Of Noble Chains (The Ventori Fables) (20 page)

Hayden came up behind her, more hesitant than he normally would she thought, and placed his hands in clear view on the concrete bannister.  Zia did the same.

“They’re over there,” Hayden leaned his forearms forward now, and pointed overtop of the pool to Iscah and Cal.  Past the dancing crowd, and a few people jumping or throwing others into the pool Zia watched as Cal offered Iscah a pink drink, who accepted it.  Zia grimaced, knowing there was alcohol in that.

“I need to talk to her,” she announced and spun around to head downstairs.  But Hayden caught her wrist and spun her back to face him; it caught her off guard.

“Wait,” he said, “I wanna ask you something Noble.”

“Can it wait?” she tried to wriggle out of his grip but he held on firmly.  Not forceful, but it was enough to let her know he was serious.  “I need to tell Iscah that—“

She was cut off as Hayden’s lips connected with hers.  Her eyes shot wide, and she didn’t know what to do for a moment.  When she shoved him away she saw that his eyes were just as wide.  She yelled, “What in the Light are you doing?  You hate me!”

Hayden squinted at her, and stated, “It’s kind of the opposite, if you didn’t put that together.”

“But you’re always trying to beat me,” Zia stepped back, finally seeing what everyone else seemed to, “in the races, and at school, and with college.  Is this because I got my rank first?  That’s low!”

“What?  No!” Hayden tried to stop her, but Zia was already in motion as she hoisted herself onto the ledge.  Before she could swing her legs over he grabbed her around the waist, keeping her in place.  He confessed, “I love you!”

Zia flinched backwards.  She had never heard those words before from a boy.

Hayden’s plan went right into the wild lands.  In his head he had gone over it time and time again, how he would get Kehzia alone on the balcony and ask her on a date, a real date.  He knew that she had never been treated like a woman with any of her other boyfriends, and he wanted to be the first one to do just that; but when she had tried to walk away he panicked, and kissed her.  He relished the kiss, but when she firmly pushed him away he knew he had made a mistake.  And now she was trying to jump from the balcony to get away from him, and that hurt.  It hurt enough that he just yelled that he loved her.

Zia was staring at him now, as if she had gone into a catatonic state.  He was glad that she had stopped struggling to get away, and that she had yet to remove his hands from her waist, but she didn’t even seem to be all there.

“Kehzia?” Hayden asked, testing the waters.  Taking a risk, he snapped his fingers in front of her face and she finally blinked at him.

“Huh?” she said, still looking dumbfounded.

“I just…I said…” he couldn’t say the words again.

“Right, love,” Zia let out a frantic laugh, “Right, it’s a joke, right?”

Hayden shook his head, and refused to back out now.  “It’s not.  I want to be with you.”

“You’re seventeen, what do you know?” Zia had yet to slide down from the bannister, and Hayden placed a hand on the concrete.  She smelled so good, it was hard for him to keep his hands off of her.

“I’m eighteen, actually,” Hayden said, “and I think you like me, too.”

Another frantic laugh and he was beginning to think she had lost her mind.

Zia wasn’t handling the news well, she knew that.  But nobody had ever just confessed their love for her, and Hayden was the last person she thought would do it.  They had always tried so hard to one-up each other since childhood, how could he just say he loved her?  Zia was beginning to feel just like she had with Aeryn when he had kissed her; she had lost all her power.  And for some reason the fact that the Incubus had shifted his hair colour to Hayden’s bothered her.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” she declared, and shoved him away.  She was no longer going to jump from the balcony, and moved into Cal’s room when Hayden caught her wrist again.

“I’m sorry,” he started when Zia yanked from his hands.

“Just not right now!” she shouted and when Hayden tried to protest a hand was on his throat, holding him an inch above the carpet.

“She said not now,” Mal’s eerie eyes stared up at Hayden, his hand clutching at his throat.  Hayden grabbed onto Mal’s arm just above the elbow trying to free himself, but it was clear who was stronger.  The Caster tilted his head, too calm.

“Mal!” Zia yelled and she grabbed onto the arm that was strangling Hayden.  “What are you doing?”

