“Mine,” it said. “All mine.”
I sat up slick with sweat and with that icky feeling in the pit of my stomach that accompanies a nightmare. Tendrils of the dream clung to my mind, mainly the yucky death bits, but most predominately, the evil-villain laugh that the dragon had emitted. Is this what they called work stress-related trauma? This was the fourth time in the last two weeks that I’d had a nightmare, and they were all similar—death and carnage and evil dragons. I had a serious Elora complex.
Shoving off the duvet and pulling on my robe, I headed out of the room in search of a soothing milky concoction to trick my brain into thinking safety and warmth. What would be perfect right now was one of Matron’s herbal teas. I’d have to pay her a visit and pick up some soon.
The kitchen was shrouded in darkness. I stepped over the threshold and paused, staring at the twin glowing green orbs that stared back at me from the darkness. My heart leapt into my throat to choke me with a triple-fast beat, and then my brain finally deduced what I was seeing.
I flipped on the lights. “Fucking hell, Azren, if you want to give me a heart attack, can you please do it by feeding me excessive amounts of fatty food instead of lurking in the dark?”
He grunted in response and then buried his head in his hands.
Okay, the guy was pretty nonverbal most of the time, but more so of late, and the quick glimpse I’d caught of his face showed smudges under his startling green eyes.
I padded over to the fridge. “Can’t sleep? Oh, wait, you don’t sleep.”
He huffed and raised his head. “I don’t have to, but I was bored, so I drifted off ... It wasn’t pleasant.”
Grabbing the milk, I retrieved a pan from the cupboard. “Bad dreams?”
“Nightmare. Sleep is overrated.”
“Agreed.” I poured some milk into the pan. “You want some hot cocoa?”
He glanced up in confusion.
Oh, yeah. He probably had no clue what that was. “It’s a milky drink that does wonders to chase away the lingering vestiges of bad dreams. It says so on the packet.” I held out the tub to him. “See?”
Fucking Cocoa King had hit a gold mine when they’d hit upon adding that to their promotional material, because what kid didn’t want to chase away the nightmares. Cocoa sales had tripled. Looked like it worked on adults too, ha!
He shrugged. “Sure.”
I made the cocoa in silence. We hadn’t known each other long, but being around the guy almost constantly for the better part of a month had attuned me to some of his more regular moods. This one was what I called the classic dark brood: bottom lip slightly pouted, brows fractionally drawn, and gaze distant. Yep, this was one of my favorites because I could so relate.
I set a mug in front of him. “Okay, quit stealing my thunder with the classic brooding pose. Spill. What crawled up your arse and died?”
He was silent for a long beat, no eye roll, no snarky comment about my choice of phrase. Nothing. Damn, this was bad.
He ran his hand over his face and sighed. “The lunar eclipse is approaching, and we have nothing to show my liege.” He looked right at me, and my stomach did a mini flip.
Ah, yeah. That particular worry had been giving me a dodgy curry belly the last couple of days too. Luckily for him, we didn’t share a bathroom.
I broke eye contact and carefully poured cocoa into two mugs. “It’s not like we haven’t tried,” I pointed out. “We trawled the catacombs beneath the mausoleum for two days. They’ve taken to ground somewhere else, and until they make a move, we won’t know where that is. Thanks to Valance, we still have two weeks to get something on the Shedim.”
I placed a mug in front of him and took the seat opposite, regretting it immediately when he locked gazes with me. Shadows lurked in his irises, writhing and reaching for me. Dread bloomed like a black orchid in my chest, and my pulse skipped a beat. I hated how he was able to wrench these contradictory emotions from me, a delicate balance of attract and repel. I dropped my attention to my cocoa.
“It won’t matter what efforts we’ve made.” His voice was rough, almost jagged. “She won’t care how hard we’ve tried if there are no results to show for our labors. She’ll make an example of us. I lost the dagger, the special dagger she forged just for this task. Elora doesn’t like to be disappointed.”
My heartbeat picked up, echoing his agitation. “Wait a second. She made the dagger just so you could capture Shedim? When? How did she know you’d get the chance to come this side of the border?”
