“I have no doubt in your instincts,” Zain said, leaning back in his chair while stretching his arms above his head and yawning. His messy blood-red hair fell in waves and curls over his handsome face as he clearly tried to wake himself up. In some ways, I truly felt Zain was the most ‘human’ out of all my nightmares. Well… when he wasn’t shifted into his apocalyptic terror form. There was nothing human about that in the least.
My memory flashed briefly to earlier this week when I had woken up from a late afternoon nap in the dorms to find him floating above me, watching me with an almost curious, affectionate expression that seemed at odds with his intense form. By all regards, apocalyptic terrors should have been terrifying because of their intense appearance. Not only that, but because they literally caused chaos. It was why he was such a fantastic addition to the team, because he could use minimum magic to rain down absolute insanity and cause a distraction. On a major scale, the man could easily bring down an entire city, and that was just with his magic. There were more nightmares like him floating around out there, so if you brought them together, the apocalypse concept was truly possible.
Unlike legend terrors, where there were multiple individuals and everyone had specific magic or natural abilities, apocalyptic terrors were all very similar in their nature and just changed in form. All of them, though, were descendants of the titans that could have been called legend terrors but far exceeded that.
I found his form beautiful, personally. The man moved so easily through spaces, sometimes taking on a more humanoid shape, but other times he seemed to just move in a cloud of black smoke that radiated with red pulsing energy. Everything about him seemed almost untouchable, ghostly and not solid, except for the razor-sharp teeth and glowing ruby-red eyes that would make an appearance through the inky darkness.
When I had found him hanging over me, I had simply reached out into the darkness that cocooned me in warmth and the black magic had swarmed my hand, leaving me feeling almost out of breath. There was a source of radiating ruby energy that seemed to feed him, and whenever I touched him, it grew stronger, making me wonder if that existed within Zain even in his ‘human’ form. I would bet so.
Everything about the man caused my pulse to quicken, and when he was in that form, he seemed so intertwined with this primal energy that it surprised me that most days he came off as so relaxed and playful. Even as he sat here now, red smoke and shadows twirled around his fingers as he tapped them on the tabletop, making me want to reach out to play with them myself. I knew that would probably distract him, though, or bring out his nightmare side, something that would have to wait until after we had talked about their mission.
My heart warmed, thinking about how I had touched him the other day and the reaction it had caused in that form. He had let out a low growl before almost wrapping me completely up in his darkness, leaving a ruby-red glow on my skin in his wake. I liked the idea of bearing his mark on me, if we were being honest. I just wish that it didn’t fade so quickly. I also hadn’t thought twice about falling back to sleep around him following that, because I honestly think he just wanted to watch me sleep.
Zain didn’t feed off of fear like Razar. No, I think his nightmare was just more curious about me. Considering Zain and his nightmare side seemed to have a bit more of a separated existence than the others, it wasn’t all that surprising. It was almost as if they were two different people. I wasn’t positive how ‘normal’ that was for apocalyptic terrors, but I was thrilled to see him like that, so I would never complain.
I shifted in my seat as he offered me a smirk, as if he knew where my thoughts had gone. I looked down at my tablet, finding it a bit unfair that they could no doubt notice my body’s reaction to them far easier than I could theirs. I mean, putting aside the blush, which was a dead giveaway, there was the ability for them to hear my pulse and scent the fact that I was turned on. Something I very much did not want to consider because it made me want to turn even more red in the face. As I looked up from my tablet, I found him still watching me with a bright, fascinated expression. Bastard. I muttered under my breath, glad that Razar was suddenly asking him something so I didn’t have to explain why I was acting like a crazy person.
“I literally trained all last night, I’m not doing it again. I am goddamn exhausted,” Zain groaned in reference to Razar’s suggestion of sparring before the mission tonight. I had a feeling that despite his protest, it wouldn’t take much convincing to get him into the training arena. The nightmare was a bit of a workout junky, and it made me wonder what else he could do with all of that excess energy. As in, I wanted to know how far that endurance extended into fucking me. I really was very much into the idea of testing that out, personally, but hey! That was just me. No one else seemed to be on board that train, so…
I did have to admit, the man’s current outfit really did show off how muscular he was, his massive boulder-like shoulders and golden arms on display in the black cutoff workout shirt he wore with gray sweatpants and sneakers.
Damn him. He shouldn’t be allowed to wear sweatpants like that. My eyes darted down his muscular frame before trying to focus on Razar instead. I knew if Zain caught me, he would just flirt with me more and while, trust me, I absolutely loved it, I also didn’t think it meant anything to him. I would instead just have to suffer in silence and enjoy how gorgeous he was without touching.
His dark beard, trimmed and matching the short, shaved hair on the sides that contrasted the red up top, made him look even more striking. I had imagined running my fingers over his jawline as he kissed me several times now, and honestly, I was pretty damn sure that if I ever actually got close enough to kiss him, I would get distracted. Either by his neon icy-blue eyes or the tiny dark runes that ran against his temple to either side. I had asked him once what they meant, but he had never directly answered me, so I would have to renew my efforts. Even after all this time, I felt like there was so much more to the nightmare than he let on. I wanted to know everything about him.
Honestly, I think I was a bit of a masochist. I mean, seriously—I knew I was building a team and all, but I kept just bringing on amazing, fascinating men to torture myself with. Amun was a fantastic example of this. I suppose, at least with Zain, there hadn’t been a choice.
He had been with us since we were sixteen when he had shown up on the doorstep of the institute, seemingly homeless and beat to shit because of some humans that had tried to cage him up. I hadn’t questioned bringing him into our little group because there weren’t many ‘teenagers’ at the institute to begin with, and oddly enough, he hadn’t shied away from the offer.
It made me wonder how he was so relaxed and charming, because there had to be some residual anger there, right? Hell, I was just glad that he didn’t absolutely hate me for being human because of his past experiences. Then again, Zain didn’t really hate others, and almost no one hated him. Razar had even easily accepted him into our lives because his calming temperament really was needed on this team. I mean, shit—even Saint sometimes listened to him, and that was something to be grateful for.
Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear.
My pulse picked up as the nightmare in question entered the room with a commanding stride, his gaze immediately focusing on me. He flashed a stunning, dangerous smile that had me swallowing as he slid into a seat next to me, across from Razar, before tugging on my chair so that I was yanked closer to him. I let out a curse as Razar took my coffee from me, because honestly, none of us ever knew what Saint was going to do, so it was better safe than sorry when holding a hot liquid. The man’s actions usually made little sense to anyone but him.