Chapter 24 ELLA #2
Another Guardian stood, proud and strong, at the ramp. His hand was reaching for the blaster by his side, but something stopped him. He looked at Zaph and stilled.
“Are you Vraax Zeljed?” one of the others asked sharply, not at Zaph but towards the Guardian by the ramp.
“He is not,” Zaph said flatly, his gaze sliced across the Guardians. Something passed between them, words I didn’t hear, and I realized Zaph was using the same mind control on them that Nythor had used on me. As if leashed, the Guardians turned and left, just like that.
“What the hell, Zapharos?” Sloane snarled, dragging two women up the ramp.
“You have fucking mind control?” She looked about ready to deck him, and for one breath, I actually cheered her on, because I could understand that urge all too well.
Not right now, but Zaph had made me feel like that plenty of times before.
“You should get us out of here,” Zaph said, utterly unbothered.
We piled into the cargo bay, the rescued women huddled together, some sobbing, some silent as stone. I wanted to bury myself in Zaph’s arms, to thank him, to rage at him for not coming sooner—all at once—but the ship was already rumbling beneath our feet.
"Come, Vraax can take over from here." Zaph kept carrying me, away from the women, down a hallway following Sloane and Vraax? That had to be the Guardian's name.
I threw a look at the women. "I should stay, help them." I objected weakly.
“You need attention first,” Zaph decided, not giving me a choice. His arms tightened just enough to silence further protest. A door hissed open at our approach at the end of the corridor, and he carried me inside.
The moment we were alone, the ship's noise faded. It was just us, a low-lit cabin, and the thrum of engines underfoot. Everything else—Sloane, Vraax, the women—fell away like a curtain.
“Zaph…” My voice broke on his name. He had barely set me down on my feet when I threw my arms around his neck, needing the contact, the proof that he was solid, here, real.
That I was free. That he had rescued me once again.
His hands slid over me, not in hunger but in a frantic inventory, palms hovering at my ribs, my wrists, my face.
“Are you alright?” His eyes were scanning me like a weapon’s sight, searching for any sign of injury.
“I’m fine,” I lied, though my knees felt like water. “I’m fine now.”
He cupped my jaw, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth as if he was trying to erase everything that had happened to me.
“I should have come sooner,” he muttered. There was a crack in his voice I had never heard before.
Something inside me shifted at that sound.
For all his power, all his arrogance, he was looking at me like a man who’d almost lost everything.
It made my heart hammer. I pressed my forehead to his chest, breathing him in.
The heat of his skin, the faint shimmer of his aura, all of it wrapped around me until I couldn’t tell where his heartbeat ended and mine began.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” I whispered, the words spilling before I could stop them. “And what they were doing—Zaph, it’s… It’s beyond comprehension.”
His arms tightened like steel bands, but he didn’t speak.
“I wanted to kill them,” I admitted softly. “When I saw the tanks, the women—what they were making them carry—I wanted to watch them burn.” My voice shook. “I stopped you because… because my human side still tells me it’s wrong. But not because I was convinced.”
That scared me more than the Ohrurs. The anger inside me wasn’t leaving; it was coiling, shaping itself into something I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t sure if I was changing for the better.
“I’m glad you came for me before…” I stopped, unable to finish, unable to voice what before meant. Before the worst could happen. Before I became another ghost inside a cage.
He tilted my chin up, and the molten gold in his eyes made my breath catch. For the first time since the cell, a fragile thread of safety stitched itself across the ragged edges inside me.
"If something had happened to you," he rasped. His hands found my face, cradled it. He shook his head, unable to form the words.
I rose to my tiptoes. "It didn't, though. Nothing I can't survive at least. Thank you for saving me."
Before he had a chance to respond, I pressed my lips against his, and that was all the incentive he needed. With a groan, he took hold of my hips and pressed me against him, devouring my offered mouth with an intensity that left me utterly breathless.
His hands were so careful—almost reverent—sliding up my back, into my hair, holding me in place as if he was afraid I’d slip through his fingers.
I tasted salt on his lips, which only registered a moment later as my own tears.
I was crying, but I didn’t know why; maybe from relief, maybe from terror, maybe from the way he held me, like I was holy.