Hayden’s face was turning red, his eyes rolling back in his head.  Zia ordered, “Put him down!”

Mal shifted his eyes in her direction, and they changed to a single ring of violet, as they met hers.  His fingers loosened, and Hayden fell to the floor while his hand went to his side.  He questioned, “Are you safe?”

“Safe?” Zia yelled.  “Have you lost your mind?  He wasn’t hurting me!”

Mal looked down as Zia rushed to this Hayden’s side.  He sat on the floor, sputtering for air and probably trying to figure out what had just happened.  Mal’s hand clenched into a fist when he saw how much Zia cared for this boy, and his knuckles were still a little white from when the boy had kissed her.

“I apologize,” Mal said quietly, “I had thought his actions were unwanted.”

That deflated Zia’s anger.  She knelt on the floor next to Hayden, and he almost seemed to be trying to get her away from Mal; too bad she didn’t know if she should get away from him.  Zia said, “It wasn’t…thank you, but I wasn’t in any danger.”

Mal looked to Hayden, and Zia caught something she thought seemed like anger in his eyes.

After a heavy cough, Hayden climbed to his feet, and Zia with him.  “Stay back.”

“No, it’s fine,” Zia placed a hand on his shoulder, “this is…a friend.”  Mal looked up at her.

“Friend?” Hayden questioned.  “He’s a Caster!”

“I know!” Zia yelled, crossing her arms now that Hayden was breathing normally.  “It’s
really
complicated!”

“But,” Hayden stammered, “you hate Specters!”

“I know that too!” she said.  “He sort of…helped me out a bit…with a case.”

Hayden furrowed his brow at her, and then to Mal.  The Caster said through gritted teeth, “I apologize, again.”

“Right,” Hayden touched his throat.  “Understandable mistake.”

“Mal, stop following me,” Zia ordered him, “I’m at a party, not facing off against a werewolf in the South Quarter.  I can look after myself!”

Mal flinched, nodded, and vanished into blue dust.

“Blue?” Hayden jumped back.  “Zia do you have any idea—“

“I know what it means,” she said, “but don’t say anything!”  Zia looked down with a grimace at the ring of blue, and thought of her mother.  “My parents don’t know what I’m doing…they can’t know.”

Hayden’s eyes softened on hers when she faced him.  He asked, “He’s been following you?”

“He just wants to keep me safe…for some reason,” Zia admitted, “he wants to convince me that we can work together…or something.”

Hayden pursed his lips when shouts erupted from outside.  Someone shouted, “Alright!  Strip!”

Zia’s stomach dropped and she pushed past Hayden to the balcony.  Down below she spotted Iscah as she started to lift up her shirt, with a few boys around her ready with their phones.  She gave up getting it over her head, and began to fumble with the buttons as someone offered to give her a hand.

“Iscah!” Zia screamed across the party.  A few people nearby looked up at her, and she was already moving.

“Noble, it’s too high!” Hayden tried to grab her but she launched herself from the balcony.  The wind rushed against her face, and the crowd cleared for her as she landed, rolling into a summersault and standing with ease.  One of the many reasons she kept her hair on the shorter side.  Her heels clicked furiously as she ran for Iscah.

The humans had begun to whisper, but Zia kept her sights set on the boy trying to undress her clearly drunk friend.  Where had Cal gone?  He knew better than to leave a girl like that!

“Just a couple more buttons,” the boy laughed, his hand snaking around Iscah’s waist.  Zia recognized him from one of the Academies sports teams, and she had never liked him.  She yanked on his shoulder and whipped him around.  He said, “The Hell?”

The next thing he saw was Zia’s fist coming at him, and she connected her knuckles with his nose.  The crunch she heard wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it should have been, and she took her jacket off to cover Iscah.  The girl mumbled, her hair flopping in front of her face, “
Zeeeeeah?  Was happnin?”

“We’re going home,” Zia declared, and zipped the jacket up.  The boy stumbled backwards and landed on his tailbone, which was when his teammates decided to put their phones away and take part.

