“I can read anytime. You look like you have a lot to do. Is there anything I can help with?”
I sighed. I’d spend the whole time with tense and spasming back muscles, responding to my natural flight response, but help would be useful. My deaths could become permanent at any point, and I’d rather have found my way out before then.
“I’m looking for a book by MSBO #. If you want to help, start in the top corner,” I said, stopping to point to the area opposite me. “And look at every book’s number until one of us, hopefully, finds the one I’m looking for. Number is 3019586637.”
He did as I asked him without complaint. Zan didn’t seem to have trouble keeping two hands at a time corporeal, but he worked faster than me. Like he was on borrowed time. If he’d been helping from the start, I would have been done the entire library by now. “3019…” he mumbled, trailing off and looking at me questioningly.
Fuck, I’d been staring and neglecting my end of the library. His concentrated face was just so… cute. I’d described him that way countless times, but it was an on-point descriptor. “586637.”
Biting his lip, he shook his head and put the book back. I tried to focus on my part of the task again, every once in a while giving him the number in full when he recognized the first few numbers. One time when I rattled off the digits he couldn’t remember, I didn’t hear the telltale sound of a book sliding onto a shelf after. I glanced up.
He was intently staring at the details page at the beginning of the book, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath. When he looked up, he raised the book in my direction. “I think this is the book you’re looking for. Unless I can’t read, which is very possible,” he said, letting out a sharp, self-deprecating laugh. “You’d better double check. I’ll just…”
Zan floated down to ground level, placing the book on a side table before making his way over to the door. I followed his progress, keeping the same distance between us, until I picked the book up.Seal Breaking and Magical Artifacts, written by a whole panel of esteemed researchers. Including one Shaun Grimaldi, Solstice’s father. Coincidence? Hopefully. The MSBO # matched perfectly.
It didn’t take more than a second for me to figure out what my uncle had wanted me to find. The page was folded in half to mark the spot, making me bite my lip in annoyance. What disrespect to the book. On the page and following ones were instructions on how to craft a magic-enhancing artifact specifically to help with seal breaking.
“Why couldn’t he just leave this book in his office? This is such a big fucking game to him. Crazy asshole.”
I tried to keep my voice low enough to avoid Zan’s attention, but he giggled. A small smile stretched across his cheeks, and he was staring at me. “Felix has been called worse than that before.”
“Considering the game he’s playing with me, I’m not surprised.”
And Zan didn’t even know the half of it. All he knew was my bullshit lie about Felix asking me to take on this task so I could prove myself to him.
He was silent as I read through the ingredients for the artifact. Nothing I would be hard-pressed to find here, although half the items were uncommon or rare. The blood of a hybrid creature. Live wood, which I had in the form of a tree through the window. A poultice made of ingredients Felix kept in jars in his office. The only hitch was the timeline. The poultice needed to sit for twelve hours before being used to craft the artifact, and my death happened anywhere from six to twenty-four hours after being shoved back through time. Usually closer to twelve hours.
Of course, I also didn’t know what to do with the artifact once I had it, so I supposed the timeline problem could be ignored for now.
“For the goddesses’ sake. I’m stressed.”
Once again, I was talking more to myself than anyone else. Zan brushed his hand across the nape of his neck. “Do you relieve stress the same way Bennett and Kirin do?”
My gaze snapped up to his. I had a feeling I knew what he meant, but I was eager to hear him say it. This time he’d brought it up, so I didn’t have to feel like I was teasing him too intensely about sex. “And how do Bennett and Kirin relieve stress?” I asked.
His cheeks glowed and eye contact dropped.
He was embarrassed.
“Well, um, they… f-fuck someone into a stupor.”
I licked my lips. He’d actually said it. “Is Waylon that someone?”
“Um, sometimes.”
“And who else do they sometimes fuck into a stupor?”
The pause before he answered was so long, I thought he wasn’t going to. “M-me.”
An image filled my mind of what that would look like. They couldn’t hold him — Zan was a powerful ghost, but not strong enough to maintain a full corporeal body for more than a few seconds, from what I’d seen. Which meant they would be unrestrained, fucking him rough and hard to make up for the lack of other touching. I wanted towatch. Where this new kink had come from, I had no idea, but suddenly a lot of Solstice’s antics were making more sense.
“Is that weird for you?” Zan blurted out.
“No, I think there are plenty of people who would enjoy fucking a ghost. And even more people who like to relieve stress with sex.”
Zan’s words had planted a little seed in my mind.
No one would remember if I gave in to my urges and had sex with one of them. Kirin or Bennett or Waylon would likely say yes. Zan was a no from me, because we’d have to be far too close, and Abraxas didn’t appear to like company on most occasions. But the other three? They would want me, and no one would know after my death rewound time again.