Our bodies collided in a heat neither of us could resist, but there was a restraint this time, as though he was holding back Armageddon with pure muscle and intent.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured softly.
I hadn’t realized it. My body vibrated against his like I was humming at some impossible frequency. His thumb found the corner of my mouth, tracing the edge, and the carefulness undid me more than any violence could.
“I was so worried about you,” he said, and the words came out strange, syllables thick with something he could barely control. “I saw Nythor take you through Ilythas' eyes—” He stopped, his jaw was flexing, as if he could bite the memory away.
I ran my hands over his chest; his muscles were so hard and chiseled. “I’m here,” I replied, unable to resist the urge to kiss his pecs. “You don’t have to be careful. I want—” The rest got lost in his mouth as he lifted my head by my chin, desperate and tender at once.
He hoisted me as if I weighed nothing and set me on the bed. His eyes burned gold, then flickered with something darker at their edges.
"We shouldn't," he whispered, his voice breaking on the words.
He drew back, but his hands lingered at my waist, trembling.
"If the black takes me, I could hurt you.
" The confession seemed to pain him physically, his jaw clenching as if fighting the darkness even now.
"I can feel it, Ella. Always waiting. And when I want you like this—" He shook his head, throat working.
"I won't risk you. Not after everything. Not ever."
I should've been the one hesitating after what I'd been through.
Instead, my body arched toward his, craving his touch like oxygen.
"What if it doesn't win?" I touched his chest where his heart hammered wildly beneath my palm.
"What if this is stronger?" The heat between us felt like its own kind of magic, bright against whatever shadows haunted him.
His mouth twitched, not a smile exactly, but something raw with longing and fear. "You do not understand what I am," he whispered, even as he leaned imperceptibly closer.
"Then teach me," I said, my voice dropping to match his. I slid my hand up to his neck, feeling his pulse race. "We go slow. You watch for the shadows. If you feel anything pulling you under, we stop."
He searched my face, his expression so vulnerable it made my chest hurt. "You would trust me with that? After what you've seen?"
"I already am." My heart thudded so violently I was sure he could feel it in the air between us. "We won't know unless we try."
For a moment, he was perfectly still, like a statue with a raging tornado trapped inside.
Then his shoulders eased the smallest fraction, surrender and determination mingling in his eyes.
He took my hand and pressed it to his throat, where his pulse beat hot and steady against my fingers.
"Say the word, and I stop," he vowed, his voice rough with need and fear. "At once."
“Deal,” I whispered, surprised at the steadiness of my voice, and at the heat curling low in my belly. “Now kiss me before I lose my nerve.”
His exhale shook. “Precious Ella,” he said, like a prayer and a surrender in one. The darkness in his gaze receded to amber, and he bent, careful and controlled, holding himself like a drawn bow he refused to loose.
So he kissed me again, even slower this time.
There was no rush. He worked his way down my throat, his mouth gentle, like he was savoring every inch he was conquering; he thumbed the tear-tracks from my jaw and then just held my cheek in his palm, large enough to cup the whole side of my face.
He kissed the spot where my pulse thundered. Each touch was a small worship.
My hands got greedy; I was mapping the terrain of his ribs and abs. They were so taut, so thick, it should have been illegal. Their hardness was in stark contrast to my pliable flesh. He kissed me again, even slower this time.
Gently, carefully, almost reverently, he slid my dress up, slowly, baring my legs inch by inch. I heard the clatter as my shoes hit the floor. The world outside narrowed to two points of collision: his bare fingers on my skin, and his mouth, now at the hollow of my collarbone.
His reverence was a kind of madness. If he’d ripped me apart, ravished me with immortal violence, maybe it would have been easier to bear. But he didn’t. He went slow—agonizingly, exquisitely slow—like he was imprinting each new exposed inch of me on his memory for the last time.
“Breathe,” he whispered, and I realized I’d stopped.
He unhooked the clasp at my shoulder, and the whole dress slipped, pooling at my waist. My breasts were bare; I saw his eyes change, black shot through with gold, and a kind of awe overtook his hunger.
He bent, taking a nipple in his mouth, flicking it with the tip of his tongue, and I gasped at the rush of sensation.
This was the opposite of annihilation. It was creation, raw and desperate.