Page 17 of Seasons of War
But he was too tired to worry about his fiancée falling in love with him.
Hazel eyes looked into his, deep with that invitation for more. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Each word filled him with guilt. He was supposed to say that to the woman he was marrying, but he knew how it felt to say it and to mean it with every fiber of his soul. Couldn't a woman feel when a man yearned for them like that? Feel its absence?
If Zayne ever felt anything akin to the love he felt for Nadia, then he'd run as far from Mellie as possible. He did plan to do better this time around, though. Everyone looked down on Nadia for what she did to Zayne, but he'd betrayed her first. He'd promised a lifetime to her and then didn't have the courage to live it. Day after day, she reached for him, trying to draw him close, but he wandered their apartment like a ghost she'd never reach.
With Mellie, he strove to give her everything she wanted, hoping it might make up for denying her what a wife probably desired most from him. His heart.
“I canceled everything for the day. I'm all yours.” She glanced down. “Are you hurt too badly?”
“No. Just a cut on my leg.”
One of her shapely brows raised. “A cut? I heard it's more than that.”
“Not really.” A long kiss distracted her sufficiently, and she melted into him again. This was one of the good things he could do with his life. To make Mellie happy. “I'm sorry I didn't come see you yesterday. The Phaedra needed me.”
Mellie loved the sound of that. It lit her eyes. “You never have to apologize for that. Now.” She tugged at his pants. “Let me see that little scratch so I can yell if you lied to me about how bad it is.”
He chuckled low. “What do I have to do to keep you from yelling?”
“Mhm,” she said. “I knew it was worse than you said. Well…” Mellie pretended to think before giving him a mischievous smile. “I do take bribes.”
“Bribes,” Zayne murmured against her neck, kissing her lightly. “That's not very honorable.”
She tilted her head back, tugging him toward his room. “I'm not an honorable woman.”
Cute coming from her. The woman who listened to every last second of the state-mandated broadcasts when the television popped on with one, even the closing chime, because she followed all the rules.
Mellie slid her hand over his chest, grazing the long diagonal scar. The fingers of her other hand eased up his jaw, and a terrible flash of memory came. One that he needed to erase from existence.
Kira had touched him this exact way that night when he covered her eyes. Horror hit him at the memory. She was a prisoner now. His prisoner. But Mellie's lips melting against his flickered into Kira's and—
Zayne endured the pain in his thigh to lift Mellie and lowered to the couch with her, silencing his mind with the kind of kiss that erased all thought. All questions. All memories.
Nothing had ever happened between Zayne and Kira. Those people from that night were dead. He'd protect her in every way possible, at all costs.
And Mellie felt so incredible that he wondered for a ridiculous moment if maybe he did actually love her.
CHAPTER 5
Zayne
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
833 P.C. [Post-Collapse]
Outside the window of the Riven family dining room, the sky stretched in an endless sheet of black, void of the stars Zayne looked at every night in the territories. Here in Kallum, the capital of Ciondo, only darkness met them, because the Phaedra needed his tower to outshine all else. Zayne continued to search the sky for a single sparkling star, knowing he'd find nothing. Better than turning around to face his older brother, Luke. The man remained at the table after dinner, waiting for their father to finish his call and meet with them. They hadn't directly exchanged a single word with one another through the entire reunion and meal.
As much hope existed for him to reconcile with his brother as there was for finding where the Old Ones fled to during the Collapse. Eight hundred years separated humanity from the peak of that lost technology. No one in the world would ever find the Old Ones, just like Zayne and Luke would never reunite.
Protocol X: Isolation.
If only his family and the Phaedra accepted that reality and stopped forcing them together.
“Apologies,” his father said as he strode back into the dining room and sat down in his favored chair. Not the one at the head of the table, but the one without armrests, closest to the back exit. “I've just received word that Brock landed. I'll read him in personally tomorrow. He'll manage the prisoner when you're unavailable, Zayne.”