“Hey, watch it!” one of them said.  “We were just having a little fun!”

“Fun?” Zia turned on him, a guy twice her size.  “She’s drunk, and you call watching her strip ‘fun’?”

“It’s not like she didn’t want to,” he held his hands out to the air.  Zia was officially pissed off, and after the day she had had, she just didn’t care anymore.  The guy went on, “So why don’t you apologize?”

“Alright,” Zia smiled coyly, “maybe you can take it as a
physical
apology?”

Cal had finally shown up, and was trying to push through the crowd because he knew what was coming.  He knew what happened when Zia lost her temper, though it didn’t happen often.  Somewhere near the patio door Hayden was trying to get to her as well.

“I’d like that,” the guy said, and reached out for Zia.

She laughed.  “I thought you would.”

In seconds her forehead connected with his nose, and he was stumbling backwards.  His friend leapt towards her, but she quickly dodged and countered by smashing her elbow into his throat.  As the boy whose nose she broke came up to grab onto Iscah, Zia spun and knocked her foot against the back of his knees, toppling him.

“Stop!” Cal cried just as one boy, one Zia had taken classes with, grabbed a nearby chair.  His lifted it over his head, Zia looking the other way, and brought it down towards her; she easily turned and blocked it with her left forearm.  But the force was enough to knock her down, and as she fell she swiped her foot beneath his.  Cal had arrived on the scene, and screamed, “I said stop!”

Hayden was there too, and he helped Zia stand.  She shook him off and they both went to Iscah, who was cowering by the table of drinks.  Everybody was watching Cal.

“We were just having fun!” one of the boys shouted, and Zia raised her fist to hit him again.  Hayden grabbed her arms and kept her at bay while Cal controlled the situation.

“Get out!  You could tell she was drunk,” he said to them, “you were taking advantage of her!”

Zia began to move Iscah out of the party, everyone easily clearing for her.  As she passed by Cal she whispered, “Where were you?”  And as she glared at him, she thought he looked guilty.

Hayden escorted them out, and drove them home, nobody saying a word until they arrived at Iscah’s house.

“She’s out cold,” Hayden stated, looking at the girls through the
rearview mirror.  “Do you want help getting her in?”

Zia glanced out the window, at the porch light that was left on for her.  Iscah’s father was probably still awake, and she knew her friend would be grounded for a lifetime when her father found out she had been drinking.

“No,” Zia said, “I’ll just be a minute.”

It only took thirty seconds for Zia to get her friend in the door, and explain to her father that she had accidentally gotten drunk.  He seemed more worried than anything, but Zia knew that would change in the morning.

She hopped back into Hayden’s car, feeling the tension in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not driving off as she had hoped.  “This was a stupid idea.”

“Take me home.”

Hayden parked in front of Zia’s house in the common, and his heart was beating so hard in his chest that he thought it might manage to crack a rib.  She just stared out the windshield, and he tried to apologize again.

“Stop it,” she ordered him, holding up a hand.  “Just stop it.”

He sighed.  She sighed.  And suddenly she said, “I just need a second to deal with everything, okay?  I just found out that my brother…” her voice choked off.

“Donataen?” Hayden asked quietly, understanding just a bit better.  When he was a kid, Zia’s brother had been his hero, and when he had been murdered…that was when Hayden had truly decided to become Ventori.  It was the same for her.  “What about him?”

“Nothing, I just…” Zia looked at him, and her eyes seemed to be glowing under the streetlamps.  “I think I’m getting close to who killed him.”

“It was a Specter,” Hayden stated, “you think you know who?”

“Yeah, I do.  Aeryn is…we’re working on it,” the corner of her lips curved upwards, and Hayden felt his chest tighten.  He didn’t like it when she smiled at the thought of another guy.

“Rinehart,” he breathed, facing the steering wheel.  When he faced Zia, ready to confront the issue, he found she was kissing him.  It took him a moment to realize what was happening, but he quickly kissed back.  Her hands were on the sides of his face, and before they deepened the kiss, she pulled away.  He was left a little awestruck, “What was that?”