Chapter XVI #2
It leaped at Vic again, teeth gnashing the air in front of her face as she skittered to the side. Out of the corner of her eye, Vic watched Xan run up behind her, still clad in his black training outfit and furious.
Xan rounded on the creature, but he didn’t have any weapons. The knife he’d thrown was probably the only one he had on him. Vic watched in shock as Xan ran toward the strix unarmed.
The creature attacked him claws first, its sharp talons heading for Xan’s chest. Xan grabbed the strix by the jaw. Vic stared in mindless horror as she heard a ripping noise, and she knew Xan was about to be torn to shreds.
Vic had no idea what Xan was doing, but she had to help him.
She ran up behind the strix and thrust her blade into the creature’s neck at the exact moment she heard a wet wrenching sound. A crack as loud as a whip split the air, and Vic had no idea what it was until the creature crumpled in front of her like a doll.
Xan had broken its neck.
Vic stepped back from the strix as it fell. A heavy wing hit the floor with a slap, but Xan was already stepping over it.
Rough hands landed on either side of Vic’s face. She started, but Xan held her in place as he turned her head from side to side. Vic was struck for an instant by the similarity of the action to what he had just done to the strix, but the hands holding her were gentle and warm.
“Are you hurt?” Xan asked.
Eyes of vivid gray-blue swam in front of Vic’s, and she couldn’t think of anything but the odd look of concern on Xan’s face, so close to hers.
She opened and closed her mouth for a second before her words returned to her.
“Am I hurt?” Vic shot back. “I’m not the one that attacked a strix with my bare hands.” She pushed Xan’s hands aside and examined his body.
But he had not been disemboweled. He had not, apparently, even been scratched.
The whole front of his shirt was destroyed, though.
There were massive tears in the black fabric, and Vic stared at the unmarred skin underneath.
Vic had anticipated muscles, but he was a real athlete.
These were not the vanity muscles of a bodybuilder.
No, here was solid, well-fed strength, honed through countless hours of fighting.
And he had chest hair. A perfect amount of chest hair.
Without thinking, Vic reached for him. She felt a jolt of electricity when her fingertips met the skin of his abdomen and lowered her hand until her palm lay flat against his stomach, smooth and warm and hard.
Under her touch, a muscle twitched, tensing for an instant and then stilling.
How was it possible that he hadn’t been hurt? What kind of sense did that make?
When she looked up at Xan, Vic froze. He was watching her through dark eyes, and the look on his face was unmistakable. Hunger.
Vic pulled her hand away and stepped back. Her heart was loud in her ears as she remembered that they were alone in the early-morning castle, and he was looking at her like he was starving.
“How are you not hurt?” Vic asked, avoiding his eyes.
“You forget where we are,” Xan replied, his voice low.
“Magic,” Vic whispered. She shook her head.
“What were you thinking,” Xan asked, “running after a strix all by yourself?”
Vic lifted a shoulder. “I thought I saw something.”
“So naturally you gave chase,” Xan said, sounding resigned. “Goddamn it, Vic. Do you have any regard whatsoever for your own safety?”
Vic crossed her arms in front of her as she realized she was suddenly very cold.
Xan caught the movement and his frown deepened. He watched her for a moment before he spoke. “I’ll walk you back.”
Vic looked at the corpse of the Orcan beside them. She remembered the last time she’d seen Xan. He’d seen the bind, and he’d screamed at her for doing magic she didn’t understand. If he learned the truth, that the bind was with Aren Mann, surely he would kick her out. Or worse.
“I’m fine.”
“I insist.”
Before she could object, he had an arm around Vic’s shoulders. She noted the warmth of his skin, the hard muscles of his inner arm, before he began to shove her forward.
“I don’t need an escort,” Vic said, jerking her head toward the strix. “The thing’s dead.”
“Maybe I’m worried you’ll get lost.”
Vic scowled up at Xan as he tugged her along. “Aren’t you going to tell anybody about the corpse in the dining hall? It would be a nasty surprise if they found it at breakfast.”
“They already know,” Xan said, pushing her to the exit. “And you don’t want to be here when the others arrive.”
“Aww, are you worried about me?” Vic asked in a sickly sweet voice.
Xan shot her a flat look. “You’re a little chaos bomb,” he said. “After what happened last night, I would rather not test the Order’s capacity to handle you today.”
Last night? Vic thought, before she realized that it was a new day. The Rite, the catacombs, the fiery mouth behind the dais, they had left all of that behind with the rising sun.
“Did you sleep?” Vic asked him. It couldn’t be later than seven, maybe eight a.m.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
They walked through the halls for several minutes without speaking.
Xan kept his arm around Vic even after it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere, and she found herself enjoying the warmth.
And the pressure. It was nice to be held.
Vic wondered what it said about her that she was so starved for this man’s affection that even being herded felt good.
“You did well last night,” he said in a quiet voice as they entered the hallway to her and Henry’s place.
Vic looked up at him in surprise. He wasn’t mocking her or yelling at her or grumbling under his breath about her unpredictability, like he usually did when they interacted.
He was complimenting her. For some reason, that affected Vic more than anything else had since the meeting.
She blinked against an unwelcome swell of emotion.
“That’s never happened before, with the Rite,” he added.
“Never?” Vic asked. Sarah had said the same thing.
“Not in the Order’s history, at least.”
Vic chewed on the inside of her cheek.
“What do you think that means?” Did Xan think Max’s plan was working? Did he have his own theories about why, or how, Vic was able to do what no one else could?
He turned to face her, and Vic realized they had come upon her apartment door. He dipped to pick up her key where it lay unmoved from where she’d dropped it earlier. He held it out for her, and she clenched her fist around it.
Xan met her eyes, and the ice-blue depths of his alarmed her. Vic took a half step away from the intensity of his stare, but he was reaching for her again.
His palm cupped the side of her face, so soft she could barely feel it, and his thumb ran gently up from Vic’s chin until it landed on her bottom lip. He pulled her lip down, exposing the wet inside.
“I think it means you’re very strong,” Xan said, meeting her eyes. His hand fell away, and Vic licked her bottom lip without thinking. His gaze flashed to the movement and then back. “And I think that’s all it means.”
Xan turned away from Vic and walked back in the direction of the dining hall.
His shirt, Vic had failed to notice, had completely repaired itself.