8. Talia

CHAPTER 8

Talia

I can't help but note the time, realizing it drags so much more in the residence.

It's been a week since Zachariah visited my bedroom, making me ache in ways that no one ever has made me ache before.

His kiss felt like a lightning strike, his touch a searing brand. It's hard to think of much else when every day that passes only makes me want him more. Makes me want to see what else he can do, if he so easily brought me to release with just the power of his fingers.

I sure as hell won't admit that to him. Not when I know he's still after my heart.

And I don't think it functions properly anymore.

"Do you want another muffin?" Grace asks. She's sitting across from me at the small dining table where me, Lyric, Jocelyn, and Annika have gathered for evening repast, none of us wanting to join the king and the hunters and assassins in the formal court.

"No, I'm good, thank you," I say unable to resist her bubbly and infectious attitude. She really is the perfect mate for Ajax, her playfulness matching his despite his terrifying giant demeanor.

"Have you visited the human donors, yet?" Lyric asks me.

"I haven't," I say, taking a sip from my water. "Though I do appreciate the offer."

"Do you enjoy the canned stuff?" Jocelyn asks me, her nose scrunching slightly to indicate her distaste of the blood.

I smile and shrug. "I don't think anyone actually enjoys that taste," I say, thinking of the coppery, bland taste of the canned stuff. "But I'm used to it," I continue. "My missions take me all over the world, and I don't always have time to locate acceptable and volunteering human donors."

"So, you never stay in one place very long?" Annika asks.

"No," I admit. "Especially when I'm on a hunt."

Something pricks the center of my chest at the thought.

At the way I've stayed here longer than I have anywhere else in a century.

I try to chalk it up to the king ordering me to, and the fact that we haven't found Conrad or Samuel, and both of them seem to have a particular investment in Edgemont, but it also feels like something else.

"Tell me about Ajax from the early days," Grace says, being the beautiful creature that she is to change the subject.

I lean back in my chair, the tension draining out of me at the question.

It's hard not to smile when thinking about Ajax all those years ago. "You wouldn't believe the stunts he would pull," I say, shaking my head as memories bubble up to the surface. "I was intimidated enough by Zachariah's hunter brothers—anyone would be. They're a formidable unit. But Ajax? That brute would pause time in the middle of my family's grand balls, rearrange all my mother's flower into vulgar shapes. No one but us ever knew it was him, and oh, how my mother would be infuriated at the mystery."

Grace's laughter fills the space, and we all join in. "That definitely sounds like him," she says, her eyes filled with nothing but love for her mate.

I remember that look, that feeling .

"Of course, I would do my best to use my powers and set things right, but sometimes it truly was fun seeing the look on my mother's face. My parents were always so formal and always so focused on class manners, it was fun to shake things up. Sometimes Zachariah would get me to join in on the antics, encouraging me to tip a vase here or snuff out the lights there. Then we'd sneak off while the candles were being relit in the ballroom, and leave the finery behind us and spend the rest of the evening talking and walking along the beach that my family's estate rests on. Zachariah can certainly talk for hours, not that I ever minded. His voice just might be my favorite sound in the entire world?—"

The meaning of the words catch up with me and I abruptly cut them off, my heart clenching in my chest as I come back to reality.

The mood shifts from whimsy to sadness, and I shake my head, unable to take back my slip of the tongue.

"Is it true that your mark faded?" Annika asks gently.

I shift up the fabric of the long sleeve cotton shirt I wear, exposing my bare wrist where my mating mark once set. "Centuries ago," I say, doing my best to keep the pain of that reality out of my voice. I pull down my sleeve again. "I think it's because I'm no longer the female I once was. Maybe we just don't fit anymore."

"I bet parts of him would fit," Jocelyn says, nothing but mischief on her face.

A raw, unfiltered laugh rips from my lips, my head rocking back with the force of it. God, it feels good to laugh again, feels good to have friends again. It's been so long... too long.

"That, I wouldn't know," I say once I reel in my laughter. I'm met with wide eyes and gasps from the girls.

"Wait, you're saying you had his mark and you both abstained ?" Jocelyn asks, looking just as unbelieving as the rest of them.

"Things weren't as progressive back then as they are now," I explain. "We were going to be married first. There was an almost ritualistic feel around completing the mating bond following the wedding. Especially for aristocratic families like mine."

"Damn," Jocelyn says, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry," Lyric offers.

I swallow hard. "It's in the past," I say, trying to convince myself.

It genuinely is in the past, but ever since I found him in that cave, alive and well, my past and my present have been clashing together in a storm I'm not sure I'll survive.

"If you want us to make him pay," Jocelyn says, a smirk on her lips. "We can arrange that."

"I am the queen," Lyric adds. "I'm sure I have an empty dungeon around here to throw him in."

"And I could conjure an illusion for him to get stuck in on a loop for a few hours," Jocelyn says, looking thoughtful. "Perhaps falling from a cliff with no end in sight, over and over again?"

"I could listen in on his thoughts and let you know what he's actually thinking," Grace offers.

My heart expands with each kind and ridiculously fun suggestion.

"And I could do…absolutely nothing," Annika says sarcastically. "Except maybe accidentally make a pipe burst above his head."

I chuckle softly, giving her a sympathetic look. Lyric told me her friend Olivia was doing her best to get Dagon to work with her niece Annika, who she suspected was an elemental. I'd seen Oliva asking him the night we went to the museum. But being the hunter that he was, Dagon put his mission above helping figure out if a friend of a friend had powers or not.

"I appreciate the offer," I finally say, smiling at all of them. "Truly I do. Come back to me the next time he pisses me off, yeah?"

"We'll be here," Lyric says, nothing but sincerity in her voice.

