Chapter 34
“Luuciyn will arrive the day after tomorrow, and Zyroth the day after that. Please check that everything is prepared for them in the vorazka and for their warriors in the visitor housing.” Vuldrex strode next to me, trilling as I spoke.
“Yes, Vorazyr. I will get it done.” He clapped his wings and launched himself into the air.
I turned down the hall to my office. My sister was coming out of it and she didn’t look happy.
“Problem?” I asked as we met in the hall.
“Why haven’t you gone to see Jacqueline?”
“I’m sure you’ve been enough of a comfort.” I tried to step around her, but she flared her wings out and blocked the hall.
“Arrazyl,” she pressed a soft hand to my arm. “Why?”
“She needs to rest right now.” I said impatiently. “I have urgent matters that require my attention, Thyra.” I stepped past her.
“Are you afraid of how she’ll respond to you?
” Her words caused me to freeze in my tracks.
My wing rippled. She gripped my forearm.
“She needs you more than ever right now. You staying away is hurting her worse. She may not give you the reaction you want initially, but she needs you. Your strength. To know that you care, to know that she’s safe.
You’re the only one who can do that for her.
She cries herself to sleep, the little sleep that she gets.
Kyvar visited her, but her skin got all white and she trembled with him in the room even though she tried to hide it.
” She squeezed my arm and let her hand drop.
“Go to her.” She left with a flap of her wings to propel her down the hall.
I stood where she’d left me. My chest ached at the thought of Jacqueline scared. It was true, I couldn’t bear to see her shrink from me, or look at me with disgust, which was why I’d avoided her for three days, blaming it on the work I was doing.
I left the hall and stepped out, flying east and landing on the decking outside of the open doorway of the healing rooms. I stood there for a moment, looking into the main room as the curtains shifted in the breeze. The sweet, balmy smell of elixirs greeted me.
No one was in the spacious front room and I walked through and to the back.
The door was open, showing Jacqueline as she stood next to a tall, slim table with a vase displaying lush, colorful flowers.
She had her arms wrapped around herself and was watching a hologram of her sitting and laughing with Jaron.
It looked like it had been taken during the festival.
I folded my wings tightly against my back to make myself seem smaller and stepped inside, slow and careful with my movements. Like prey about to be caught, her head snapped up and she froze, eyes on me.
“Jacqueline.” I kept my voice soft but didn’t make a move toward her.
Confusion and fear and yearning all warred in her gaze as she took me in. My face and horns, my wings and claws, so different from her soft, delicate form. Would she call me a monster?
She swallowed. “Where have you been?”
I took a step toward her and when she didn’t flinch or back away, I continued forward. “I’ve missed you,” I murmured, stopping a short distance from her.
“You haven’t been here at all.” Her voice broke, and she looked up at the ceiling as though it might help with the moisture gathering in her eyes.
“I’m here now.” I raised my arm, inviting her to me. She watched me with a combination of wariness and hope.
A moment passed, the tension between us palpable. I feared she would ask me to leave and when she stepped toward me it took everything in me not to sweep her into my arms.
She came to me, carefully, watching my face as though I might bear my fangs and make a move to tear into her.
I kept myself still and she rested her head against my chest. Slowly, I brought my arms around and caressed her arms, her back.
I cupped the back of her head and needed her neck.
She slowly relaxed into me and I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of her against me.
Her heartbeat against my chest, her face pressed against me, the silken skin that I lightly ran my fingers over. It felt right.
We stood like that for a long time until she finally pulled back. I didn’t drop my hands but cupped her shoulder blades. Not hard enough to keep her against me, but enough that she knew I wanted her to stay close. She tilted her head back so she could see me and met my gaze.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I almost laughed in disbelief. “Why would you ask me such a nonsense question? You’re the one who was shot in the side after being knocked around.”
She swallowed. “I saw you fighting. You…” she seemed to struggle to find the words. “…tore them apart.” Her voice broke again.
Ripples went through my wings and they ached as I watched fear encroach on her gaze.
I cupped her face and brought mine down slowly until my forehead rested on hers.
“Jacqueline, you mean so much to me.” I paused.
I wanted the words to sink in, for her to believe me despite the frightening things she’d seen.
“We were ambushed, I was trying to stay alive and protect my vorpyrren. I would never, never harm you.”
“I’ve had nightmares,” she whispered, a tear overflowing and trickling down her cheek.
I dipped my head and kissed her cheek, taking the salty tear into my mouth, before raising to kiss the edge of her eye. She leaned into me and I let my lips linger against her.
