Chapter 15
When I wake, I’m on top of Zan again—Zan in his human form.
Which means even if he’s sleeping, he’s not hibernating. He’s still with me.
I let out a deep breath and try to sit up.
But Zan’s arms are around me like bands, holding me tightly.
I frown. Too tightly.
I solved the problem, didn’t I?
I continue to try to press up, and after a moment, his hold slackens, releasing me.
Because Zan never wants to hold me where I don’t want to be.
And while I do want to be in his arms, I also desperately want to see him.
I lever myself up to sitting, staring down at him as his eyes darken—
Oh. I’m straddling him.
How do I keep putting myself in positions like this by accident?!
My whole body heats, and I quickly slip off of him until I’m seated next to him, and Zan props himself up on his elbows, tousled beneath me.
Gods, and how is he this alluring?
But that’s not the most important question in this particular moment.
“Are you okay now?” I ask him. “For real this time?”
Zan tucks my hair behind my ear, and the gentleness, the intimacy of it makes me want to cry.
I almost lost him.
“Yes,” he says. “I’m okay. For real.”
My whole body shudders with relief, and I bow my head.
But—
Straightening again and looking him dead in the eye I say, “You lied to me.”
Zan flops back down, pressing a hand over his eyes. “Not exactly,” he says. “A... factor in my magic changed, and I miscalculated what it meant.”
Not exactly.
My relief, it seems, is due to be short-lived. “There’s still something you’re not telling me,” I say softly. “Isn’t there?”
Zan takes a breath and moves his hand so he can meet my gaze. “There is.”
At least he’s finally admitting it.
But while he doesn’t owe me his secrets, after what just happened, it makes me angry.
Zan takes one of my hands in his, drawing my attention back to him.
Back to his gaze, and the desperation I now see in it.
“Can you wait?” he asks. “I promise I will tell you.”
Wait for what? “When will be the right time, if not now? Weren’t you the one who said that you always wait too long?”
Zan sucks in a breath, his expression stricken.
Part of me feels bad about that, but... not all of me.
I don’t want to hurt him—but he hurt me. And he hasn’t even apologized, and I think it’s because he doesn’t want it to be true.
Repaying him in kind is not going to fix that, and I know what Teren would suggest.
But opening up more of myself to him when he’s already done the one thing I was most afraid of... I don’t know if I can.
And it’s his turn, surely? He’s the one who messed up!
Zan interrupts my roiling emotions. “Let me have one more day?” he asks. “Please?”
My gaze snaps back to him. “Are you going to leave after that?”
His jaw clenches, and he doesn’t answer immediately.
I can’t do this.
I bolt off the bed.
We’re back in his room in the cottage, I finally notice. I didn’t pay any attention to it the last time I was here, but now, in an abrupt shift wanting to look anywhere but at Zan, I do.
His room is painted in a rich teal color with warm rose curtains. All around the room are pale shelves absolutely packed with objects.
And almost all of them vibrant jewel tones.
Mosaic glass sculptures, painted rocks and stunning gems, books with intricate designs painted on the edges, ceramic figurines that shine with the light of the stars, every item gleaming like a treasure.
A lifetime of art and memories.
A hoard of beauty.
This is why he didn’t show me right away—because I can see so much of him here. The heart that he tries to hide because it isn’t safe to show it, because his home can at any point be taken away, but nevertheless filling his world with trinkets that remind him to hope.
Remind him of what is worth holding onto, even if it’s small.
And I wonder what hope he is desperately holding onto by a thread with me.
“If you leave after talking to me,” I finally say, “then you’d better be planning on coming back. Or I will find you.”
Zan is silent a moment. “You may not want to.”
I turn to glare at him. “I will find you,” I growl. “Maybe it will be to punch you or dunk you in the lake, but until you believe this is actually your home and you don’t have to evict yourself, my wrath will not settle. And if it doesn’t, neither do you get to.”
Zan blinks, then smiles, just a little.
But his eyes still look sad, and I realize that whatever he’s hiding, he doesn’t believe I’m still going to want to be around him.
Well, he doesn’t get to decide that for me.
I’m about to lay into him again when knocks pound at the front door.
“Yora, Zan, it’s me!” Nomi calls. “Can I come in?”
Zan quickly sits up. “I’ll go out and distract her so you can get changed out of what you were wearing yesterday.”
I do probably need to change, but I can do that after opening the door too. “Why?” I ask with narrowed eyes.
“So she won’t know that we’re sleeping together and jump to the wrong conclusion.”
