4
~Vaxan~
“I won’t leave you.”
I ground my jaw as my words to Winter played on my mind.
More accurately—echoed hauntingly through my mind currently.
Acutely and rather painfully forcing their way to the surface, demanding to be heard.
They hadn’t been merely a statement. Nor even solely an offer of comfort and a constant that he’d desperately needed to soothe himself with how off-center he’d felt at the time.
They’d been so much more than that.
A confession.
An insistence.
An acknowledgement.
Anoath.
And, as much as I’d detested Zayn’s initial entitlement toward Winter, before he’d learned the error of his ways, I suppose those words had also functioned as a claim of sorts upon Winter. Not exactlyentitlementon my part, but a marking.
As Basilisk, I possessed territorial instincts borne from my primal nature, which I worked exceedingly hard to keep incheck, to align with the modern world and to respect the agency of others. Especially when it came to Winter with how he’d been treated, and how he was seen by many in the wider supernatural world—where his actual personality and way of being was often disregarded in lieu of their fear and misinformed judgments.
I wanted to respect that, for him to feel free, at least when he was with me, or within our foursome relationship.
But then he’d left.
He’d disappeared that night on Mordrek Mountains and it had taken hours for us to locate him. Many excruciating hours.
And it hadn’t been me who’d found him.
He’d demonstrated the unexpected ability to specifically block my animal senses from being able to track him. As if him masking his magical signature hadn’t already been bad enough.
Given the state he’d been in at the time, the depth of powerlessness I’d felt as a result had been intense, something I never wanted to feel again—that inability to aid those I cared for.
And, yes, there had been an element of possessiveness involved in that.
Especially when I’d tagged him with a vibrational tether.
It was my only way around him cutting off my ability to track him. And after that night, I’d vowed to myself that I wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
Now, however, with Winter missing yet again and seemingly not of his own volition from what I could gather, the timing was problematic. The optics weren’t exactly favorable—for me.
I’d displayed my distaste of him feeding on anyone outside our foursome—his activities atPolaris. It wasn’t sexual for him. It never had been, according to him, Zayn, and even that revolting Carter. It wasn’t for sustenance either, as Winter didn’t possess actual vampiric traits. But for a supernatural creature like me, one with roots in primality, with an animalistic nature to my makeup, it was arguably worse than that. He fed off thesebeings to feel alive. That was beyond animal, the need so very profound. So, no, it hadn’t exactly sat well with me.
Now that had been dealt with because Zayn had offered himself willingly and rather enthusiastically. So Winter could have his need met without venturing outside our foursome anymore.
Yet, the fact remained that my stance there had revealed a territorial and possessive side to me—toward him, and, by extension, toward Evira and Zayn.
And now I’d had to admit I’d tagged Winter with a tether.
All too close to that, right on the heels of that revelation.
Once Winter learned of it, it could prove highly detrimental to what we’d built together.
