Chapter Twenty-Three Tangled in Smoke
"When you love someone, you give them power. But when you trust them, you give them the ability to break you."
The Forge had been emptied of everyone except for essential personnel.
They could still hear the people of the city marching, thankfully it had not yet turned to a full-scale riot.
Most guards had either fallen at the hands of the mob, or they fled behind the safety of the castle walls.
There was no word on the number of casualties yet.
"Where is he?" Adan asked the moment the heavy doors closed behind them. There were no windows in the Forge, but someone had lit hundred of slim white candles.
"Upstairs. His office." Ren nodded his head above, Adan was already lunging for the stairs, taking them two at a time. She felt Ren's presence following behind her, but she only had one singular thought. As she pushed open the office door, they all fell away, replaced with a deadly silence.
Nox sat propped up on the couch, his eyes lifted the second she entered, locking onto hers with a kind of intensity that stilled her in her tracks. The bandage on his side already blooming red, fresh blood soaking through the gauze.
He didn't flinch. "Everyone out."
Adan hadn't even noticed the other people in the room. They scurried past her, shutting the door behind them. Sealing the two of them in the office alone.
"You're bleeding," she said, her voice low, too calm to be natural. Her hands clenched at her sides. "You're okay, though?" She breathed, she knew he would be, but it was a small comfort to know for sure.
She was frozen, her feet glued to the floor as her breathing steadied.
"You're alive," Nox replied, like it was an equal exchange. He eyed her critically, "that's not your blood." His nostrils flared.
"No." she whispered, taking a heavy step forward.
"They're dead?" He asked, siting up further, only to wince at the movement. Adan had never seen the large male hurt before. It was unnerving. His massive size looked so odd on the small couch.
Adan kept her face impassive as she eyed him critically. She took two steps into the room, then another, and another, until she stood directly in front of him. "Yes." She breathed.
"Good girl." Nothing but satisfaction filled his voice, and zero regret.
She couldn't help the rush of warmth that spread throughout her body at those two small words coming from his perfect full mouth.
She didn't know what to say, all words ebbed out of her head at the sight of him wounded.
She didn't think it was possible, like he was some untouchable god.
It shattered the illusion that he worked so hard to uphold.
"Does it hurt?" Idiot. Of course, it hurts, he was poisoned.
He smirked slightly, "I'll be fine in a few hours. It's just uncomfortable and annoying. Ren and Aster got me here quickly enough to administer the antidote."
He locked his green eyes with her mismatched pair.
"What you did was very foolish." His eyes narrowed, and her mouth dropped, readying for a snarky response.
"And... It was also very brave." She closed her mouth instantly as his eyes warmed.
"I hope you now know that I don't need any of your brutes to watch over me. I don't need anyone to save me." Even if Nox had saved her more than once tonight.
"I know that, love." He gave her an indolent look.
"Then why command Ren and Aster to stay with me?" She knew already that he had a wicked protective and possessive streak. It didn't come as a surprise. But she wasn't his to protect, not really.
She was no one's responsibility but her own.
"You're the last of your kind." She nodded, it made sense. Even if it stung just a little. A small part of her, that she refused to acknowledge, hoped he might've had feelings for her—it would explain the possessiveness. "But do not put my life ahead of yours again." He warned.
"Unlike you... I have more than one." The sides of her mouth twitched. She never brought up her heritage--Never once liked to talk about what it meant for her to be a phoenix. Other than Nox asking her about her wings, he tried to never mention it either.
"You'd waste a life on me?" His brows rose slowly.
"I don't think it would be such a waste." She whispered. She had never thought to sharing a fire-life with another—ever.
"Careful, love. That almost sounds like a compliment." He was grinning now.
She didn't have the words, so she moved towards him and reached to check his dressings.
He hissed at the soft touch of her fingers against his chest.
"You took the arrow for me? Didn't you."
She hated to admit it, but that would make it four times the large male below her had saved her life.
She pulled back the gauze to find the wound well on its way to healing, though it would leave a nasty scar.
She refused to look up at him, but could feel his gaze on her face.
His hot breath fanning her cheek, which was unavoidable with their forced proximity.
Blush bloomed on her face and neck. She focused on his bare chest, which she decided was not much better.
