Ryze Series: Books 1 & 2

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  Again with the damn weakness. It robs me of everything, sending the world into a tailspin. I grab onto Zen’s shoulders.

  A groan from Vedlyl’s direction catches my attention. He’s still holding onto the wall, his body jacking up and down, his monstrous glare locked on Zeniel like he’s itching for a fight.

  No. He is. I can see it on every inch of him. He’s starving for battle.

  “What . . . what are you?” I ask right before the world goes black.

  CHAPTER 18

  EVESSE

  “F orgive me Father, for I have sinned. I never meant for it to end up this way . . .”

  “I needed the money. End result justifies the means, right? Or some shit like that. Whatever . . . now I’ll be able to get them kicks I need to impress the boys.”

  “That little bitch. She doesn’t deserve a man like him. With her out of the way, he’ll be all mine . . .”

  Who the hell left a television on? And what kind of fucked-up channel are they tuned to?

  I lift my head, groaning at the stampeding horses that run gleefully across my forehead. I squint an eye open. See nothing but bright light. Close it. Decide to try it again—

  Wait. Whatever is under me feels familiar. Staggeringly familiar.

  “Evesse?”

  Oh, that voice. It has the power to reach me in any state, and it does its job, alright. My headache rushes away, going back to wherever it came from. I peel back my lids, focusing on my male.

  That’s when I notice where we are.

  Gasping, I sit straight up.

  “Easy, there,” Zeniel says when I wince and clutch my forehead.

  We’re laying on my bed. My old bed. From before.

  I drop my hand and take a good look around. Nope. My brain isn’t playing tricks on me.

  Not with the visuals, at least. I can’t pinpoint any sound. No television. No radio. Some cars outside, sure, but nothing of what I was hearing before.

  Zeniel’s palm covers my entire shoulder. “You okay?”

  I let him pull me back. When he settles me with my back to his chest, nestled under his shoulder, heat rushes through me. He smooths my hair away from my face. Presses his nose and lips to my jaw, inhaling.

  Damn it, the size of him makes me want to mount him as if he were a bull and hang on for dear life.

  I snuggle back into him, enjoying the rumble that vibrates his ribcage. “Why are we in my studio?”

  Zeniel pauses, inhaling deep. “It was the first place I thought to come . . . I come here sometimes. A lot, actually. Smells like you, and your memories are here. It helped.”

  He doesn’t finish; he doesn’t have to. I know.

  He’s been coming here every time he misses me and needs to be close to me.

  I flip over in a flash, throwing one leg over his hip so I can burrow close. Zen hums at that, those large hands circling my waist and dragging me all the way into him.

  I cup his face, staring into gray and blue. How the hell did I help him get back in control? No idea. Nor do I really care right now. Only one thing is on my mind.

  “I want you,” I mumble right up against his lips. Nothing exists outside of my need to finally feel him inside me.

  “I’m still juiced, as Vedlyl put it. Mavrak wants to come out right now, because of you and the sinners outside.”

  Well, fuck.

  I pull back. “You’re saying I make it worse?”

  Zeniel tightens his hold on me, not letting me get too far. “Yes . . . no. Damn it, I don’t know anymore.”

  “He’s not as bad as you think.”

  “Eve, you saw what almost happened back there with Ved.”

  “But I spoke to Mavrak, he likes me.”

  Zen smirks. “He’d have to be a fucking vegetable not to.”

  I cross my arms, fighting to keep the pout off my face. “That just makes me want to fuck you more.”

  He gives me a playful slap on the ass. Which does nothing but make me jiggle up and down on his engorged dick. We both hiss, my hips pressing down, and his practically jumping off the bed. More jiggling.

  He groans. “Damn it. I just need to get it together for a bit. Then I can—”

  I grab onto his shoulders, biting my lip when I feel all those muscles flexing. Gritting my teeth, I ask, “What do you need to do to get it together?”

  Zen closes his eyes and leans his head back on the headboard, looking for all the world like the sexiest, most fuckable thing I’ve ever seen.

