Chapter 10
Two days had passed since Zaph left. At least, I thought it had been two days.
There was no sun here, no moon, nothing to mark time except the flickering walls and the servants gliding in and out like silver ghosts.
But they’d come to fetch me several times, brought food, replaced clothes, and I’d slept twice.
So, according to my… what was it called?
Inner clock? Circadian rhythm? Lizard brain?
Whatever. By my body’s measure, two days had passed.
And I was getting angry.
How dare he? How dare he throw all that cosmic soulmate, gods-and-demons, balance-and-doom nonsense at me, only to just vanish. No explanations. No nothing.
What was I supposed to do, exactly? Sit here like a pampered pet in my alien princess suite, taking endless baths until I dissolved into a puddle?
The pool was nice, I’d admit that. Luxurious even.
But after the fifth soak, even the promise of an alien spa lost its magic. My skin pruned just thinking about it.
I paced the length of the chamber as my silk skirts whispered around my legs, and my fists were tightly clenched.
“Damn you, Zaph,” I muttered. “Where the hell did you go?”
The silence pressed back, vast and heavy. No answer. No golden storm striding through the door, no black eyes cutting me open, no infuriating smirk.
Just me. Alone.
For the first time since Rotodex, I hated the quiet more than the chaos.
I blew out a sharp breath and planted my hands on my hips. “Okay, Ella. Enough. You can’t just sit here like some abandoned housecat waiting for her owner to stroll back in. You need to do something.”
The pep talk rang hollow, but I clung to it. To hell with that stupid alien and his disappearing act. He could play warlord in his black hole all he wanted. I didn’t need him. I didn’t want him.
Except… what the hell was I supposed to do?
Float around like he’d shown me? Explore other planets?
The idea was tempting—God, tantalizing even—but the memory of those Morlock-things made my stomach clench.
Pale hides, glowing eyes, claws dripping with blood.
No Zaph to save me this time? No, thank you.
I’d pass on the intergalactic safari of nightmares.
I paced faster, my pulse quickening as my agitation gnawed at me. His face kept flashing through my mind, sharp and golden and infuriating—his voice, his scorn, his touch. Ah shit, just the memory of a simple brush of his fingers against my skin made my insides all… squirrely and squirmy.
And then—suddenly—I wasn’t just imagining.
I saw him.
Not here in the chamber, but right in front of me, vivid as life.
Zaph, his sword blazing, slashing through the air.
Around him swarmed those things—the Mmuhr’Rhong, the Morlock-demons, screeching as they closed in.
His aura flared black, red, and gold all at once; his movements were brutal, beautiful, and terrifying.
I gasped, stumbling back, clutching the edge of the table. It wasn’t possible. This couldn't be real.
But the vision lingered, as if the Abyss itself wanted me to watch.
I felt it then—a tug low in my chest, like a hook buried under my ribs, yanking me toward the vision.
“Oh, hell no,” I muttered, stumbling back a step. My pulse spiked, and my palms went slick with sweat. “Nope. Not going there. That’s a freaking battle, not a day trip.”
But the pull only grew stronger, dragging at me like a riptide.
I dug my heels into the floor, clutching the edge of the nearest pillar, but it was like trying to stop a hurricane with duct tape.
My breath came fast and shallow. My heart was hammering so wildly I thought it would fly straight out of my chest.
“No. Absolutely not,” I cried, as if arguing with the universe itself. “I didn’t sign up for the TV-from-hell package.”
Except it wasn’t a TV. The vision rippled in the center of the room, flat and thin like a pane of glass, but alive, pulsing, bleeding light and sound. Not a screen. A window.
And I was being pulled straight through it.
I clawed at the air, my legs were thrashing, but my body betrayed me.
Mercilessly, I kept sliding forward inch by inch.
“Stop it! No—stop it, stop it!” My voice cracked into a near-hysterical laugh.
“This is how horror movies start, isn’t it?
Idiot girl walks through the glowing portal straight into the monster pit. ”
The window shivered. Then it swallowed me whole.
Everything around me tore open at once. One heartbeat, I was in the chamber, fighting the pull, the next I was ripped through, slammed into air that stank of blood and smoke. The ground trembled under my feet. Screams and shrieks split the sky. And right in front of me—Zaph.
