Chapter 20 Thayla #3
Not in the sense that I was scared of him. It was a startling realization that if he were to give in to the dark, deadly, voided part of himself that he obviously keeps shoved far, far down, I wouldn’t have this man standing before me.
I give him a small smile as I lather my hands and wash my hair. I don’t glance down at the color of the water until I know it’s going to be clear. He doesn’t speak the whole time I wash, just watches. His body leans against the shower walls without a care in the realm that he’s getting drenched.
I turn to cut the water off, then squeal when I’m lifted off my feet once again. “What are you doing?”
“You’re going to relax for a little while,” he declares, strolling out of the shower and directly over to my own little hot spring.
I contemplate arguing, but the steam rolling off the top looks so inviting. A sigh slips through my lips as he settles me in and lays a kiss to my now clean forehead.
My eyes devour every inch of him as he tugs his shirt over his head and unbuttons his pants in front of my bathroom closet. I’m shameless in the way I watch his muscles ripple with every movement.
I couldn’t care less how red my face is when he clears his throat and wraps a towel around his waist without taking his boxers off. I meet his hungry eyes with a smirk.
“Tease.”
He laughs, but the sound is blocked out by the rhythmic knocking at the door. We look at one another. “Amick.”
My jaw drops and my eyes widen when not only him but Creed and Riven pile into my bathroom as well.
“Oh, not fair. How did you get a hot spring in your bathroom?” Riven asks as he kicks off his shoes and grabs the hem of his shirt.
For the Valories.
With clothes on, they all appear around the same size. Clothes off…
I’ve mapped Kyzen’s body out with my eyes and hands. His delicious physique is built with a solid chest, defined lines, and arms that look ready to wield a sword for hours. Given the performance I saw today, that’s probably exactly how they got their shape.
Riven, on the other hand…I’m pretty sure a plaster was laid over his torso and used as the mold for armor.
The grooves in his abs are deep and flow into a V-cut that’s even deeper.
Each movement he makes as he slides his pants off his legs has his muscles flexing, showing off all that restrained power.
“I told you, you could come in here and talk with us. Not interrupt her soak.” Amick’s voice slaps me back to reality.
“What are you doing?”
Riven’s foot pauses midair, inches away from gliding into my bath. “Ah, come on, you’re not gonna let me get in?”
“Let you get in the bath with me?”
“Mini hot spring, but obviously.”
I catch myself before my eyes drift down the entire length of his boxers. “You know I’m naked, right?”
His lips curve into a mischievous smile. “I’ll keep to my side. Cross my heart and hope to die at your feet.”
There’s no hiding the hitching of my breath as he lets his foot slip into the water slowly. Once he realizes I’m not going to say no, he throws himself the rest of the way in, creating waves that first slap me in the face, then slink away.
I shriek his name while covering my boobs. “You did that on purpose.”
He shoots me a wink and spreads his arms out, making himself right at home in my damn hot spring. Bath. Whatever the hell it is.
My nipples harden unbearably against my palms when I focus on the others. They most certainly saw everything.
I attempt to clear my voice, but it gets stuck in my throat when my gaze collides with Creed’s. He isn’t even trying to hide the lust darkening his eyes.
Fuck.
I’ve got to confirm with him what I think happened and tell Kyzen and Amick what happened between us. And see how they feel about my power.
Shit.
“The High Chancellor is the one who orchestrated your kidnapping.”
“What?” I shout.
That completely breaks the building tension.
Amick nods. “The letter from, quote, Derivius was forged by him. He copied his signature off the denial letter of his formal request. It’s easy to piece it together now that it was him who made the Attendants purchase the sleep-paralysis drug that was used on you and Yemi.”
Sleep-paralysis drug. That makes disgusting sense.
So does the whisper he promised me in the Judgment Ring about how it wasn’t really Derivius.
I obviously didn’t know what he meant at the time, but I trusted his confidence completely. I really didn’t want to accept Derivius would betray me like that.
“How did you figure that out so fast?”
“I gather truth through touch. It’s my strongest ability, but it’s limited and takes a lot out of me.
It doesn’t work on living beings, nor will it work just for the sake of it.
Such as, I can’t touch our counter and know who spilled coffee.
There has to be significance to what I see.
Almost one hundred percent of the time, it’s because someone is trying to cover up the truth of something important and it’s revealed to me. ”
My body slumps more into the water and I stare at Amick, baffled. “That’s absolutely incredible. If I’m understanding this right, that means you touched the parchment and saw that it was the High Chancellor who wrote this and not Derivius.”
“Correct.”
He goes on to explain everything they did in the time they were searching for me, including going to visit Riven’s secret Plentiful…friend.
All the pieces click in place and my anger beats at my ribcage. This was so calculated, purely from spite. I don’t think the High Chancellor was doing this on any orders from anyone, including the God of Obliteration, and the guys agree.
He simply hates my ass and was trying to forge his own workaround since Derivius denied his request that I stay here while they go on the trip.
“How are we going to handle this?” I ask.
I say we kill him.
“I say we go ahead and kill him and be done with it.”
I give Riven a sinister smirk. I’m glad we’re on the same page.
“Killing him isn’t an option right now, no matter how much that might be what we want.
We all know our lines on what we can get away with have always been blurred, but killing a higher-up and respected Domain Gods is the one thing we know for certain would cause us to get our powers stripped.
We’re going to have to pretend we don’t know he did anything.
We honestly should…” Kyzen trails off and guilt replaces his anger.
“We should pretend nothing even happened. Act as though Yemi and I didn’t get kidnapped and taken to Hell.”
He lets out a deep sigh. “I hate that, but admitting anything would give away so much. Confronting him could possibly stir up questions we don’t want to answer, including Amick’s ability that’s a secret, the fact Yemi is a Binder to the God of Pain’s son, whom we broke out of Hell, and that you have the power to turn people to…
ash. We don’t want him knowing any of this. ”
I grit my teeth. It pisses me off that he’s right.
I don’t want the High Chancellor, any of the Chancellors really, even Ellian, to know I did that.
I don’t even want to know that I did that.
“Fine, we act oblivious,” I grumble and cross my arms.
“You’re already acting oblivious. I can’t tell if you’re just hiding it really well or you’re not affected because you didn’t think it was that traumatic.”
I scowl at Riven. “Not flipping the fuck out and acting oblivious are two totally different things. I’ve been internally freaking out since I woke up in a dark cell, confused and in shackles.
I’m trying to breathe so this power doesn’t decide to burst out of me again.
And for your information, I was just in here, throwing my guts up, then destroyed my toilet seat, so I’ve already had one meltdown. ”
“Gross.” He scrunches his nose, then peers between Creed and me. “So am I supposed to act oblivious to the fact Creed surprised you with a kiss and you didn’t slap the shit out of him?”
“You kissed her?” Kyzen and Amick ask at the same time.
Lovely.