  “I don’t know. Meditate, probably. Not come in my jeans.”

  It takes everything I have in me, but I manage to get off his lap. The promise of what I’ll do to him once he gets back in control is the only thing that keeps me strong.

  “I’ll go shower, give you some time.” I pause. Getting naked is probably a big no-no. I’ll probably end up playing with my pussy and calling out for him.

  And he’ll tear down the door to get at me. I just know it.

  Oh, Lordy.

  He sits up, his body curling into itself from the strain of remaining on the bed. “Eve,” he half-growls, half-chokes, his eyes wide. “What the hell were you thinking just now?”

  “Nothing,” I squeak, backing away from the bed. “I’ll go shower now. Do your thing.”

  The stare he gives me tells me how close he is to dragging me back to the bed.

  Standing there, staring at him, I’m nothing more than a five-foot-three-inch lump of hunger, both physical and emotional. If I don’t move away from him fast, I’m going to say fuck the consequences, forget his concerns, and forcefully take him right here.

  “Eve! What are you thinking about? Gods damn . . . female . . . killing me. Your scent.”

  “I’m going!” Spinning around, I rush into the bathroom, almost skidding across the floor in my haste to get inside. Once in there, though, I’m slapped with a truckload of weirdness that I have no idea how to handle.

  The bathroom is still the same as I left it. White, tiled floor. White, cheaply painted walls. Cozy bathtub with brown-tinted, glass doors.

  My blue, gray and purple toothbrush waves hello from its spot inside the holder.

  Funny, out of all the thoughts going through my head, the one I focus on most is how that toothbrush reminds me of Ismini’s new eye color.

  God. We were both human the last time I was here. For my part, I knew nothing of gods or what is out there.

  Ismini, the little bitch, lived her whole life knowing. One would think that she would share that info with her best friend, but nooooo. She left me to find out the hard way.

  Not that Ismini ever intended for me to find out.

  Swallowing, I walk over to the tub

  Oh, fuck. Gross. Although it was sparkly clean when I left, and would still appear so to a human, there’s a very fine layer of dust covering it, one that my immortal eyes have no problem picking up on.

  I scrunch my nose and focus on getting the shower clean. And what do you know? One thought has it so sparkly that I can see my reflection staring back at me in the tiles.

  Nice. Real nice. I’m getting good.

  I will my clothes off. Suddenly, I’m a whole lot of naked, with a whole lot of sex waiting for me in the other room.

  A small groan sounds out on the other side of the door.

  I grab onto the shower stall. It cracks. I feel it start to give under my fingers.

  Loosening my grip takes more strength than it should. My attention span is shot; it actually takes me two tries to get the door fixed.

  No. He needs to calm down. You heard him. He’s not going to function any other way.

  At least, he thinks so. I’m not so sure, and his refusal to even entertain the idea of letting Mavrak out and paying attention to that side of himself is starting to piss me off.

  I jump into the shower and will it on before Zeniel senses any more of my needs—or worse, smells them.

  Gods damn it, I’ve always been horny, despite my past, but I never really got
worked up for a man before. I tried to mess around with guys, but it never worked out.

  I only ever could orgasm alone, and once I discovered that, I became an addict constantly on the pipe.

  I need to stop thinking about it, yet here I am, a hamster refusing to get off the obsession wheel.

  Grabbing the shampoo, I take extra time washing my hair under the cold spray. I try to get lost in the task, on the feeling of my hair sliding between my fingers.

  Fuck. I imagine Zen playing with said strands, them sliding over his naked body.

  This shit is pointless.

  I finish rinsing off and get out of the shower. One thought has me dry and dressed in tight black yoga pants with a dark purple tank top.

  Barefoot, I tip-toe to the door before slowly easing it open. I peek around it, my hair falling like a long black curtain over one shoulder.

  I expect to find Zen still deep in meditation. Or at least halfway there.

  Instead, he’s sitting at the edge of my bed, head bowed, fingers lost in his burgundy hair.