“She didn’t. I’m the official face of Elora’s attack on the resistance. I’ve brought her many rebel Shedim who’ve skulked back into Draconi territory with a view to recruitment. I’ve seen her torture them, even when it is plain they will not break. I’m familiar with her brand of pain. It’s not something you recover from easily.”
Gooseflesh broke out up my arms. “Well that explains why the rogues wanted to hurt you so bad. You think you could have filled me in on that tidbit of info?”
“It hardly matters why they took me. What matters is what Elora will do to you. Are you listening to me?”
Of course I’d heard, but the facade, my unbreakable front, wasn’t easily penetrated, and any turmoil that lay beneath would remain hidden. “Yeah, I heard you. Pain like I’ve never known, etcetera ... I think you’re underestimating my powers of persuasion.”
His face hardened. “This is no joke, Wila. She will hurt you. It’s what she knows. It’s what makes her who she is.”
A killer, that’s what she was. But not him. Not by choice. What hold did she have over him? “I don’t get it. You do her bidding, you go on about how she saved you, but right now you actually sound like you don’t like her very much.”
“Like doesn’t come into it. Leaders don’t get to where they are by being liked. They get to where they are by doing what must be done to ensure the survival of the many. Elora is an effective leader.”
Was this the shit they were being fed over the border? Man, he had it so twisted. “You’re wrong. A leader should inspire loyalty not just through fear and gratitude but also through shared ideals. Do the Shedim truly share her views? Do you?”
He dropped his gaze to the steaming cup of cocoa, his fists clenched on the tabletop. “This is a pointless conversation. We will find the rogue Shedim, and we will return with the head of their leader. Elora will be appeased. There will be no punishment.”
“And so it has been said, and so it shall be done.” My voice was a sardonic boom.
His lips twisted in annoyance at my mocking tone, and there was a flash of doubt in his eyes. No. Not doubt. It was fear. I’d never seen him afraid, even when he’d been trapped in the ball of light under the mausoleum with one of the Shedim laying into him with a glowing whip. He’d been in pain, sure, but fear hadn’t crossed his brutal features. Now, in the relative safety of my kitchen, with a mug of hot cocoa at his fingertips, he was scared. Comprehension was a prickle across my skin. He was afraid, but not for himself. He was terrified for me.
My throat tightened. A scalding sip of cocoa did the trick, enough to plaster a faux smile on my face. “You’re right. They’ll make a false move soon, and then we’ll have them. And don’t worry about pain—I’m sure there’s a potion somewhere that can numb that shit.”
He swallowed. “I hope so, Wila. I hope so.”
Early morning light crept across the kitchen and bathed the table in warmth.
Azren tipped back his head and gulped down his cocoa, the thick column of his throat bobbing suddenly the most mesmerizing thing I’d ever seen. I dropped my gaze to my mug, tamping down the urge to reach out and touch him. He wasn’t mine to touch. He belonged to Elora, and there was no acting on the powerful attraction that was blooming between us. In fact, I’d probably be forgiven for thinking it was all in my head, because the past week Azren had done his best not to be in the same room with me unless he had to.
Azren set down his mug. “We should make anoth
er sweep of the catacombs. Maybe there is something we missed.”
There wouldn’t be, we’d combed the shit out of that place, but if it made him feel better… “Sure. Let’s go look for clues, Nancy Drew.”
Chapter 2
I stared at the text from Taylem and ignored the fluent foreign cursing spilling from Azren’s lips as he paced back and forth across the entrance of the mausoleum. His hands were on his hips, chin tucked in, shoulders heaving. The last couple of days he’d been losing it more often, little bursts of anger that he managed to tamp down on quickly enough, but it went against the cold, controlled fury he usually displayed. My eyes were still adjusting to the sunlight after being underground for so long, and my head was beginning to throb dully. His ranting wasn’t helping.
Azren punched the stone mausoleum and then glared at the unaffected spot on the structure as if it had said something offensive. The wound on his hand healed in a matter of seconds, and he pulled back for another throwdown.
