Chapter 26: The Sleeping Boy

The air outside the library was cold and usually had the decency to wake a person up. Usually. For Cherion, however, the frost was just another layer of haze. As they navigated the halllway, torch-lit corridors of the Valtrane estate, the world felt like it was being viewed through a sheet of thick, distorted glass. Blue-black shadows stretched across the stone floors, heralding a dawn that was still more of a threat than a promise.

Zarius strode beside him, his movements fluid and unnervingly silent for a man of his stature. He looked sideways, caught the way Cherion’s eyelashes were fluttering against his cheeks. The boy was practically a sleepwalker at this point.

It happened somewhere between the third and fourth corridor. Cherion, losing his sense of spatial awareness in a particularly deep yawn, drifted closer to the heat source on his left. His hands, seeking something steady in a world that was currently tilting at a fifteen-degree angle, reached out and blindly latched onto Zarius’s forearm. He didn’t just touch it, he hugged it. He tucked the Duke’s strong arm against his chest as if it were a particularly sturdy bolster, his pace never slackening despite the fact that his brain was clearly in a different time zone.

Zarius froze. Not a full stop, but a hitch in his walk that made his heart do something violent against his ribs.

Then, the realization hit Cherion like a bucket of ice water.

His eyes snapped wide, clear and horrified. He let go as if Zarius’s arm had suddenly turned into a live current. "I... uh. Right. Solid. That’s a very solid arm you’ve got there, Your Grace. You must work out a lot. I’m so jealous," Cherion stammered, his face flushing a brilliant, visible pink even in the dim light. He scrambled to put three feet of "respectful distance" between them, nearly tripping over his own foot in the process.

Zarius didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. His skin still tingled where Cherion had pressed him

They reached Cherion’s chambers in a suffocating silence. The door creaked open, and Cherion stumbled inside first, his briefly-acquired adrenaline already evaporating. He didn’t even look back to see if Zarius was following. He didn’t check the corners. He didn’t do any of the things a sensible person in a den of wolves should do.

He just nodded off.

Plop.

Cherion landed face-first on the mattress, his body folding into the linens with the grace of a dropped sack of flour. With a low, incoherent mumble that might have been "goodnight" or perhaps a request for more tacos, he blindly grabbed a long hug-pillow and curled around it, his eyes sealing shut before his head even stopped bouncing.

Zarius stood in the center of the room, his shadow looming large against the far wall. He watched the boy’s chest rise and fall, and Zarius’s stomach twisted in a way he couldn’t explain.

He’s barely aware of anything

, Zarius thought.

Truly pathetic. If I were an assassin, if I actually wanted him dead, I could have snapped his neck ten times over by now. I could be holding a dagger to his throat, and he’d probably just snore at the blade.

It was a dangerous way to be. In the North, vulnerability was a death sentence, yet here was this little Omega, laid out like a peace offering in the middle of a war zone.

Zarius moved. He reached for the blanket and draped it over Cherion. He told himself he was just protecting his "investment." After all, a frozen healer was a useless healer.

But as he tucked the edge of the quilt near Cherion’s shoulder, he found himself lingering. He leaned down, his shadow swallowing the bed, and looked at the boy’s face. In sleep, the snark and the sharp-tongued defiance were gone, replaced by a softness that felt... intrusive.

Then, the scent hit him again.

It was that same intoxicating pull from the library. A sweet, warm scent, like honey and vanilla, drifted from Cherion. It drew him in like a moth to a flame. Zarius lowered his head, his nose inches from the pulse point on Cherion’s neck.

His mind flashed back to the library. To the way Cherion’s waist had felt beneath his palms, the shocking slenderness of it, the way the boy had fit so perfectly within his grip when he’d caught him. A sudden, sharp urge to reach out and reclaim that contact surged through him. He wanted to feel the heat of Cherion’s skin again, to anchor himself to this strange, bratty sun that had somehow wandered into his eternal winter.

His hand twitched, hanging in the air for a moment, and he found himself reaching for Cherion’s hip.

No, stop.

He balled his hand into a fist so tight his knuckles turned white. The realization of what he was doing, what he was feeling, struck him with the force of a physical blow. He was a Valtrane. He was cursed. He was a monster being eaten from the inside out, and he was hovering over a sleeping boy like a common star-crossed fool.

He recoiled, his boots thudding softly on the rug as he backed away.

"It’s just exhaustion," he told himself, his breath coming in short, silent gasps.

That’s all this is. The curse, the lack of sleep, the strain of the research. I’m losing my mind because I haven’t closed my eyes in twenty hours.

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t afford to. Zarius turned and walked out of the room, the door shutting softly behind him.

He walked down the hall toward his own wing, his heart still pounding. He needed to get away from that smell. He needed to get away from the memory of that waist.

As he reached his own chamber and stared at the empty, cold expanse of his bed, a single, weary thought flickered through his mind, overriding the darkness and the hunger.

I need to sleep. Before I do something I can’t take back.