Chapter 13
~Zayn~
I stroked Vax’s scaled arm as I nuzzled against him on our bed.
Our insanely intoxicating, mouthwatering snake prince.
All armored up in the midst of his special healing sleep.
Still.
I didn’t like it.
I mean, I liked the scales aspect. They were sexy as fuck and really pretty too with the glittering veins the color of his magic woven through the metallic black in cobra patterning.
But him lying prone—so fucking still—unnerved me.
It was kind of like a coma with the way it was coming off.
He was cut off from us while in this state, not really here.
And him being inactive and… passive… while he was like this…
it wasn’t the Vax we’d come to know so fucking well.
I wanted him back with us. Just like Win needed to be back with us really soon.
I couldn’t take much more of this… all this separation.
And that had just been intensified over the last few days with Evira heading out to the Dracoryn Realm so much to help with the fallout and the cleanup after that hellish battle.
It was where she was right now. And where she’d be for the next few hours yet.
Kai had managed to write that spell to keep Ruxnoth out.
Apparently, he’d worked on it with Gabriel Morgan who was also a member of Arcanum Order like Kai was.
It had been erected over the Dracoryn Realm and would keep Ruxnoth out.
But there was still worry that if Sanctus was cloaked in necromantic magic, it could be raised again.
The spell would just keep Ruxnoth himself out.
I mean, that was a major thing. That warped True Celestial…
what he could do… it was beyond horrific.
Kai had given the spell to Ryker Morgan and he was in the process of meeting with other supernatural leaders—realms, kingdoms, Covens, to determine if they wanted the spell erected to protect their turfs as well.
I needed to convince Evira to take a break from all her back and forth soon.
She was still even doing her work with Exalt through it all, and keeping up with her studies.
Not to mention, helping Torvek with the massive reveal that’d happened right there on the battlefield.
Apparently, it had been well-received because he’d saved everyone’s asses.
But there was some dissent, some issues, and there was political fallout that Evira and Fanor—and Vorzyr—were helping him to navigate.
Well, bolstering him—he was a hardass all on his own as it was.
Speaking of Vorzyr, he’d recovered within a few hours after his battle with Ruxnoth, and so had Ariana and Cornelius, although it had taken Ariana a couple of days to regain full power after that brutal siphoning.
The whole fucking thing had been brutal and beyond.
I snatched up Nuvri with my free hand that wasn’t busy stroking Vax’s arm.
I stroked the cute little bear’s head and ears as I placed him on my chest. My bare chest, as I was just lounging on top of the covers in my glittering jeans—one leg black, the other gold.
Evira didn’t like Nuvri seeing anyone not fully clothed, but it was just my chest, and she wasn’t here right now.
Besides, maybe if she caught me, I’d get a delicious little punishment from it.
I chuckled to myself, then my gaze wandered around our bedroom.
It was absolutely packed to the brim with gifts.
All from the Basilisk people for Vax.
Over the last few days, so many had been received.
Evira and me had set them up around the bedroom so Vax would have something awesome to see when he first woke up. Like the get-well gift we’d made for him, the dahlia forged from my flame and her ice, that was hovering a couple of inches above his nightstand.
The sweet gifts they’d sent consisted of white-stone mini-sculptures and also black marble etchings of snakes, hearts, carnations, and even replicas of his crown and his jeweled daggers.
My gaze landed back on his nightstand, even though I’d been trying to avoid looking there too much.
Because of what was resting there beside the dahlia.
The amber gemstone from Win.
A trillion-cut gemstone was what Evira said it was.
The moment Evira and me had arrived back here at our special new home, we’d tried to contact Win through it.
Over and over and fucking over.
With not even one goddamn iota of success.
Everything we’d tried had failed.
I’d even sliced my palm and dripped my blood over it in case it had been blood-locked or something. It hadn’t.
And then it had occurred to us that because it’d been created with Necromancy, maybe Sylas would know what to do.
Maybe it could only be unlocked by him—like some way of Win trying to get a message to Sylas through us by having him be the one to open up the communication channel first. If he tried to contact Sylas directly through their blood link or necromantic father-son thingy, maybe that would be noticed by Ruxnoth or something.
The problem was we didn’t fucking know. We didn’t. And Win could only convey so much and do so much while he was trapped down there and obviously dealing with constraints.
