TWELVE
A TINGE OF UNDERSTANDING
Zion
Intense sexual chemistry,my ass.
I’m still muttering and cursing to myself as I use a hand towel to wipe the fog off the mirror. Scowling at my reflection, I pause and lean in close, my fingertips pulling at my lower eyelids to get a better look at what appeared to be an outward glow in my eyeballs.
Something is seriously messed up here.
I blink a few times, turning my head from side to side as I examine my irises, but whatever it was, it seems to be gone. Or it was never there in the first place, and I’ve officially gone and lost my damn mind.
Sighing, I lean heavily on the counter, my head hanging with exhaustion. I manage a few breathing exercises, utilizing every centering trick I can think of to get my mind righted around to the job at hand.
Getting rid of Vivian.
My chest tightens at the thought, my pulse skyrocketing, and when I raise my head, I catch that odd glint back in my eyes.
Screw my entire damn life.
This is it.
As much as I want to ignore the signs that my pending otherworldly future has not come to a head, I cannot ignore the searing ache in my chest at the possibility that Vivian Jones will be taken from me.
I suppose it shouldn’t be of any great surprise given the research I’ve done over the last few years. After managing to live my life for a couple decades largely oblivious to anything other than the human existence I’d been brought up in, it took me a bit of time to wrap my head around the many unknowns that came to light. Unknowns that filled the gaps of always seeming to be out of touch with those around me, of never fitting in, the nagging suspicious that I was not the same as everyone else.
And then there was the issue of having no one to discuss it with because no human would believe it. Finding those like me, others who have true experience in what I was having to weed through, was a task all unto itself because it came down to a small group of loners who were also reaching for answers beyond the truth they’d always known.
Once we’d managed to find each other, we’d done a fair job of finding answers, but now, here I am. On the edge of something huge with a woman who has no idea what I am, or what she is, or what’s about to happen.
And I’m not allowed to tell her for fear of turning a short-term punishment into an eternal curse. All would be lost with no recourse, ever.
A rap on the door startles me, and I turn to the door as Vivian says, “Are you almost done in there?”
Growling low in my chest, that glow intensifies until I can no longer make out the natural color of my eyes. My nostrils flare, and I slowly cock my head, turning until I’m looking at the door, but I say nothing, hoping against all hope that she will take my silence for what it is.
A warning.
Of course she doesn’t. Instead, she pounds on the door even harder. “Hello? Stop being an asshole and answer me.”
I quickly close the distance between us, then stand just shy of touching the door. I wait, again hoping she’ll take the hint and leave, but after a few moments, her voice comes through the heavy wooden door with concerned softness, subtle yearning. “Zion? Are you okay in there?”
A soft whine falls from deep in my chest, and I choke on it, attempting to push it down. Coughing, I lean against the door, searching for even an ounce of my normal self-control and coming up short.
“Go away, Viv,” I whisper-shout, then press my ear to the door. I hear movement and what I hope is her listening and following through on my instruction, but I’m once again reminded that Vivian doesn’t take instruction or seem to ever yield to good common sense when she responds, “Why?”
I place my hand against the door, sure I feel the heat of her pressed against the other side as the jolt of awareness inside me intensifies, overflows, and explodes.
Yanking the door open, she barely has time to jump back before I’m on her. She yanks out of my grasp, rushing backward, her hands extended in front of her as she asks, “What are you doing?”
“Whatever I want.”
Vivian frowns, her head shaking as she backs herself into a corner. She’s frowning, but that look of complete defiance is evident on her features, as if she’s challenging me to do whatever I want, while also wanting the illusion that she has any control here.
What she doesn’t seem to understand is that there isn’t any control here. I have no control. She stole it from me.
And I want it back.
