ZINA
For the first ti, when Zina woke, she still felt his body pressed to hers. Having just woken to a nightmare where she dreamt that Daemon abandoned her, her heart was in her throat.
But there he was, sleeping peacefully by her side.
It was a rare image of him, and Zina found herself wanting to trap the serenity of his expression in a ti glass where it could never change.
Her eyes took him in, from his lashes that were exceptionally long, to his nose that was pointed with the kind of finesse that could only be expected from a god, and his lips that were set into a terse line even as he slept... lips that had of course kissed her into senselessness all night. It was painfully raw to watch him like that. Not when she was beginning to realize that there was a certain kind of different perfection about him.
Her fingers lightly trailed his facial features and she smiled to herself at the realization that this man was all hers. A lot of tug and pull, but that fact had been cented by the mark that was etched to the nape of the neck and the constant joyful howls of her wolf.
She admitted that she was still peeved by how he went about everything, but she would be lying if she said his confession hadn’t dismantled her defenses.
It was her own error to have thought of him as this infallible man who had the world under his thumb when in reality there was no one man like that.
Daemon was proactively waiting for the return of the Deford... no, the man probably seeking them out on his own knowing fully well that their strength was out of the world.
Zina’s eyes fluttered shut while her fingers hovered over his lips in a light caress. She travelled back to the afternoon of the Blood Moon following Daemon’s return.
It had happened so fast back then, but her mind was still able to conjure up images of the grayish disgusting Lycan like shifter that had torn in the Capital Square, aiming for Daemon’s life.
Zina rembered well the spittle that dripped from the creature’s wide jaw that exposed terrifying, razor sharp canine. She rembered the graying skin and its limbs that moved faster than light.
This was what Daemon wanted to fight against: a creature that was as terrifying as it was unknown. Sothing that had made Daemon a cursed orphan at the first instance of his birth. Sothing that could possibly be sohow tied to her.
Zina rembered the slash of the creature’s claws against her back. A slash so deep and poisonous it had taken Daemon’s care for it to heal. Then she rembered the creature rearing away like it had committed an unspeakable harm.
Zina’s eyes flew open as her free hands clenched into a fist. It had beco apparent that there was no stopping Daemon from facing that creature and its origins. Not when Zina had realized from their previous conversation that night that the reason why Daemon intentionally went through everything he went through was just to gather enough power to be able to defeat that thing.
But the suicidal note in his words unnerved her. The thought that Daemon had truly prepared for his eventual death that he believed would co when he faced that thing. The thought was cented when she rembered how Daemon had declared that the new Beta would inherit the Arctic Wolf... it made it seem like he was already preparing another to take his place in the event when he was gone.
The thought sent chills running through her body, and even though he wasn’t awake, Zina asked out loud in a voice that sounded terribly sad even to her hearing.
"Is that why you’re giving away the Arctic Wolf? Are you truly preparing for your death."
"You said you could handle this."
Zina quickly withdrew her fingers on hearing his abrupt groan. His dark eyes opened slowly, taking her in as if searching for her lie. Zina hadn’t been lying when she said she could handle whatever he threw at her, but that didn’t an she just had to obediently watch things unfold without doing anything about it.
To that effect, she said, "Do not mistake my understanding for acceptance. It is one thing for to understand your ambitions towards a cause which I admit I admire. It’s another thing to accept it."
He smiled, grasping her hand and kissing the back of her palm. "These days, you seem even more violent than usual. Are you preparing for war?" He quipped with a voice laced with sarcasm.
Seriously, Zina answered in a determined voice while enunciating each word. "I am preparing for war."
He seed to take her in to gauge her, but then seed satisfied with whatever he saw in her eyes. "You spoke of your mother earlier, what was it about?" He asked easily while still peppering her hand with toe curling kisses.
Even though she was sore allover her body, Zina felt excited at the prospect of tangling under the sheets with him. But the topic he had casually broached sobered her.
"I saw her, Daemon. She’s alive."
He paused in his ministrations, dark eyes sweeping over her. Without asking her what she ant or inquiring as to whether she was sane in the least, he simply said.
"Tell what you saw."
And Zina told him what she saw without leaving a single thing out. From how the assassins had attacked to how she had scread and then how she had found herself with a strange, older woman who looked exactly like her.
Daemon listened, not interrupting for once. And when she was done, he stood abruptly, shrugging on his velvet cloak and tying the ropes that held the material in place together.
"For now, try not to scream for any reason." He said in a levelled voice as his eyes swept over the destruction Zina had caused during their tryst the night before.
She blushed while nodding frantically. "Of course. Do you think she’s alive?" She asked tentatively.
He paused. "If that was truly a projection, then the woman must be alive. Projections don’t happen with the dead, at least to the best of my knowledge."
He was being humble since Zina knew that the wealth of Daemon’s knowledge ran far deeper than the man would ever admit. He was widely read, and Zina tended to forget that fact often.
"Then what is the Matriarchy’s connection to if it’s this woman who is my mother?"
Zina knew for sure that the woman was her mother, but she was only being hypothetical for Daemon’s sake who preferred logic to emotions.
"This only ans that the Matriarchy is involved for different reasons." He said, eyes betraying a malicious glint.
"A different reason?" She repeated.
"What? I saw you going after her during the banquet, did you not receive the answers you wanted?"
Zina blushed at that. Only Daemon would have noticed that; she thought she had been discreet although she supposed she hadn’t been seeing as Yaren had to co to her rescue.
"She said nothing to though... at least nothing of importance." All Vessira had told her was that she had rely picked and delivered Zina—an insult she was yet to get over.
"The Matriarchy is involved with the Deford. Vessira boasted of that much when she tried to manipulate into saving you after the rogues took you."
Zina rembered the ugly events from when she and Daemon were still butting heads. "Why would she boast of such a horrible thing? Openly at that?"
Daemon chuckled, walking towards her now exposed window. "That is because she knows of my obsession with the Deford so she thought she could manipulate into looking for you. Even if I decided to conduct a search on her Mountains, she was confident the search would be difficult and I won’t be able to find anything. That was the reason why she was bold enough to run off her mouth at without fear. She dared to bait ...."
Zina frowned, "why did you take the bait then? Why did you rescue despite knowing her intentions?"
Daemon smiled shrewdly. "Since she wanted to play gas with , it would have been utterly rude of to not play my move."
Smoothly, the man before her has transitioned into his scheming, trickster self.
"Is Vessira currently not in my castle now?" He said darkly, walking to her on the bed and caressing her face. He then proceeded to pepper her with kisses, and when he was done, he lifted his face up.
"Now, I shall play my ultimate move against her."
Before he could leave, Zina clutched his fingers still holding up her face. "And the woman... my mother?"
"You do not know her and her role in your life and yet she ans a lot to you already?" He said, eyes shining with understanding.
Daemon nodded slowly, "Fine, your wish is my command. I shall find her for you, but you’ve to do sothing for in exchange although it’s not necessarily a condition attached to finding your mother."
The thought of doing sothing for Daemon naturally thrilled her. "What is it?" She asked eagerly.
"Find both the Ten Million Grams of Gold and the man who wants to exchange it for you. You shall have all my resources at your disposal."
And with that, he pecked her on the lips, and left the room, leaving her behind feeling all sorts of clueless and dumbfounded.
But instead of thinking of how he left her with strange words, she thought of how they were beginning to look more like actual couples while her finger trailed to her lips where his had been a mont ago.
Reviews
All reviews (0)