“Let me take you to my rooms. Let me guard you tonight. I want to take care of you, Jacqueline.” I didn’t know if it would help her nightmares or make them worse, but I had to do something. I was a Vorazyr, I protected and cared for my own. And Jacqueline was mine and mine alone.
She pulled away from me and I clenched my hands into fists to keep from reaching for her.
A sharp inhale greeted my statement. “That can’t be true, you gave us back with no issue. You said that we weren’t worth anything, that you just used me.” She bit her lip.
I rubbed one of my horns. “I was trying to antagonize the Consortium general. I said what I did to hurt him, not you. I didn’t mean what I said about you. You have to know that. What we share is beautiful and unique and important to me.”
“And yet you threw us away the first chance you got.”
“No. It enraged me that I had to let you go. Believe me, we tried everything. I tried as hard as I could to negotiate you out of the deal. We had hours of meetings day after day. Do you remember the human made tranquilizing dart we found?” I couldn’t help but reach out to her and softly brush a bit of unruly hair back from her face.
“They kidnapped a pregnant female. It killed me to do it, but the female they took delivered a child while held captive by them. I couldn’t allow them to keep her and the babe and they refused all my other offers.
They wanted you three along with the resources we negotiated. ”
Her lips parted in shock, her eyes sharpening behind the sheen of tears that had been threatening this whole time. “I didn’t know.”
I huffed a hard breath through my nose, my wings restless. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Did you get her?”
“No. They had no intention of going through with the trade we negotiated.”
“Are you sure there’s not some mistake?” More tears welled in her eyes but when I stepped toward her, she stepped back and I stilled.
“There’s no mistake.”
Her breaths were shaky.
“Vuldrex will serve us dinner in my rooms.” I said gently. “And you can just rest. I’ll watch over you. I promise.”
She looked hesitant, and I thought she would refuse me, but then she nodded once.
I glanced behind her. “Is there anything you need to bring?”
She retrieved the hologram, turning it off before slipping it into a pocket of the billowy white dress that caressed her form and fell to just above her knees. Then she seemed to steel herself and turned to me. “I’m ready now.”
I needed to be careful. She was still fragile and scared, the battle wave still not having faded from her mind, and any move from me that she deemed a threat would send her as far away from me as possible. That was something I couldn’t have.
I took hold of her waist, coaxing her back into my arms. She let me, though her body had a stiffness to it.
Scooping her up, I carried her out and hopped into the air, speeding up to my rooms. When I landed she released the arm she’d wrapped behind my neck and I hated how quickly she moved away from me, darting into the room from the balcony as though the waning sun would scald her.
Or as if she couldn’t stand to be so close to me.
Time. I had to give her time to rest, for her mind to heal, for her trust in me to be restored.
She made a wide berth around the bed and headed straight to a settee in my sitting area, perching on the edge like she might leap off and run at any moment.
I went to the alcove that held my alcohol counter and poured her a drink with a low alcohol content. It was hopefully just enough to help her relax. I resisted the urge to pour myself something strong and had the same as her. While I was there I tapped a tablet and sent a message to Vuldrex.
I went over and handed the delicate glass to her before settling into a plush chair, letting my wings relax out, belying the tension I really felt.
She took a long drink. “Do you know what happened to Jaron and Tatiana?”
I carefully took her hand, turning it over and rubbing the pulse in her wrist with my thumb, soothing and slow caresses. Her pulse began to respond and slow from its panicked pace. “They left with some of the humans who got away from the ambush.”
She nodded. “It’s better than them getting caught in the crossfire.”
I didn’t say that I thought they were in more danger with their own people than here.
“I should go back to the house.” She murmured, as if to herself.
“No. I want you to stay here with me.” I braced, wings tense. “Permanently.”
“Why?” she asked simply, her eyes haunted as she regarded me from under her lashes.
“Because I love you.” I’d resisted long enough and felt the truth of that statement in my bones.
She shook her head, and a pang went through my chest. It wasn’t as bad as how I’d felt knowing she was leaving, because I knew if she was close at least I could try to win her back, but it still cut deep. I deserved it after what I put her through.
“I wish you would have been truthful about what was going on. Arrazyl, promise me that you’ll be honest with me from now on, even if it’s difficult.”
“You’re right, I should have. I’m sorry, Jacqueline.”
A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “That was quick.”
“I thought that it would make things easier to push you away, but I was wrong. I won’t make that mistake again.” I vowed.
She gazed at the floor, “I’ll stay tonight, but I can’t promise anything else.”
It was a start.