  I all but fling the door the rest of the way open. “Zen?”

  The sound he makes is almost a whimper. The veins on his hands bulge as he tightens his hold on his hair. He starts rocking back and forth.

  I materialize before him, reaching out to him.

  “No!”

  “What?”

  Zen flies off that bed like a missile, his face turned away from me, and his intention clear as fucking day.

  Oh, hell no. He isn’t going anywhere.

  He isn’t fucking running from me just because Mavrak is about to come out.

  With that thought in mind, I jump after him—grabbing onto his shirt sleeve—just as he dematerializes.

  CHAPTER 19

  EVESSE

  T he hold I have on him serves as a conduit in terms of direction, even once we’re both without form. My molecules tangle with his, spinning through the fabric of reality.

  It’s creepy I can perceive it, even without a mind, but I’m grateful. Without it, I might have lost him.

  Something I’ll kick his ass for, whenever we come to a stop.

  Mere seconds later, we do, and so hard that my knees dig into wood, splinters flying in every direction.

  Wait. Wood?

  Panting, on my hands and knees, I look up, eyes squinting as they search out my prey.

  That motherfucker. He tried to leave without me, tried to leave me all over again, after all we’ve been through in the last few hours.

  After everything I went through the last few weeks.

  My nails dig into the floor, the sound of wood peeling grating in the air. Four feet away, by the wall, Zeniel is also on his hands and knees. Those red irises of his throw a glow on the floor, one so intense that it shoots back up and illuminates his face.

  He’s gone full blown war demon—those eyes, the moving marks on his face and arms, the damn cheekbones—and he’s beautiful to me. Absolutely beautiful.

  He tried to leave again. I tell myself that he feels justified—and don’t give a fuck. Because I’d never be able to just walk away from him. The fact that I’m chasing him now proves that.

  But for him, it seems easy to just turn around and flee.

  Suddenly, he asks, “Are you alright?”

  Against my will, those dual-tones turn me on. Which is an understatement. Ismini confessed to me that hearing Dyletri’s voice warped and split in two does the same to her. I didn’t understand it, not until I heard Zeniel and Mavrak talking to me from within the same voice box.

  I sink my fingers deeper into the wood and grit my teeth. Damn it, I have some self-control. I’m not so fickle. I’m pissed off at him, and I’m not going to let something as stupid as being horny for him get in the way of that this time.

  Right?

  Zeniel’s eyes fall to my hands, like two flashlights shining red light at my fingers. In the glow they give off, I see the deep grooves I left on the wood floor. When I look up, I see that his brow is furrowed with worry.

  Those eyes, his expression . . . Zeniel isn’t the one speaking to me, for all that there’s two tones in his voice. It isn’t the color of his eyes that give it away, but the way he’s staring at my hands.

  Mavrak’s taken over.

  Exhaling, I nod, not trusting my voice.

  The nod he gives me in return is . . . shy. Hesitant. He still refuses to look me in the eye. Suddenly, he jumps up and stands. He seems distressed and frantic as he looks around the room we’re in.

  Staring at the ridiculously huge width of his shoulders, and the way his t-shirt stretches across his back, hanging on for dear life, I’m hit with another case of the want-nows.

  I’m also hit with the knowledge that what stands before me is one of the most complex contradictions I’ve ever come face-to-face with.

  And that’s saying a lot considering I have to look in the mirror every day.

  One half of him is—or was—so self-controlled. So calm. Yet it’s that half that walks around the world with such confidence. As if he owns everything. Including me.

  The other half of him, the war demon before me, is supposed to be the raging one. The killer. The demon. Yet, as raw and tumultuous as Mavrak is, he’s also shy.

  Uncertain.

  A male that’s been shoved into a dark corner of his own mind, never to see the light of day.

  As he begins to move around the room, it calls my attention to our surroundings. Easing back into a kneeling position, I take a good look around. We’re in a large bedroom. It seems like a master bedroom—in an old, rundown, apparently abandoned house. Everything around us is broken, rotten, dilapidated, or worse.

