Blood Stained Tranquility (20 page)

God, his shoulders. Any higher and they’d pass the top of his head. And the look on his face as he stared at the floor?

Unable to stay back any longer, she took a tentative step toward him. After that, it was just a matter of letting her body do its thing, her feet rushing to bring her closer to her male.

“Do you prefer I call you Mavrak?”

It hadn’t occurred to her until then, but it was necessary that she find out. Knowing how long he’d been ignored made the ache in her burst into a bittersweet chemical reaction that had her torn between hugging him and mounting him.

Fuck it, she was going to do both.

Zeniel didn’t look up at her face, but his eyes hungrily followed her steps as she got closer.

“You can call me whatever you are most comfortable calling me. If Zeniel is what you prefer . . . we are one and the same, aren’t we?”

She stopped a mere inch before him, gasping. “Y-you are aware of that?”

Brow furrowed, he blinked in confusion, and the look on his face was adorable to her. “Of course I am. Zeniel . . . my other half is, too. But he hates me for what I have done. I don’t blame him. I wish I had more control. It just hurts so damn bad when I hear . . . everything. It hurts right now.”

The sins. He meant the sins he was forced to hear and see.

Tears filled her eyes and one slid down her cheek before she could blink it away.

“It is easier for Zeniel to ignore me. I . . . not him, I mean. His subconscious. Mine. The guilt . . .” he trailed off, running a hand over his head in frustration.

He didn’t need to find the words. They weren’t necessary. She knew exactly what he was going on about.

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Hell, she could barely even breathe at that point. God, even a
God
had his mental limits, and her mate had been pushed past his. Torn apart, not by his own hand, but by whatever had been done to him during his imprisonment.

When Eve had been fifteen, she’d been put in a foster home. The trial had gone in her favor, despite her mother’s desperate need to see her punished. But with no place to go, there had been no choice but for her to be entered into the system.

The first home she’d stayed in, she’d met a girl her age. Makayla had come from an even more fucked-up background than Eve. Sexual and physical abuse was just the beginning of her traumatic smorgasbord.

Unable to deal with the pressure of all that pain and horrid knowledge, Makayla’s subconscious had done the only thing it could to protect itself: it’d fractured. Splintered into two apparently separate personalities. Two bright, intelligent, very
aware
personalities.

Both of which had known that they were one person, and that they suffered from a really complicated illness.

It was thanks to Makayla that Eve learned about DID—Dissociative Identity Disorder. It was the brain’s way of coping with extreme trauma. It compartmentalized itself, sometimes to an extreme where it broke.

Looking at her male, at the way he sat on that bed, everything about him so heavy, even his aura, Eve had no doubt that they’d broken him.

They’d fucking broken him.

But she’d known that, hadn’t she?

She took the last step up to him, and although he didn’t lift his eyes, he moved his legs further apart, making room for her. When she cupped his face between her hands and lifted it, he closed his eyes and hummed in his chest. All the heaviness seemed to leak out of him, just from her touch.

She swallowed, caressing his cheekbones with her thumbs. “What exactly did they do to you?”

He didn’t open his eyes, and fuck her, he even smiled a little at her touch. His hands came up, spanning the entire width of her upper back and sides. He pulled her closer, resting his chin above her breasts. “What they had to.”

Bullshit. That’s the first thought that Eve had. They could’ve found another way to—

What?

Zeniel was born because Mavrak’s psyche was broken. Maybe it wasn’t what they’d set out to do, but it’s what had occurred. A tiny part of her, the one that was starting to get an inkling of how the Universe worked, understood that everything happened for a reason. No matter how fucked-up.

But the part of her that was besotted with the male in front of her refused to accept it. Refused to entertain the idea that there hadn’t been another way to help him. Fuck it, she was just straight-up enraged at the idea of him being put through five hundred years of torture.

“Please tell me,” she whispered, lowering her head and laying it on his. “I want to know.”

Zen pulled her even closer. Eyes still closed, he rubbed his nose back and forth, right above where her tank top ended. With a groan, he pressed his lips to her skin.

Eve trembled at the feeling of his lips opening just enough for him to flick his tongue lightly against her flesh. He exhaled harshly at her taste. The hum that left him traveled past his clenched teeth and right into her skin. Whimpering, she latched onto his dark red hair, yanking strands free of his pony-tail, pulling just hard enough to tilt his head back.

“You’re trying to distract me.”

His lids rose slowly to half-mast. The way he looked up at her stole all the strength out of her legs. He caught her before she could fall, using his hold on her upper back to lift her as if she was nothing more than a piece of paper. She let him position her on his lap, but stopped him before he could bring her flush with that delicious cock of his. If she felt it, she was definitely going to forget about questioning him.

“Mavrak, please tell me.”

He froze the moment that name left her lips. His eyes closed again, and a small shudder went through him. “I want you so bad.”

“Stop trying to distract me. Please tell me.”

He sighed. “They beat me. Starved me. The first two centuries, the lack of sustenance doesn’t matter. After that, it begins to take its toll.
Eren
—the dimension my father was from—is far from Enzyria, and by then, my temple had been moved to the Valley of the Gods there. So I had no real sustenance, and eventually, it weakened me enough.” He paused and shrugged one shoulder. “They needed to weaken me so I wouldn’t fight back. It worked.”

