Chapter 23 ~Vaxan~
~Vaxan~
Wistering Waterfalls.
It was pleasant being here without a mission in mind.
Especially with the reason this time being something wondrous.
Date night.
It had been an absolutely delightful evening.
Even with the dark shadow still hanging over us in the form of the maniacal warped True Celestial who was in the process of being tracked.
As much as I didn’t particularly do well with inaction in the face of active threats, the fact of the matter was, there was nothing more to be done at this juncture.
Once he was located, that would all shift on its axis, but until then, we would continue moving forward without that shadow darkening everything around us.
“Vax?” Zayn murmured from beside me.
He was nestled against my left side, his head half on my chest.
Winter was lying to my right, his head nuzzled in Evira’s neck. She was in a near-horizontal position against him, curled around him, and her legs slung over mine.
We were all relaxing on a silky black blanket on the bank beside the clustered waterfalls spilling into the shared spring after devouring a lavish picnic that Zayn had prepared.
“Hmm?” I responded, continuing to run my fingers through his pink hair.
“I’m chilly,” he said, lifting his head briefly to flash me an adorable pout.
“Is that so? You? Supremely competent Ifrit possessing notably potent power?”
“That’s me. So chilly. Like sooo chilly, Vax”
“And even knowing all that, being all that, you can’t heat yourself? Is that what you’re telling me, smoldering beauty?” I teased.
“Mmm hmm. I’m too sleepy.”
“Smoldering bullshitter is more like it right now,” Winter spoke, turning his head toward us, where Evira pushed up a little to lean on his shoulder and see over us to Zayn.
“Aww,” she crooned.
I grasped the hips of his studded black jeans, hauled him up, and settled him on top of me, his thighs straddling my waist.
His eyes sparkled down at me, and he trailed his fingers all over my black tank, titillating me with merely that slight touch.
Then he sank down on me, settling his cheek against mine and fondling my hair around my Sunveil crown.
“Sleepy little puppy, are you?” Winter teased, reaching out and walking his fingers up Zayn’s thigh and making him squirm, most definitely sparking need in him.
“Win, you’re starting something here. You better be ready to finish it.”
A primal growl rumbled from Evira, sending a jolt of awareness through me.
“Yep, for sure now. You set Evira off.”
“I think your cute puppy show did.”
“Both,” Evira clarified for them, the two of us exchanging a highly amused look at their adorable antics.
It meant they were in remarkably good spirits.
Zayn escalated in the next moment, pushing up on me, planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek, giving Evira what he termed “heart eyes”, then pouncing right on top of Winter.
He had Winter laughing and becoming the one squirming as he licked his hair, his cheek, his face, his throat.
Evira and I sat up, then they rolled off the blanket, licking, nipping, and also tugging at one another’s clothes, making a delicious mess of one another.
Their infectious laughter took Evira and me along with them.
I gave her a hand-up and she wrapped her arm around me as we watched the show.
“Shit,” Zayn gasped, managing to extricate himself, staggering to his feet, then having to jump away to avoid Winter attempting to snag his ankle.
He ran a hand through his mussed hair, his clothes all wrinkled, as he panted, smirking down at Winter.
“That’s it. We’re getting in that spring now.
Everyone strip. This is gonna be hardcore,” Zayn announced.
He walked to the water’s edge and crouched down.
“Let me just check it’s good to go.” He dipped his hand into the spring, only to jerk back sharply with a hiss.
“Fuck. It’s freezing. Why? I thought these waters were supposed to be perfectly calibrated, almost therapeutic. ”
He looked so terribly disappointed.
I gave Winter a chin lift, and he flipped to his feet and strode over. “These waters recalibrate and cleanse themselves for a couple of hours at night. This cold is part of the process. But I should be able to affect it for a little while, put it at null state temperature.”
“Perfect. I can’t heat them with my flame, or it’ll hurt Evira,” Zayn rightly noted. “They’re supposed to accommodate all natures and temperatures, like feel perfect for everyone all at the same time.”
“Yeah, they will once the recalibration is done.” Winter dragged his hand down over the front of Zayn’s jeans as he passed by, smirking when Zayn groaned for him. “In the meantime, strip, fireball.” Winter looked out at Evira and me and wiggled his eyebrows. “All of you.”
Another growl came from Evira as she reached for the hem of her ivory top.
My serpentine tongue lashed out in response to it all, and stripping was no longer on the menu until I’d had a little taste of her first.