I can't stop my heart from expanding, from warming to all of them, from the whispers in the back of my mind saying this could be the start of something good .

The start of a family I've always wanted and longed for…for much longer than I can even remember.

After an unsuccessful quick hunt tonight, I find myself in the assassin's training room once again.

It seems to be the only place I can let out my frustrations at utterly failing over and over again, but throwing daggers at one of the wooden targets—which had been freshly replaced since I destroyed the last one—offers little comfort.

"Working out some aggravation?" Zachariah asks, and this time I don't jump because I smelled him the second he walked into the training room. Another fun side effect of being in close proximity to him nearly every single night, with only a wall separating us during the day, I'm becoming more attuned to his scent again. Like I was so many years ago.

"Obviously," I say, but even I can hear that the once icy tone I held with him before has subsided. A girl can only keep up the snark so long before she starts to sound like a cold-hearted bitch. "I thought I caught wind of Conrad's trail again, after seeing a contact in witch territory that Jocelyn set me up with, but the lead ended up turning cold."

I throw the last dagger, hitting my mark, and then turn toward him.

"You went out on your own again?" Zachariah says. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I furrow my brow, stepping a little closer to him, the soft training mat beneath me giving just slightly. "I don't know if you've realized, but I don't run my agenda by anyone. You should understand that, being a hunter."

He steps closer to me, a deep groove of concern lining his forehead. "I go out with my brothers," he says. "I always go out with backup?—"

"No, you don't," I cut him off. "If that were true, I wouldn't have found you alone in a cave with half a dozen newborn bloodmad vampires. I saved your life then, too. Maybe you're the one who needs my protection."

"I absolutely need you," he says, smirking as he looks down at me.

I tilt my head, ignoring the heat that blazes through me at that declaration. "Have your skills gotten so rusty?" I tease. "Did stasis really weaken you that much?" The question actually brings a flash of concern, but I cling to the fun game we're playing. "Maybe I could take you right here."

"That's adorable," he says.

"You don't think I can?"

"I have no doubt in your abilities, Talia. But think about who you're talking to."

I bite my tongue so I don't admit to just how much I've been thinking about him lately.

"Scared to find out?"

"Try me." I lash out with an attack as the words leave his mouth, knowing I'm severely outmatched and need the element of surprise to get even remotely close to besting him.

Zachariah is taken off guard for only a moment, dodging my attempt to get him to the ground, and bouncing on the balls of his feet as we circle each other.

Anticipation blasts through me as I calculate the best way to get him to the mat, battling every other way I'd like to get him underneath me as I try to think strategically.

"You've been dying for a shot at me for centuries, and that's the best you have?" he teases.

I gape at him, but can't keep the smile from my lips as realize I can't approach him like I would any other foe. I have to get in his head if I want to win.

I drop my fighting stance, letting my arms hang loose at my sides, feigning hurt.

"I would never want to hurt you, Zachariah," I say in my most weak and sad-drenched tone.

He immediately shifts out of his stance, concern lining every inch of his features as he steps toward me. "Talia, I'm sorry, I didn't mean?—"

I strike, kicking his feet out from underneath him, my hand at his throat as I take him to the ground, straddling his chest.

I grin down at him triumphantly, his eyes flaring wide with shock and a little bit of pride that I can't help but feel radiate through me. "I win," I say.

A blink is all it takes before my spine kisses the mat, his muscled body atop mine, his hand at my throat as his delicious weight settles between my thighs.

"That's right," I say, need flaring through me, exhilaration flooding my body at the sensation from sparring with him. "I forgot, you used to be the most powerful vampire on the planet."

"Used to be?" he says, and I roll my hips, using everything I have in my arsenal to distract him. He shudders at the way I move beneath him, and his pupils blow out just slightly?—

I tighten my hips and flip him, regaining the upper hand as I look down at him. "One would say that our king is the most powerful vampire on the planet now."

Zachariah groans, his hands falling to my hips, the fight going right out of him. "Fine," he says. "I'll gladly take second place to our king, as long as I'm first with you."

I roll my eyes, gripping his throat just a little bit tighter as I lean down, my lips an inch above his. My every instinct is begging me to bite him, to drink his blood in the way I always fantasized about.

I'm so fucking thirsty, desperate for sustenance only someone like him can offer, someone like my mate...

Not my mate. Not anymore , I argue with myself.

"Say I win," I say with a lot more gusto than I actually feel.

Zachariah glances down at where our bodies are connecting, at where I'm straddling him. "I'd have to argue that I'm the winner in this situation," he says.

I can't help but laugh.

"I have my hand at your throat. One good squeeze from me and...you'd at least go to sleep for a minute," I admit begrudgingly.

His smile is wide and beautiful as he looks up at me, not a hint of fear with me atop him. "You win," he says, and I tremble at the way that admission makes me feel. "You'll always win with me, Talia," he says with more determination.

I release him, hopping to my feet and offering a hand to help him stand. "That hasn't always been the case," I say, the pain catching up and stealing the fun away from the game.

He doesn't let go of my hand, instead drawing me closer to him, his eyes locking with mine. "And I'm prepared to spend an eternity making up for that," he says.

"That's a very long time," I say, my voice almost a whisper as I'm caught between the need to get closer to him and the desperation to get away to protect myself.

He gently grazes a knuckle down my cheek. "An eternity with you wouldn't be long enough for me."

A response gets tangled in my throat, my heart begging me to let him in. To welcome him back as if nothing ever happened.

But it's the memory of being left behind and alone for centuries that has me gathering enough strength to take my hand back, and walk with my head held somewhat high as I leave the training room and all of Zachariah's promises behind before I do something terribly reckless…

Like fall for him again.