“I could,” she offers way too quickly, and I’m reminded why I didn’t want him to know what she is.
“No!” Her wide eyes lift to mine, and it’s only then I realize I’m standing. “I can’t risk him hurting you.”
“He wouldn’t. No one’s power has ever affected me—well, not really in the way it’s intended to, except maybe yours, but you’re…or you think you’re my?—”
“Mate. I am your mate, Briar, but so is he.”
“What did you just say?” I squint at him and rub the hollow near my ear.
“You heard me, but I’ll repeat it if you need me to. The demon is also your mate.” Ziv doesn’t look pleased. As a matter of fact, he looks like he just sucked on a lemon. His face is all pinched and twisted.
I start to scoff, but it ends on a dry laugh. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“If only I were.” Ziv drops back down on the lounge and rubs his temple. “I thought about killing him,” he admits with little emotion, “but he keeps making himself useful, and I couldn’t risk hurting you.”
“You’re really not joking.” My legs feel a little wobbly. I think I need to sit down.
“He doesn’t know you’re a void. That’s the only reason I left you alone with him, because I knew he would do anything to make sure you didn’t touch him.”
“But the fact that I am a void, or whatever, is exactly why he could touch me,” I argue, feeling strange about this conversation. “I mean, if he wanted to.”
Ziv gives me a droll stare. “He hasn’t touched anyone without killing them in over a decade. I think he’d be willing to fuck a leper if it were an option.”
“I never pretended I was anything special, but a leper?” That one kind of hurt. “And who said anything about…” I can’t bring myself to say what he did.
“That was not a comparison to you,” he deadpans. “It was a statement of fact. Besides, you are?—”
“We were talking about Kage,” I interrupt.
He speaks over me anyway. “Breathtaking.”
I get butterflies in my stomach, and it’s not even from what he said but how he said it, like he really believes it. I don’t know how to respond, so I just keep my mouth shut.
“I can see you don’t believe me,” Ziv announces with a quirk of his eyebrow. His voice is lower again, smoky like a whisper but not quite. Intimate is the word that comes to mind, and I like the sound of that.
“I’d be a fool to argue with you. You’re a fine male, the strongest, and—” I lick my lips, trying to muster up the courage to continue.
“And?” he prompts when I don’t speak fast enough for his liking.
“And you smell really good. Anyone would be lucky to have you court them.”
“I’m not courting you, little flower.”
I feel embarrassed by his apparent rebuff, but he’s not done talking.
“Courting is for those who lack the will to possess, and you seized me the moment you took a breath in my presence. What I will do is worship you, protect you, and train you so I know I will never lose you.”
My legs finally give out. Thankfully, I land mostly on the cushions. In a blink, Ziv is leaning over me, his eyes searching mine. “You’ll get used to it,” he states in a no-nonsense tone.
I smile—I can’t help it. His eyes drop to my mouth only a second before his lips follow suit. He tastes me with small, teasing swipes of his tongue before he slides deeper into my mouth, daring me to tangle my tongue with his. It’s not until I feel his hand curving around my ribs to my back that I realize he’s lifting me off the pillows and bringing me closer to him.
With very little effort from me, our positions flip, and I somehow end up leaning over Ziv. His hand remains on my back while the other slides into my hair, guiding the kiss. The need to keep him, to do anything I can to make his promises real, drives me to slide my hand down his neck and onto his chest. The feel of him beneath me is like nothing I’ve ever known. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t perfection, honed with strength and vitality, and it sings to me, or maybe it’s what he said and the fact that he’s my mate, my match, draws me to him.
It’s still hard to accept, even when I know my father would have told me anything to keep me. It’s even harder to wrap my head around the idea that I’m worthy when I was always told I wasn’t and never would be.
“Flower?” Ziv questions as he trails his lips away from mine, blazing a path down my jaw and neck.
“Hmm?” I can’t find words now.
“You’re thinking too hard. I need you to feel.” He palms my breast, somehow putting pressure on my nipple, even through the layers of tight binding, and my thoughts shatter, leaving behind only the desire to feel that again.