His sword whistled past so close it stirred the hair at my temple. I dropped to the dirt with a yelp, heart pounding so hard I thought it would crack my ribs.
“What in the great Abyss—?” His voice was a roar, sharp enough to cut.
Another golden alien's crimson aura flared as he cleaved through a lunging Mmuhr’Rhong. “Praetor—who is that?”
But Zaph was already moving. His eyes locked on me, black and burning, and in the next breath, the battlefield shattered around us. The shrieks, the blood, the ruined ground—gone.
I blinked, and we were back.
Back in his palace. But not in my chamber, from the looks of it… his?
And he was still gripping me, his sword dripped gore across the floor. His fury radiated hotter than fire, darker than the void we’d just left.
I should’ve been terrified. I was terrified.
But God help me, I couldn’t look away.
He was magnificent. Every inch of him, blood-slick and battle-born, a golden storm cloaked in black.
Primal. Dangerous. Exactly what I’d pictured a thousand times when I unearthed the bones of warriors long dead, brushing dirt from a blade or a buckle and wondering what kind of man had once carried it.
And now he was here, breathing hard, his chest heaving, a war-god standing inches from me.
Why the hell was that so damn sexy?
“What in the name of the Abyss were you thinking?” he thundered, his voice shaking the very walls. “How did you get there? I could have killed you!”
I just stared at him, too stunned to breathe. His eyes blazed black fire, his chest rose and fell like a beast still in the throes of battle, and all I could think was—God, his voice is sexy when he’s mad.
Why was I just now realizing that?
This god of battle, dripping with gore and fury, should have terrified me. Instead, I felt drawn to him like no other man had ever pulled me. What the hell was wrong with me?
Of course, my mouth betrayed me. “I have no idea how I got there,” I shot back, sarcasm cracking under the quake of my heartbeat. “Did you… summon me or something?”
He froze, staring at me as if I’d just spoken in a language he didn't understand. Slowly, he dragged a hand through his blood-matted hair; his arm muscles rippled with the motion, and I couldn't take my eyes off.
“I could have killed you,” he repeated, in a much lower voice. It sounded rougher, too, moving like honey under my skin.
Before I could reply, his hand shot out, hard and sure, wrapping around my waist. I gasped as he pulled me flush against his chest, heat pouring off him in waves. His other hand tangled in my hair, tilting my face up until I was caught, trapped, with nowhere to run.
“Zaph—” I started, but the word never finished.
His mouth crushed against mine, and the world shattered.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a claim. Fierce, searing, and hungry enough to burn me from the inside out.
His lips moved against mine like fire licking across dry kindling, devouring, consuming.
My hands curled helplessly into his chest, but instead of pushing him away, I pulled him closer.
I’d never been kissed like that, never been undone like that. My body answered his with terrifying eagerness; heat roared through my veins, and flames licked across every one of my nerve endings.
It was a fire. An all-consuming fire.
His kiss deepened, his teeth grazed my lower lip, and a growl reverberated through his chest and into mine. His hand fisted tighter in my hair, angling me to take more of him, to let him devour me whole.
May future me have mercy on current me—I let him.
I melted against him, my body, my traitorously pliant body, strained to get closer.
Heat curled low in my belly; it was as fierce as a firestorm.
Never had I felt that alive before. This was no gentle exploration, no tender press of lips.
This was war in its own right, his fury, my defiance, colliding in something dangerously close to surrender.
A whimper tore from me before I could stop it, my body’s betraying signal swallowed instantly by his mouth, greedy and insistent.
I could feel his aura flare, hot and gold, licking at the edges of his darkness, red surging beneath as if stoking a living flame, and though black threatened, it was retreating, momentarily overwhelmed by the onslaught of something brighter.
I felt it wrap around me, this force that was him but also not-him, this second skin of sensation that seeped into my own, until the line between my racing pulse and his was obliterated.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel my body as a solitary boundary, but as a membrane barely containing a volcanic collision.
We were fusing, elemental, and all my thoughts scattered like frightened birds.
And then reality came down like a hammer, too sudden to brace for.