“Just wondering how you can be rock-hard after all that?”
Because a shit-ton had been building in such a short frame of time, maybe?
But I wasn’t gonna lay all that on her right now. It was bad enough I’d just pulled her into this Winter-Zayn antagonism shitshow. I had to be careful I didn’t do that too much… didn’t scare her off.
I intentionally made my eye-fucking obvious.
Then she snapped her fingers at me this time. “They’re breasts. Walk it off.”
“Wow. It was the lace I had my gaze all over. Get over yourself, woman.”
Our gazes locked and she chuckled, which, in spite of everything, had me grinning.
As we reached the alcove, Winter was already inside, standing there with his arms folded across his chest, all un-Winter like and locked up tight.
I grimaced. I’d done this to him. And, yeah, now I was figuring my shit out, but if I’d only done it sooner, then maybe—”
“Zayn. I’m waiting.”
Ice, ice, lover.
Evira stepped into the alcove, and I went to do the same, but I pulled up short at the last second as something occurred to me. Especially when she tensed up, even when moving up against Winter, the most gentle being in existence.
Her claustrophobia.
She seemed to be doing that thing Vaxan did—pretending all was well, when they were both freaking inside. Fine, yes, I did it too. It was a maintaining-power thing.
Well, more like, clinging to it with a fucking death grip.
“You know what? I’m kind of on edge… possibly more than usual,” I spoke. “Doing this inside a closed-in space, especially one that’s part of the main building, could risk an eruption, structural damage, and even—”
“Fine,” Winter cut in. “Just… make haste.”
Make haste.I smiled inwardly. Every now and then, something came out of his mouth that was so old world and near-ancient, that you could really tell he’d grown up with one of his dads being Cassius Ashmoor.
He stepped out of the alcove and Evira beamed at me as she did the same, seeming to get why I’d done that.
I waited for a few seconds as we stood in a circle, expecting Winter to invoke his amber magic and cast anauditory reductionspell, like he normally would whenever we had a private talk. But he didn’t make a move.
Come to think of it, earlier when he’d covered up my outburst with that spell, he’d seemed… there had been something wrong, and—”
“Zayn,” he pushed.
“Fuck,” I grunted. “You being in this fucking mood isn’t really conducive to what I need to tell you.”
“You’re saying my behavior isn’t to your liking? That it’s upsetting you? Hurting you?” he shot back.
God fucking dammit.
“All right,” Evira said, holding up a hand to both of us. She eyed me pointedly. “This will only take a few minutes, yes?” At my nod, she looked at Winter. “Can you stand being in his presence for that long, ease down that barrier you’re erecting for a little bit? And I get why it’s up, why you feel like you need to do it. And so does Zayn, okay? He’s starting to understand it all now, actually, so keep that in mind.”
Winter drew in a centering breath. “Noted.” He shifted his weight and folded his arms over his chest, then lifted his chin at me. “Go ahead.”
I threw up anauditory reductionspell myself, encompassing the three of us. “This is about you and Vaxan.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he burst out with. He went to walk away, but Evira clasped his arm.
“Zayn,” Evira spoke. “It seemed like there was an undercurrent of urgency. Clarify.”