My hips rock forward of their own accord, and Ziv makes a satisfied hum in response. “Better,” he encourages. The sound of my shirt ripping isn’t even enough to distract me from the feeling of his lips and tongue making a path down my chest. When he reaches my bindings, he makes another sound, this one much more rumbly, but it still does funny things to my belly.
I gasp when the cool, hard sensation of metal touches my skin. I open my eyes long enough to see a blade between my breasts before Ziv flicks it upward, slicing through the wrapping over my chest.
I don’t even think I blinked, but the knife disappears, leaving the tattered fabric slipping down my back. Air hits my chest, and the instinct to cover up is hard to ignore. “What the fuck, Briar?” he questions, staring at my chest.
I lean back enough to move my arms up and cover my breasts with my hands when the cold censure in his tone proves to be too much.
“Your bindings were too fucking tight.” He runs a gentle finger over my side, bumping over the ridges the tight material left behind on my skin. I don’t need to look down to know my flesh is red and angry in spots. I’ve been binding myself for years, always in the same way, to hide any curves I developed. I’m so used to it, it feels strange to me when I’m not tightly compressed, but it is a little easier to breathe, especially after realizing it is only the marks on my skin that caused his reaction, and those are temporary. Well, I hope they are anyway, since I haven’t been without the bindings long enough to know.
“Why would—” He cuts himself off before the query is fully formed. Our eyes meet, and his chest expands as he inhales sharply. His face goes blank, and there’s no need to hear his concern to understand Ziv is perceptive. He knows I was trying to hide my body, but I feel the need to defend myself and my reputation.
“I hated the attention. It was an avoidable distraction I could easily cover.” Admitting the truth isn’t hard, but acknowledging the reason behind it is. It was easier for me to conceal my body than it was to deal with the unwanted attention it garnered from my father if I didn’t. I despised the way he started looking at me as I got older, and when I began developing, it only got worse. He would use every opportunity he could to insist I was unfairly tempting him just by growing up, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I didn’t want him anywhere near me at any age.
Ziv’s face remains unreadable for long seconds, even after I’m done speaking. I contemplate divulging more, but I don’t know what or how much to say without making things worse, so I end up blurting out, “I am intact.”
His eyes widen, and I can’t tell if it’s because I pretty much yelled in his face or the fact that I told him I’m a virgin again. In the time it takes me to blink, he leans up on his elbows, bringing our faces closer together, and levels me with an intense stare that traps me in his gaze. “The only way that would matter is if it were stolen from you. Your body is your own.”
Something deep inside me cracks from his words and acceptance. My vision even gets hazy, but I refuse to cry.
“I can’t permit you to do this anymore though, little flower, not when it hurts you.” He caresses my side, exploring the deep grooves still creased into my skin.
I lean forward a little, only removing my arms from my breasts when our skin is close enough to touch. “I won’t do it so tightly.”
“You don’t need to do it at all,” he replies, sliding his arms around my back and pulling me closer, still kneading the lines in my skin with his fingers.
“It does feel pretty damn good to take a deep breath,” I admit, even though I very much doubt I would go with no bindings at all. “I think I will need them if you’re training me.”
Ziv makes a sound that could be a hum, but it’s too low to be called that. “It won’t only be me training you. Syrinx wants you with the other instructors as well beginning tomorrow.”
This isn’t completely unexpected, but it’s not exactly welcome either. “Great, I can’t wait to get my ass kicked by everyone all day.”
“I’m the only one with that pleasure, little flower.” He strokes his hand over my head and down my hair. “They will teach you other skills.”
I lay my palm on his chest and place my chin over top of it so I can see his face, even if the angle is strange. The fact that I’m comfortable enough to be pressed against him like this is such an anomaly, I almost lose track of what we’re talking about.
“Since I will not be with you at all times, the demon will be there when I can’t be.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Yes, especially now that I know someone killed a novice and made it look like you were the one responsible.”
That sends my thoughts down a different path. “I didn’t know there was a name for what I am. Do you know the other void?”
