“What do you feel?” I ask, suddenly curious, and a little embarrassed. “We kind of went about this arse backwards. Sex first, getting to know you, non-existent…”
“I know you.”
“No, you don’t. Not really.”
“I know more than you think.”
“This isn’t about me,” I chide. “What makes Dastian tick?”
“Chaos.”
“Apart from that, Captain Obvious.”
He snorts but then goes serious. “I feel the static,” he murmurs finally, his fingers tracing the line of my spine under the oversized t-shirt. “The potential energy of the universe waiting to snap. It’s loud. It’s always screaming.” He shifts, pulling me tighter until I’m practically fused to his furnace ofa chest. “But when I’m with you, it quietens down. It focuses. It’s less about burning everything down and more about keeping one specific flame alight.”
I blink, surprised by the sudden depth. “That was actually quite sweet. For a walking disaster zone.”
“Don’t get used to it. I have a reputation to maintain. And to answer your other question, I tick for the unexpected. Order is boring. Shadows are gloomy. Wraiths are depressing. But chaos is a surprise. It’s the universe giving you the finger at your plans.”
“Yeah, I feel like I’m being played by the chaos. Along with plagued.”
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever found that I didn’t want to break just to see how it works.”
“How long have you been the God of Chaos?”
“Five hundred years.”
I chew the inside of my lip. I mean, I knew they were ancient, but hearing it out loud, I guess, makes it more real.
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“I know. We were watching, remember?”
“That must’ve been hard. Being able to see the mortal world move on, but not to be able to touch it. To see the changes, the advancement. Last time you were here, it was all peasants with pitchforks, mead, and wenches with big bosoms bustling about.”
He chuckles. “Ah, the good old days. Apart from the smell, it was a better time. Simpler.”
“I can’t even imagine it.” I hesitate to ask my next question.
“Spit it out.”
“I know you had parents, from when Voren said his dad was killed by the slayers. How does that work exactly?”
“It’s less biology and more event planning,” he says, staring up at the shadowy ceiling where Dreven has thickened the gloom. “We don’t get born, Nyssa. We manifest. Raw energycoalesces until it gains enough consciousness to decide it wants a name and a bad attitude. We arrive fully formed and generally irritated. Think of it less as parenting and more as a mentorship with extremely high stakes and lethal inheritance issues. But to answer the question behind the question—we form attachments. We function like families because eternity is boring without drama. But we don’t have DNA. We have domains.”
“So, if Aethel was Dreven’s mum and the Wraith King his dad, who were your parents?”
He laughs, a rumble that vibrates right through my ribs. “Bold of you to assume anyone would claim credit for this.”
“Fair point,” I mutter against his skin. “You are a bit of a handful.”
“I didn’t have parents, not in the way Dreven or Voren did. I was a spontaneous combustion. A friction point between reality and the void that decided to grow legs and a sense of humour.”
“So, you’re a cosmic accident?”
“I prefer serendipitous catastrophe. I hold the raw creative spark. Fire, storms, the impulse to push the big red button just to see what happens. No one taught me; I justwas.” He pauses, his fingers stilling on my spine. “It’s why the Order hates me most. You can bargain with Shadows. You can plead with Death. You can’t reason with a dice roll.”
“I don’t hate you,” I whisper, the admission slipping out before I can check it at the door.