But as I moved in to do just that, and she registered the carnality rising from me, a disturbance caught my attention.
I slapped my hand to hers, stopping her from stripping off her shirt.
“Hold,” I told all three of them.
She frowned, then started scanning our immediate area, employing her draconic senses.
That wouldn’t work in this case.
Because as I felt it again, then locked onto the nature of the disturbance, it became abundantly clear that this was no ordinary scenario.
“Teleport out,” I told them, as I swung my head toward the trees off to our right.
“What?” Zayn cried. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t feel anything,” Evira said.
“No magical signatures either,” Winter reported.
“That’s not how they operate.”
“They? We’re talking Basilisks?” Zayn asked.
“Not just any Basilisks.”
“Your parents?” Evira questioned.
I ground my jaw. “A distinct unit that was supposed to have been abolished years ago. Something I advocated to have removed and won the popular vote that made it so.”
I scanned the trees in the distance.
Ripples.
Very slight, but discernible, nonetheless.
A disconnect in the material integrity of the earth, the grass.
Camouflaged agents.
“Vax?” Winter pressed, striding over to me and calling his amber power at the ready on both palms.
“They’re known as Septna. They’re Excetra Crown assassins.” I shook my head with the sheer insult of it. “They’ve been deployed to kill me.”
Five.
Nine.
Twelve.
Twenty.
There were twenty of them here.
I turned to my loves, while keeping an eye on the threat with my peripheral vision and my senses all at once. “I need you to leave.”
“Some fuckers obviously deployed by your parents have come here to kill you, and you want us to leave you to it?” Zayn cried. “The fuck that’s happening.”
“Absolutely not,” Evira snarled.
“No, Vax.”
“You don’t understand. To take me out they’d need to be fueled by the power of Norla herself. The damage that could be done to you all just for standing beside me—”
“You don’t think you can match her power?” Evira asked me.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t act on uncertainty.
Except now I was being forced to. I couldn’t stand the thought of those I loved so very dearly paying for that.
“All the more reason for us to bolster you,” Evira insisted.
“They can tear through dragon hide, Evira.”
She started, but still stood firm. “Still not leaving. We stand together. Come what may.”
I winced. “I can’t lose the three of you.” The only people in my whole life I’d ever loved, who’d ever loved me.
“This isn’t him talking,” Zayn told Winter and Evira. “It’s what his parents do to him, how they are… it’s a really demented thing.”
“Zayn,” I protested.
He came to me and grasped my arm. “You’re all about standing as a united force.
This is fear that you’re not used to feeling talking.
Fear that’s been coming at us all so much lately.
The hits we’ve all taken, it’s all slamming into you now—and this attack is clearly the last straw, the dam starting to break on you compartmentalizing it all to keep our foursome going.
But it’s okay, Vax. It will be okay. Because we’re all still standing here. Through all of that fucking madness.”
Winter laid his hand on my shoulder over on my other side. “And we’re not exactly easy to kill either, are we?”
Evira grasped my jaw, forcing my gaze to hers, even using her draconic strength in her urgency. “We’re not leaving you. That’s not up for debate.”
I stared out at them all, rapidly trying to calculate—
There was nothing to calculate.
This was their love for me shining through, surrounding me.
What was I—of course we stood together on all things.
Zayn was correct. This was some sort of delayed trauma response from me.
“I… I’m so sorry. You’re right. All of you.”
Evira softened her grip. “It’s okay. We all get it, believe me.”
“Win especially,” Zayn said, eyeing him pointedly.
“Reformed now, remember?” Winter reminded him.
“I know. So let’s keep it that way for all of us, all right? Vax?”
I nodded. “Yes. Of course.”
“Good,” Evira said, releasing me. “Now, pinpoint these foolish assassins so we can get to work tearing them apart.”
Before I could get another word out, I felt a formidable pulse shooting across the area, headed straight for us.
Translucent wisps caught my eye and I identified the trajectory fast enough to grab Winter and Zayn with a burst of speed and move them out of the way.
In the next moment, we all erected shields around ourselves.
But just as the pulse shot past us and dissolved into the atmosphere after missing its target, I sensed a fusillade headed our way.
In the next moment, Zayn was crying out as one hit his shield, preventing horrific damage, but not all damage, and the impact propelling him into the springs.
He plunged deep with a violent eruption of water spraying out everywhere.