Eren
. Eventually, Eve was so going there and hunting some fuckers down. One day.
Soon
.

“What do you mean when you say they beat you? What exactly did they do to you?”

He shook his head, and nuzzled her jaw, inhaling so hard it sounded like a hiss.

She bit down on her lip, feeling her gums tingle right before her incisors shot down. “How did they stop you from punishing them?”

He exhaled. The warm air that rushed out made her entire body tingle. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer her question. Then, when he did, she really wished he hadn’t.

“They kept burning or cutting my eyes out. Without them, I can’t hurt anyone.”

She circled her arms around his neck, tightening them as much as she could. Zen choked, then chuckled, bringing her in closer.

“It had to happen,” he whispered in her ear, rubbing his parted lips across her earlobe.

“We will agree to disagree on that one.” She was breathless, and with good fucking reason.

He pulled back, his stare boring into her eyes. It took her by surprise. He’d been shy a few minutes ago, too shy to really look at her. Now, he seemed only curious, his brow scrunched up a bit as he stared at her.

“You truly . . . you do not hate me.”

“I would never hate you.” Fuck, her throat was tight, the words barely making their way out.

“Only because you have not seen what I’ve done. What I can do.”

“No. I don’t care. I have an idea; a real good one. I don’t hate you because you can’t help it. Because you don’t really want to do what you do. And, because, no one knows better than me that the world can be unfair and full of shit.”

“If I could kill your mother, I would. Please forgive me. It’s the truth. But I cannot find her.”

Eve recoiled at that. Shock. There was definitely shock. And a twinge of pain that she had never really expected. After all those years, and all the ugly emotions, she would have thought she wouldn’t care.

Then again, this was her mother they were speaking about.

“Do you mean she’s dead?”

“I don’t know. I can’t locate her. Body or soul.”

He’d kill her mother for her. It should have scared her, or disgusted her in some way. But he hadn’t said it out of hate. It had merely been a matter-of-fact statement. He couldn’t help it. It was an urge he wouldn’t be able to fight.

“I’m sorry. I’ve upset you,” he said, looking away from her. “I know she is your mother but—”

“You can’t help it. I know. So, you’ve looked for her, and haven’t found her. How about—”

It was his turn to interrupt her. “I am searching for your brother. Alexis. I don’t know whether he lives or not, but if he does, I swear to you: I
will
find him for you.”

Chapter 15

Eve’s neurotransmitters whimpered under the emotional onslaught that flooded her brain. One sentence. One damn sentence and it had the power to wreck every emotion inside her, to the point that she couldn’t move for a few seconds.

“I swear to you: I
will
find him for you.”

Her lips parted, and her tongue moved to form the letter
I
. Almost too late, she realized her brain’s intentions, what her mouth was seconds from uttering. Gods, but she’d known. She’d known for so long now, that the fact that she was admitting it to herself just then was a travesty.

She loved him. She
adored
him, actually. As much as he drove her insane, as much as he pissed her off at times, she couldn’t deny the way she felt about him. And it wasn’t because of their shared mating. She’d begun developing those feelings the moment she’d laid eyes on him.

That was probably why she’d been so pissed at him from day one.

Zen stared into her eyes. “Look at the expression on your face.” He brought her closer, inhaling so hard his nostrils flared.

Eve closed her eyes against the intensity in his stare. “What expression?”
 

Zeniel didn’t answer her, merely leaned in and pressed his lips to hers softly. He sucked on her top lip, humming again, then closed his lips around her bottom one. “I wish I knew how to tell you.”

Her heart kicked wildly inside her ribcage at that. Fuck, she couldn’t even breathe right. The emotions she was feeling were suffocating the hell out of her. “Tell me what?”

He shook his head, a rough, frustrated sound leaving him. “Not while I’m like this. Not while I’m—” He stopped, jaw clenching.

Broken.

She didn’t know how she knew, but that’s what he’d been about to say. Whatever he wanted to tell her, he couldn’t do it while he was broken in two. It was the same reason she had for keeping how she felt to herself. She wanted to tell him while both sides of him were listening, and she didn’t know how aware Tranquility was when Vengeance had full control.

She let her eyes drift to his powerful chest and arms. His too big shoulders. Her arms loosened their hold on his neck, and her hands were soon following the path her eyes had just taken. His eyes darkened, his irises going from bright red to burgundy.

“You’re beautiful to me.” It was important that he know that. That he understood that to her, he wasn’t a monster.

His eyes widened. “How can you say that?”

“Because it’s the fucking truth, and if you even try to insinuate it’s not, you’re calling me a liar.” She moved closer, her legs circling around his midsection. “Do I need to beat your ass for calling me a liar?”

A surprised laugh escaped him.

Smiling, Eve cupped his face and played with those gorgeous cheekbones. “You’re hot in Tranquility mode, don’t get me wrong. But like this?”

He brought her flush against his dick, making her gasp. “What? Tell me, female . . . Then I shall find a way to explain to you, in detail, just how gorgeous you are . . . and how badly I want to eat you.” He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “Until your skin and blood is all I can taste.”