“Not personally.” His fingers continue to work magic on my back, and I swear I have to stop myself from drooling on his chest.
“But you know of them?”
“I know what I’ve been told, nothing more, and just because you share the same ability doesn’t make you the same.”
“I know,” I agree readily, but there’s part of me that thinks there has to be some similarities between us, or that maybe I could learn something about myself and my capacity to withstand magical powers from them.
“Do you know what happened to them?”
“She’s dead.” He shifts, causing me to slip a little to the left on his chest. “She was killed over twenty years ago after it was discovered she could absorb the magic she seemed to be immune to and use it against the caster she stole it from,” he says conversationally, as if he didn’t just tip my world on its axis yet again.
“She could do that?” The awe in my tone is evident.
“I didn’t witness it, but that’s what is said.”
“Well, I can’t,” I scoff, thinking how fucking useful that would have been when I was essentially being experimented on. It never even made sense to me why people would want to test their magic against me. So what if it didn’t work? They didn’t gain anything from it either. It made me feel like a sideshow freak, like I was less than those unfortunate souls born with no magic at all, but this somehow confuses me more. Now I really don’t understand why they would test themselves against me if there was even an iota of a chance I could take their power and use it for myself. This can’t be common knowledge.
“That doesn’t mean you never will. You may be capable of even more.” Ziv’s eyes close. He seems completely content, but how can that be if he believes what he just said?
If there is one thing I know, it’s that people revel in their powers. I can’t imagine anyone coming near me if they thought I possessed the ability to steal theirs. “And what? Get myself killed because of it? No thanks.”
“She wasn’t killed for what she could do, she was killed for what she did do.”
“And what was that?”
“Drain four instructors dead and try to take over one of the other institutions. It was a novice who killed her while she was in the middle of trying to kill the headmaster. She picked up a knife and stabbed her right through the heart. All the other attempts to put her down failed because they tried to use magic.”
“Put her down? You make it sound like she was rabid.”
“She was,” he confirms. “She was killing indiscriminately. Who knows if she would have stopped with the headmaster or even that institute?”
“Did she go crazy or something?”
“I don’t know. I never cared to inquire more about her or the situation, but Syrinx knows. She was the novice who killed her.”
“What?” I snap my head up. No wonder she was on a warpath for me. “Why the hell would she want me here? To keep tabs on me?”
“Syrinx wants to win the games to prove herself or some bullshit. Anyone with true power doesn’t need others to validate it, but that’s what happens when you base your life and future off one lucky shot.”
“So she’s okay with thinking I may be a killer as long as I do the killing for her? Got it,” I snark.
“In that aspect, she expects the same from all the novices.” He’s still not fazed by any of this yet.
I feel like my head is about to explode from all the shit I’ve learned in the past few hours. It seems Ziv really is my mate, and he’s not the only one. Kage, the handsome demon, is apparently tied to me as well, but those things are almost easy to push to the back of my mind because it doesn’t feel real, not even as I lie next to Ziv. It’s my preconceived potential that has my head spinning. Not only is there a chance I could learn to be a killer, but it’s almost what’s expected of me.
I wasn’t brought to Ivy to be used as a tool to strengthen the others. I was brought here to see if I would become an assassin—one they could use to win some stupid games that mean nothing to me, and if I do, I’ll most likely be setting myself up for my own execution. That’s nothing new, since I expected to die here the minute I got the invitation. What I didn’t expect is how much more frightening that thought would be now that I actually have a reason to want to live.
Even if my mind hasn’t fully accepted the fact that Ziv is my mate, there must be some part of me that recognizes it as the truth, or at the very least wants it to be true. The thought of no longer being alone, of being protected, is more than I could have hoped for.
“I don’t get why these games are so important.”
“They entertain the gods.” He huffs with agitation. Seems like a sore spot.
“That’s what it’s about? Entertainment?”
“That and power. What else is there?”
“I don’t know, life maybe.” I’m being flippant. “So the gods don’t care that people die for their entertainment?”
