Page 26 of Snag (Conduit #2)

SEVEN

ROUGHT

I wait to blend the milkshakes until I hear Zaya’s footfalls on the stairs. She’s been upstairs checking on Presh and Deville in that quiet way of hers, trying to not hover or even impose. Even though all the shifters who’ve taken over her home have done so completely uninvited.

Cay and Doc Z have gone back to town, but Rath is still here, having locked himself away in Disa’s tower office, scouring the books there for who-the-fuck-knows-what while running patrols via his phone.

Despite the ongoing tension between the two of them — they didn’t acknowledge each other even once over dinner earlier — Zaya hasn’t outright banished him from the estate.

On the other hand, Reck and his Authority grunts have gone radio silent.

Neither the Outcast network nor Coda has picked up Bellamy’s trail.

There’s a chance that the dire awry claiming kinship with the Guerra siblings might have actually managed to off herself with that teleportation spell.

Though Precious is the only one among us siblings giving any consideration to Bellamy’s claims.

Not that I don’t believe it. Especially since Zaya hasn’t outright denied it, and I’m fairly certain my soul-bound mate would know. Know and want to protect us, both from Bellamy and from doing something we might regret to one of our own. I just don’t give a fuck.

Zaya’s reserve is new. This keeping her distance from everyone but Precious— and even then, I catch the beat of hesitation any time my sister reaches for her.

Though she was quiet for the first few months we knew each other, still healing from the trauma of witnessing her mother’s murder, Zaya Gage was always full of laughter and light.

Forthright, sarcastic, she dominated me and my brothers with a mere look.

Then she would soothe our unmanifested inner beasts with a playful quirk of her lips or a brush of her fingers against our own.

This Zaya is remote. And I already know that’s not out of self-preservation. She holds herself back from fear of what she can do. And though watching her do that hurts, aching through that half-healed wound still lodged deeply in my chest, in my soul, I understand.

I understand what it’s like to be more powerful than everyone else.

The violet of Zaya’s eyes is new as well.

Even I have to steel myself when those eyes shift and I’m suddenly caught in her otherworldly secondary gaze.

The weight of the ancient power she now wields aches in my bones even when not directed toward me.

She wears sunglasses near constantly, though that does nothing to hide the sheer power that radiates from her.

Power, energy, that I don’t think has anything to do with the essence-artifact necklace she now wears .

Hence Zaya hovering in doorways to check on the still-healing DeVille and Presh instead of stepping easily into the room with them.

Hence the careful way she avoids accidental touch.

Hence not pushing back at Rath as much as she might have done before.

Though I don’t really remember them ever being at odds enough to warrant more than playful teasing from Zaya to keep him focused on the bigger picture, rather than overwhelmed by the minute details.

I’ve never had a problem with focus, with seeing the grand scale. Not from the moment I met Zaya and understood my place in the world. More so even after the gryphon manifested.

That energy that continuously radiates from Zaya shifts when she’s partway down the stairs, as if her attention has turned toward me.

Her essence, the fundamental core of her being, has been reaching for me like that since she allowed herself to believe the truth of our pasts, as captured in Mack’s photographs.

I felt that same energy brush against me when I brought Precious to the property for the first time, pulling me out of the car and all the way to the house, where I barely stopped myself from crushing my lips to hers on the patio.

At the time, that tentative touch of Zaya’s essence hurt.

Not physically, but as if it ripped open that soul-deep wound within me.

Because she was unsure of her welcome, is unsure.

After our kiss and throughout the day, during which we’ve been annoyingly pulled apart by outside sources— and by fucking Reck, fucking, fucking Reck— I’ve just accepted that tentativeness as my soul-bound mate trying to find her way back to me.

My own disconcertion … or sense of di splacement, maybe … eases each time I touch the small of Zaya’s back or brush my fingers against her hand.

Maybe we’re already slowly re-creating those threads that she says are missing between us.

Zaya slips almost silently down the corridor leading to the kitchen, her questioning smile widening as she lays eyes on me.

Okay, let’s be real. When she lays eyes on the milkshakes churning in the blender.

“Is there enough for two?” she asks.