“Will you stop fighting the building? You’re giving me a headache from having to cringe so much.”
He began to pace again. “I was sure we’d find something this time. A route we’d missed, something.”
“Well we didn’t, so let’s just go.” The sun was high. We’d been scrambling about under the earth for hours. “I have a contact that’s looking into procuring us some undercity maps. Sewers, that kind of thing. If there’s any record of what’s down there, then he’ll find it. Until then, this is a waste of time.”
“So what would you rather be doing with our time?” His tone was heavy with sarcasm as he fixed his disgruntled gaze on me.
Gosh, he was a bear with a sore head today. I held up my phone. “Tay’s throwing a party for the regulars. It’s Fergus’s birthday. The neph is going to be a hundred and twenty.”
“You want to go to a party?” His voice dropped an octave, a sure sign he was pissed.
Okay, so now he’d decided to switch back to controlled fury.
I shrugged, affecting nonchalance. “Sure.”
He stalked toward me, and it took everything in my power not to back the fuck up, because he was still vibrating with anger, and yeah, it wasn’t directed at me, but still, it spilled out of him, pouring off him in waves and teasing to life primal instinct. And when he was like this—getting up close and personal—it was impossible to forget he was a monster. That he could end me as easily as snuffing out a candle if he wished. My thoughts must have shown on my face, because he brought himself to a halt a couple of feet away, tucked in his chin, and ran a hand through his tousled locks.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said gruffly. The anger had bled from his tone, and my muscles unknotted.
“Like what? Like you’re fucking insane?”
“Yes, like that.”
“Then control your fucking temper.”
He glanced up. “It’s part of who I am, just like your incessant use of the word fuck is part of you.”
It was more than that, though, and it had taken time for me to notice it, but when I had there was no unseeing it. It sat beneath a tightly controlled facade, a different kind of monster, one sown from incomprehensible fury. The cold control was a mask, and yeah, we didn’t want that slipping.
I blew out a breath, not wanting to agitate him any further, because poking bears was just dumb and a great way to get your face chewed off. So I chose my next words carefully. “I can’t help but notice you’ve been in extra angry-mode recently.”
This time he did approach me, stopping a mere hairbreadth away and forcing me to tilt my chin to look up at him, to stare into his primal, brutal face and trace the scar that ran from his eyebrow to the corner of his mouth.
“I hate you for being the reason I had to come here.” His voice vibrated with anger, and a chill shot through my bones. I took a step back, but his hands whipped out to grab hold of my shoulders, fingers biting into my flesh. “But this world, your world, and you, infuriating as you are, have become important to me.” A dark emotion I couldn’t define flitted across his face, and then his words registered and my gaze shot up to meet his furious one. He hated this. He hated that he cared about me. His next words confirmed it. “It would ... pain me to see you hurt.” He bit out the words reluctantly, his mouth twisting.
This hadn’t been the plan, growing closer hadn’t been the plan, for either of us, it seemed. My stomach churned, and my throat was suddenly dry. Pull it together, Bastion, it’s not as if he just declared his undying devotion. Then why was there a dastardly lump in my throat?
He exhaled slowly through his nose and grazed my cheek with his knuckles, leaving tingles in his wake before dropping his hand. “Time is running out, Wila, for the both of us.” His voice was a low rumble.
His lips were so close, so tantalizingly close, and fuck, I didn’t even care about the teeth that lay beyond. The cut and shred would be worth it for just one taste. Oh, God. What was I thinking? What was he doing to me? What the fuck was this? Heat climbed up my body from the tips of my toes to the roots of the hair on my head.
I needed something to break the spell, anything. “I can stop swearing if I want to.” The words came out sounding petulant and sulky rather than the teasing, light essence I’d been going for.
The darkness in his eyes intensified, and his hand was back again, palm bridging my collarbones, fingers wrapped around my throat. He could kill me now, squeeze the life from me, and I’d let him, because at least he’d be touching me. His grip tightened a fraction, sending a lance of heat through me. His thumb stroked the column of my throat as if soothing me into submission. I caught a flash of torment in his eyes, and then his mouth dipped toward mine.