Wrath rises, fast and furious. “Is it the wrong conclusion?” I snap.
There are many things I don’t understand about his feelings, but that the connection between us is one-sided I don’t believe.
Zan pauses halfway to standing up. “That’s not what I meant,” he says tightly.
Well at least he’s not going to pussyfoot about that.
In private, anyway.
“Then I don’t care if she knows,” I tell him. “Why do you?”
Zan snaps his jaw shut.
I don’t wait for him and storm out.
Nomi has already let herself into the house—you know, maybe we do need locks for reasons other than strictly security—
“Oh, there you are,” she says, turning. “I thought—”
Her eyebrows shoot up as she realizes I’m coming from Zan’s room.
She blinks a couple times.
“I thought you might be out, and I’d just leave these here,” Nomi finally finishes, her gaze turning speculative as after a moment, Zan follows me out of his room and closes the door behind us.
I ignore her expression and join her in the kitchen to see what she brought.
It’s a stack of identical lightweight metal containers, and in a flash I understand.
“Are these for ice cream?”
“Exactly. I thought you might have experimented more yesterday,” she finishes wryly, as she glances around the kitchen.
Which is still an ice cream-spattered disaster zone.
“I did! I have blackberry ice cream down now. Can you wait a few minutes? I can make some more.”
So what if my arms do in fact feel like they’re going to fall off after yesterday’s exertions?
I’ve got a whole bunch more rage to take out today.
Especially because I didn’t even get to eat any of yesterday’s ice cream!
“There’s... there’s none left?” Nomi asks.
I look at Zan. “What happened to the last bowl?”
Out of the corner of my eye I see her eyebrows shoot up again.
It takes me a second to work out that she thinks I lost track of it due to sleeping with Zan. Or rather, not sleeping.
If only.
“It’s in the ice house,” Zan says with a shrug. That damn shrug again, gah! “There should be plenty to fill these containers for Nomi to take back down.”
“Yora needs to come with me.”
Now it’s my turn to blink in startlement. “What? Why?”
“The bowl you sent me with yesterday is already gone,” Nomi tells me. “Gone fast. And people are clamoring for more.”
“That’s great, but I don’t see—”
“Exactly. You need to come see the effect you’re having.”
My last foray into Crystal Hollow did not exactly fill me with confidence.
And now that my connection to the one person I care about in this world above all others is also under pressure, this seems like a bad time to meet more people, honestly.
Not to mention that if I only have one more day with Zan...
My lack of enthusiasm is clearly speaking, because Nomi steps in closer and places her hands on my shoulders so I glance up at her with my full attention.
“You may be an expert on power,” Nomi tells me, “but you don’t know how to live with people. This is my expertise. I trust you when it comes to battle. When I say it’s important for you to come to town today, you can believe me.”
Argh! Okay, fine.
But you know what?
I will have more than one day with Zan, gods damn it all.
“I also brought you some more clothes,” Nomi says. “Let’s go into your room so I can show you the options, while Zan transfers the ice cream to the containers.”
My eyes narrow. She’s trying to get me alone. For what?
“Zan should get dressed first too,” I say, turning to him. “If I’m coming, so is he.”
The words come out more like a challenge than a statement, which, frankly, is what I mean by them.
Zan is leaning back against his door with his arms crossed, looking sexier than he deserves to when I’m mad at him.
Rather than deny me outright, he says quietly, “You need to know that you can do this by yourself.”
Because he might not always be here.
But I really don’t think that’s what he wants, so fuck that.
And Nomi next to me, trying to support me, gives me the emotional strength to tell him, “I don’t want to do it by myself.”
Something flashes in his gaze, too fast for me to catch it.
Doesn’t matter, not right this second anyway.
I level a finger at him and inform him, “If I only have one more day with you, you’re coming.”
Zan clenches his jaw. His bone structure is so chiseled I can see it.
But finally, he gives me that fucking shrug again followed by a tight nod, and ducks back into his room.
Not nearly satisfied, I stomp to “mine.”
Ha.
I change course for the bathroom.
I strip and wipe myself down—no time for a bath, but I worked up a sweat yesterday—before carrying my clothes back to the room that has piles of blankets on the floor and a bed that isn’t Zan’s.
Maybe I’ll blow this one up so there’s really only one bed for me in actuality, not just, like, metaphorically.
I drop my dirty clothes on the floor.
Nomi picks them up and puts them in a basket in my room.
I frown. “Won’t that get the basket dirty?” I remember what Zan told me about the furniture.
“Not quickly,” Nomi says. “And it’s better than having a mess in your room.”