But it was the worst time to take something to Sylas, because after that Light Fae attempted attack and it then risking a war with the Dark Fae Realm too in defense of Velra and the family, Ryker had convinced Sylas, Cassius, Velra, and Lazriel to go underground.
Ketheron not so much because he was sleeping over at one of Ambrose’s many weird-ass black magic planes or cave thingies.
The Guardian Movement was taxed with everything else going on, so they couldn’t be running that sort of high-level round-the-clock protection for them, when going to ground temporarily was the easier option, especially with their familial link to The Shadowed through Remnant being its Commander.
I’d asked Charlie to try to get a message to Sylas via Requital channels open to The Shadowed.
But so far I’d heard squat.
Fuck, maybe this was just a case of waiting on Win. And maybe he needed to be the one initiating contact and currently couldn’t because he was dealing with Ruxnoth. And after what he’d done stopping him, maybe Ruxnoth had punished him. Maybe Win was hurting, being tortured and—stop. Stop it.
I let go of Nuvri and punched the sheets beneath me to let out a little… agitation. It wasn’t good for me to let it build up. We all knew that.
“Sorry,” I told Nuvri as I stroked his face.
Back to Requital… focusing on that… focusing. I couldn’t wait to head back there and resume my induction stuff, more missions under Charlie’s mentorship. Once all this was over. Charlie had even told me that he could work around my class schedule at Loxley Academy.
Speaking of that, I was supposed to be studying right now and catching up on what I’d missed. I’d promised Evira that I would be doing that while she was out.
Jolting as the urgency took me, I fumbled around to grab my supplies.
I snatched up my notebook and pen, then placed them on my lap and grabbed the textbook I needed, hovering that in front of me, while I looked at the instructions I had laid out on the bed just to my left.
River had brought over all our missed coursework and readings when he’d come here to watch Vax that day.
Evira hadn’t even asked him to do that, he’d just been thoughtful enough to think of it on his own.
“Look at this fucking tangled spell,” I spoke softly to Nuvri, as I frowned at the mess I needed to unravel for the first assignment I had to get through. “This is right up Win’s alley, not mine. Right Nuvri?” I pulled my legs up and shifted all my stuff onto my knees.
So, yeah, despite being in my final year, not all classes were a breeze. As if Loxley Academy would let its students get away with that. Still, I loved it. And I was gonna miss it.
But now I wasn’t gonna be walking out just with the loss of being there, with fucking nothing.
Now I had my Requital career path.
And I had them. My loves.
I shifted my weight again, the thought of that making me feel a little better and countering the nightmarish shit a bit.
“You’re like a mini-earthquake whenever you’re in bed,” a voice croaked.
My breath caught in my throat.
Holy shit!
I swung my head toward Vax to see that the scales covering his face had retreated.
His deep gray eyes were on me.
And he was smiling softly.
I turned onto my side so quickly that it knocked my books and Nuvri right off me in the process. “Hey,” I whispered, carefully stroking his hair.
As I did, I saw his scales retreating elsewhere too. So quickly.
In moments, they were gone from view everywhere.
“Darling little Ifrit,” he croaked again, his soft sleepy smile widening.
“Do you need water? Is your throat dry?” I asked, pushing up into a sitting position, then conjuring a glass before he even answered.
A strained chuckle escaped him and he went to reach out for it.
“No, here, sit up first, or you’ll choke,” I told him. I went to wrap my arms around him to help him up, but then I stopped myself. “Wait. Are you fully healed? The organ damage? Broken bones?”
I mean, I figured that was how he’d woken up—he’d recovered. But what if it had just been a partial job, like he’d forced himself out of it sooner than he should have?
I needed to be sure. I wasn’t gonna risk touching him with any pressure beyond a careful caress and end up causing him damage.
It had been bad enough in the Crown Palace right after that brutality he’d endured when I’d caught him as he’d collapsed, while he’d had so many broken bones and everything.
At least the pain had been dulled because of that spell, but that would have worn off by now.
“Healed fully, merely a little parched.”
He sat up then. Yeah, a little wearily, but in a just-woken-up way, not showing any signs of pain. He smiled at me and I handed him the glass of water.
He took a couple of slow sips, then downed the entire thing. “Much better.”