I needed to turn away, pull back, but fuck if I had the willpower to do anything but accept my fate. The brush of his mouth sent fire racing through my veins, and then, feather-light, his tongue swept across my bottom lip, breaking what little willpower I had left. My resolve melted and my mouth parted like a bloom desperate to taste the sun. A sharp pain sliced across my temple, and my lips twisted in pain.
He froze, his body tensing, and then he pulled back. “You’re in pain.” He peeled his fingers from my throat, leaving me suddenly cold and bereft. “I hurt you.” He sounded matter-of-fact, resigned almost.
“No. You didn’t. It’s just my head. I’ll be fine.”
He studied me carefully, as if he could look into my brain and root out the problem and fix it. “You’ve been having a lot of headaches.”
I blinked up at him, surprised he’d noticed, that he’d been paying attention. It gave me the warm fuzzies, and those were dangerous. Sexual attraction was one thing, a quick fling would be fine, but the connection between us was like ivy, stubborn and tenacious. It burrowed in deep, threading its way through my veins and lying dormant, lulling me into a false sense of control that evaporated every time he invaded my personal space, every time his lips lifted in an almost-smile, and every time his obsidian pupils dilated when they fell on me. The fact that my being in pain bothered him, the fact he was affected, tugged at the forbidden strings of my heart. Things could easily get out of my control. If we went that route, there would only be heartache for the both of us, because he belonged to the Westside, he belonged to the queen bitch. The connection growing between us couldn’t be allowed to develop.
I gently extricated myself from his grasp, ignoring the ache at my solar plexus. “Stress can do that to you.” My voice came out strong, belying everything I was feeling. “And if you hadn’t noticed, we’re kinda swimming in stress right now.” But I knew what could help. Matron’s herbal tea. “Come on. I need to make a stop on the way home.”
Forget the moment, forget the almost-kiss.
Just forget it, dammit.
***
“Wila!” Miss Hamilton pulled me into a hug.
The aroma of lavender soothed the throb in my temples, but the reprieve was momentary.
She released me and cupped my face, her
lips pursing in a frown. “You look ill. Are you ill?”
“Headache. I was hoping to grab some of your herbal tea.”
“Of course, I just brewed some actually. You can have a cup while I pack some up for you.” She made to usher me into the house and paused, her gaze cutting to the gate where Azren waited.
“Wila Bastion, you’re not seriously going to leave your friend outside, are you?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Azren, who had his lips pressed together to hide his teeth, and waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, he’ll be fine.”
Miss Hamilton arched her brow so high it almost disappeared into her hairline. Oops, I knew that look, it was the one that preceded the lecture on etiquette and manners, and there was no fighting it.
I held up my hands. “Okay, fine. Azren, would you like to come in?”
Matron dropped the brow, a small smile playing on her lips.
Azren looked from me to Matron and then back again. He was probably wondering if this was a trick question since I’d spent the last five minutes telling him how it was imperative that Miss Hamilton didn’t find out what he was, and that he needed to stay outside to avoid scaring the kids with his teeth, blah, blah.
“I’m fine here, thank you,” he said finally.
“Nonsense,” Miss Hamilton exclaimed. “You will come in, and you will have some tea. It’s not often I get to meet Wila’s new friends.” She waved her hand at him in a hurry-along gesture, one that had always had us picking up the pace as kids. Apparently, it worked on adults too. Azren strode up the path and climbed the steps onto the porch. Miss Hamilton beamed at him. He blinked down at her, and then offered her a close-lipped smile.
She patted him on the shoulder. “It’s all right, dear. I know what you are. You can relax now.”
She did?
Matron chuckled. “Don’t look so horrified, Wila. Glamour has never worked too well on me.” She led us into the house. “The kids are in the garden. Go through into the kitchen. There’s a pot of tea on the table. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Chronicles of Arcana (The complete collection books 1-4) Page 20