“No. Believe me when I say they could not care less about how many people die, as long as it doesn’t affect them.”
“Does that include you?”
Ziv tips his chin down so he can see me looking up from his chest. “I’m not incapable of empathy, but if you’re asking if I’ve ever been concerned about any of the novices or even the instructors for that matter, the answer is no. I came here because I’m the best fighter, and combat, even with them, passes the time. I chose Ivy because it has the strongest contestants, but even then, it’s been mundane. I stayed because I had nothing else to do, not because I cared about the outcome of the games or those participating—until now.”
His blatant honesty doesn’t shock me, and if I’m straightforward, his answer isn’t even surprising. How many times have I ignored another’s conditions if it meant I would survive another day? At our core, we are all selfish creatures. I don’t know why I would think the gods would be any different.
There is something he said that does give me pause though—until now. Those words imply a significant change in how he feels. Deep down, I hope I’m the catalyst for the change.
His next words give me the confirmation I would never be bold enough to ask for. “Now the only thing I care about is your survival, little flower, and I will do anything to ensure it.”
“Can’t we just leave?” I whisper, as if voicing the words out loud is enough to get me in trouble.
Ziv’s lips twist in a frown. “No. Syrinx and the institute have a claim on you that the gods would honor, even over our bond.” He strokes my hair away from my face, tenderly dragging his knuckles over my cheek. “I won’t risk them taking you from me, which is what would happen if you stepped foot off this mountain.”
“How would they know?” A kernel of dread worms its way into my heart before he even has a chance to answer.
“The wards around the school alert them anytime they are crossed. Even I can’t come and go without detection.”
“Then someone knew I was walking up the mountain the day I arrived?”
Ziv’s eyes narrow and grow distant as if he’s thinking. “That’s a good question. You may be the exception, considering you’re unaffected by magic. I’m not ready to test that theory now though.”
It takes Ziv stroking his thumb along my bottom lip for me to realize I’m scowling. “You will be fine. I will make sure of it.” I wish I had as much faith in that as he does. I haven’t succeeded at much, other than barely surviving, but then again, I’ve never had anyone to help me either and Ziv isn’t just anyone—he’s a god.
“When I can’t be there, the demon will be,” he reassures me as he runs his thumb over my lips again, even softer this time, and my stomach clenches. How can a simple touch elicit such a response? Tentatively, I reach up and touch his face before mimicking the same movement with my thumb along his bottom lip. His eyelids lower, and I know my touch affects him just as much as his affects me. There’s power in that knowledge, along with a heady dose of confidence, giving me the courage to continue exploring his skin.
“Does he know that?” I question, entranced by the feeling of his skin under mine. As someone who has never experienced magic, this certainly feels like it. My heart is beating fast for no reason other than he is close to me, and my skin feels overly sensitive in the best way. I can even feel his breath brushing over me, tingling individual hairs and stirring a hunger low in my belly that I don’t quite understand, yet I know he can make it better.
“Careful, Briar. By design, I’m made to give you what you need, even if you don’t recognize that need yourself.”
“Then why should I be careful?”
He reaches up, stopping my fingers from delving into his silver hair. “Just because your body is ready doesn’t mean your mind is.”
“Ready for what exactly?” Asking him to spell it out makes me feel woefully inexperienced, but I am.
“To complete our bond.”
“Through sex?” I’m whispering again.
He nods, but the sweet smell of dark cherries grows stronger.
“Okay.” I lick my lips, feeling eager, but I’m not sure it’s for all the right reasons. Is my body screaming for his? Yes. I want things from him I don’t understand, but there’s something darker, needier, driving the desire to complete the bond now. I’m afraid he will change his mind or come to the realization that he’s wrong, and I’ll have missed my chance.
It’s selfish and probably means I don’t deserve him, but it’s the truth.
“Are you certain? Once we start, there’s no stopping. The demand to claim you is almost too much, even now.”
“I’m certain.” I pull myself higher on his chest and kiss him before either of us can think any more. I want to be lost where only he can find me.