This close, Adan could spy a few of his scars, hidden under the massive black and grey tattoo that covered his whole upper body.
She realized that her fingers were trailing across his heavily tattooed chest, and she snatched her hand away. "Do they mean anything?" She found herself asking, if only to distract from her embarrassment.
The only tattoo she had was on her face, and was given to her against her will. His seemed to tell a story, that he had gotten them willingly as a reminder.
"Yes." His hand reached out, gently catching her wrist, dragging her fingertips over a mythical scaled beast with three-toed claws. "A symbol of wisdom, power, and luck." She realized then what it was coiling around his body like a snake.
"It's a dragon." He said nothing, only stared at her, but he had let go of her hand. It made sense that he would have a tattoo of his house's original head family, before they were all murdered. It was a statement, though, if anyone looked closely enough. They might see what Adan saw.
A carefully hidden rebel.
Nox gave her a devilish grin to match.
She finally pulled away from his perfectly chiselled chest.
"See something you like, love?"
Adan rolled her eyes, if only to keep from looking at him. Everything about him was sensual grace and lethal precision. She couldn't help but be attracted to him. As if on cue, Nox raised an arm to run in through his raven hair. The movement caused all his muscles to contact and ripple.
Adan couldn't help but wonder if he had done it on purpose.
"You're incorrigible." She stepped away, needing space to breathe.
The male beside her having the innate ability to steal all the air from the room.
"Where are the others—Czandra, Asha, Thammas?"
They were last seen in the thick of the march.
"Aster is out looking for them now, and I assume Ren has gone to join him, now that you're here." They were both quiet for a moment. Until Nox braved a question. "How does it work?" When Adan returned, a confused look he clarified. "Your fire-lives. Your phoenix lives..."
"I told you already, you have to want to come back."
Nox ignored the fact that Adan looked very uncomfortable having this conversation. "Yes. There has to be more to it, though. Cias has—"
"Ashes. Yes." Adan was short, and stepped back. Her walls, physically and mentally, now built taller than Nox's ruined tower.
Adan sighed deeply, and dropped her head back.
She crossed her arms, and took a step back towards him.
"He has three jars left. One jar is equal to one person--one life. I don't know who they were. Cias must have used my brother's ashes long before I came to the castle as Adan. The ashes can heal too, but there are healers that he could use.
He would have to be desperate to waste phoenix ash on a wound that would heal with time or with the help of other magic."
"Would you have to die to bring someone back?"
Adan was quiet for a moment. She was raised to never share the secrets of her family.
All the Houses were the same. Fire, Storm, Shadow.
It didn't matter. Even within their own house, they rarely shared specifics.
It came down to trust. "No... but Cias doesn't know that. I think he would have done things differently. He wouldn't have depleted his resource of ash if he had known the truth."
"And if he somehow finds out what you are..."
Adan rarely let herself think about what could happen in that scenario. "He will most likely kill me." Nox furrowed his brow, and fought back the need to snarl at the imaginary threat. Clenching his jaw hard enough to crack a tooth.
"Don't look so put out." She laughed, if only to pivot the heavy weight of the gravity of their conversation.
"To be fair, if Cias ever finds out what you are, you will be worse off than dead."
Nox face slackened, but his brows stayed up.
She was right, but she didn't know the whole scope of it.
"He will probably keep you alive for a good long while." She flashed him a smile.
"You don't seem too worried, love."
"Should I be? You've gone well over two hundred years defying him under his nose."
"Is that... another compliment?" Nox was grinning now. "I should get hurt more often."
"Bite your tongue." Adan beamed, smacking his shoulder.
Her swing was lighthearted, but he still groaned.
She knew he was just trying to play it up, his wound was already healing and with the antidote in his system he would be fine in a matter of hours.
"Thank you, for taking the arrow... and for catching me."
She let him see all the sincerity she felt.
A beat of silence passed between them, heavy and electric. Her eyes met his, and something unspoken passed there—an acknowledgment, maybe, of how close they had come to not having this moment at all.
"You should be, I should have let you take it. It would have been so much easier to throw you over my shoulder and fly out of there than it was for Ren and Aster to carry me." He was batting her.