“Always,” I say, keeping my body language sedate and nonthreatening even while barely stopping myself from lunging over the counter, sweeping her into my arms, and blurting all the declarations that want to fall from my lips every time I catch sight of her.

I’m way out of my comfort zone. Zaya and I just fit together all throughout our childhoods and our teenage years. I didn’t have to figure out what to say or do ahead of time. We simply experienced each moment together.

She crosses around the counter into the kitchen, head tilting back to keep meeting me eye to eye. My beast shifts inside me, pressing forward to gaze out of my eyes. The gryphon is utterly fucking possessive and has absolutely no interest in hiding that from our newly found mate.

That’s new as well. Another point of disconcertion. The beast being so present. But I keep my body relaxed, and I don’t fight it.

Our mate is wearing one of those sweaters that drapes across her shoulders, exposing her collarbone. The beast likes the bare expanse of her long neck. It likes that she looks us in the eye. And that sometimes we can see the section of the universe from which our souls were carved in that gaze .

But while that visual might also be new, the connection isn’t. For me, it’s still deeply cemented, woven through every breath I’ve taken since I first saw nine-year-old Zaya. Every breath I tried not to take when I thought I lost her.

The blender goes quiet.

We’ve just been staring at each other, suspended in this moment. And I don’t give a fuck if that makes me some sort of lovelorn sap, because Zaya is staring right back.

“What flavor?”

The rasp in her voice shivers over me, taking my half-hard cock— its perpetual state when I’m around Zaya— to fully erect.

Some of that might be a side effect of all her power, all her essence, now being focused solely on me.

Or it’s our severed souls brushing up against each other, seeking purchase?

Those threads that Zaya says are missing between us.

“Double chocolate,” I say, managing to ignore my compressed cock and thankful I’m wearing jeans with a bit of stretch rather than sweat pants.

I flip up the sound baffle on the blender, pouring our shakes into the waiting, previously chilled glasses.

“I added chilled hot fudge sauce to your dark chocolate ice cream.”

“Yum,” Zaya says. Then, indicating the blender, “Fancy.”

“It was still in the box in the cupboard,” I say, pouring the second glass. “When did Disa get the kitchen renovated? I don’t think even half these appliances have been used. The counter configuration is new, and at least one wall has been removed.”

A thicker clump of melted ice cream slides over the rim of the blender jar, causing the milkshake to overflow. I set down the jar, reaching for a tea towel to —

Zaya leans forward and licks the oozing, creamy chocolate ice cream up the side of the glass. More overflows the rim, and her pink tongue darts out — twice more — to stop the flow.

I’m utterly mesmerized, clenching the tea towel in one hand as if a scrap of fabric has any chance of anchoring me. My balls tighten so abruptly I nearly fucking come in my fucking jeans.

Zaya, still not touching the glass with more than her mouth, takes a long, slow sip of the milkshake.

“I guess I’ve claimed this glass now?” she says, laughing quietly, flicking her gaze up to meet mine for a brief moment before returning it to the milkshake.

She runs her tongue around the rim, clearing every errant drip. “Tasty.”

I don’t answer. I can’t fucking answer. All the fucking blood that should be circulating through my brain, fueling higher functions like speech, has diverted into my ridiculously hard cock.

I attempt to keep it, to keep all of this under control.

The atmosphere doesn’t help. The low lighting in the kitchen.

The blankets I’ve already thrown over the sectional couch in the TV niche in the adjacent family room.

A couch that’s more than big enough, with a few cushions removed, for me to fuck Zaya properly, the two of us stretched out over and tangled together on it.

I’ve been living a half-life. My cock only stirring when I reached for it in the lonely dark, the stale nothingness, the void that stretched within and without me since losing Zaya. Jerking off to memories that wouldn’t fade.

Zaya glances at me, brow pursed adorably in an unvoiced question.

I let my head fall back, groaning slightly.

“Is everything …” She inhales sharply.

I risk peeking at her .

She’s staring at my straining erection. Fixedly. Then she tongues the corner of her fucking mouth. Maybe licking off a remnant of the milkshake, but …

“Looking at it isn’t going to help,” I mutter.

Zaya’s eyes shoot up to mine.

And thank fuck, there’s nothing wary or fucking tentative in that look.