  A fact my R’mann is determined to fix all of the sudden.

  He flashes around the room at top speed, waving his hand over this and that, changing it back to pristine condition.

  I’m a balloon with a needle jabbed into my side. Except that, instead of air, it’s anger leaking out of me with a steady hiss. Whatever. It isn’t like I can take my anger out on the male with me. Not until his other half makes an appearance.

  I stand, watching as he returns the large fireplace back to its former glory. Considering the furnishings around me, I have to guess that this is an old Victorian home.

  But where the fuck are we? “Is this where you’ve been staying?”

  Zeniel freezes, halfway across the room, with his back to me. He turns his head, but stops himself from looking over his shoulder at me.

  He’s tense, panting; he wants to look at me, is dying to. His need reaches me, jamming that damn needle deeper into the latex I seem to be made of.

  Poof. Just like that, and the last of my anger is gone.

  He’s afraid to look at me. I can see it in every line on him. And I know why, too.

  I open my mouth to ask him to turn around when he gives me a quick, terse nod, before flashing over towards the bed.

  “What are you doing?” I ask when he wills that, too, back to sparkly-new condition.

  His response is immediate.

  “My R’ma deserves better,” he mumbles under his breath.

  I’m stripped of any barriers. Defenseless. I was already halfway there, but in a single moment in time, I start to fall in love with Mavrak just as passionately as I love Zen.

  Zeniel looks around the room. Not finding anything else to fix—hell, I doubt the place looked this good even back in its glory days—he makes his way to the front of the bed. He all but falls onto it, his weight dragging him down into a slumped, seated position.

  God, his shoulders. Any higher and they’ll pass the top of his head. And the look on his face as he stares at the floor?

  Unable to stay back any longer, I take a tentative step towards him. After that, it’s just a matter of letting my body do its thing, my feet rushing to bring me closer to my male.

  “Do you prefer I call you Mavrak?”

  It hadn’t occurred to me until now, but it’s necessary that I find out.
Knowing how long he’s been ignored makes the ache in me burst into a bittersweet chemical reaction that leaves me torn between hugging him and mounting him.

  Fuck it, I’m doing both.

  He doesn’t look up at my face, but his eyes hungrily follow my steps as I get closer.

  “You can call me whatever you are most comfortable calling me. If Zeniel is what you prefer . . . we are one and the same, aren’t we?”

  I slam to a halt a mere inch before him, gasping. “Y-you are aware of that?”

  Brow furrowed, he blinks in confusion, and the look on his face is adorable. “Of course I am. Zeniel . . . my other half is, too. But he hates me for what I have done. I don’t blame him. I wish I had more control. It just hurts so damn bad when I hear . . . everything. It hurts right now.”

  He means the sins he’s forced to hear and see.

  Tears fill my eyes and one slides down my cheek before I can blink it away.

  “It is easier for Zeniel to ignore me. I . . . not him, I mean. His subconscious. Mine. The guilt . . .” he trails off, running a hand over his head in frustration.

  He doesn’t need to find the words. They aren’t necessary. I know exactly what he’s going on about.

  God, even a god has his mental limits, and my mate was pushed past his. Torn apart, not by his own hand, but by whatever was done to him during his imprisonment.

  When I was fifteen, I was put in a foster home. The trial went in my favor, despite my mother’s desperate need to see me punished. But with no place to go, there was no choice but for me to be entered into the system.

  The first home I stayed in, I met a girl my age. Makayla came from an even more fucked-up background than me. Sexual and physical abuse is just the beginning of her traumatic smorgasbord.

  Unable to deal with the pressure of all that pain and horrid knowledge, Makayla’s mind did the only thing it could to protect itself: it fractured. Splintered into two apparently separate personalities. Two bright, intelligent, very aware personalities.

  Half of her was twisted, yes, but that doesn’t erase how brilliant she was.

  And both had known that they were one person, and that they suffered from a really complicated illness.