Chapter 1086: Reassurance
Possibly the first intelligent thing anyone had said in the library since entering it. Humanity, for one brief shining moment, stumbled into reason.
Phei moved toward Sienna at once.
He crossed the space quickly and reached for her before she could retreat back into the shadow that had hidden her. His hands closed around her shoulders gently, then shifted to her arms as if making sure she was real, standing, steady.
"Sienna."
She did not look at Dravenna.
She looked at him:
Those violet eyes, ancient and cold and impossibly young in the same breath, met his amethyst gaze with a composure that had cracks running through it. Not visible to most. But Phei had spent too many years reading the smallest failures in Sienna’s indifference.
He saw them now.
Her blush deepened violently at the sound of his voice saying her name. Her slender body trembled once under his hands — a tiny, involuntary shiver that ran through her shoulders and down her arms. Her breathing hitched, the sound soft but audible in the quiet library.
She did not pull away, but her fingers curled tighter at her sides.
His head turned sharply toward Dravenna.
Dravenna lifted one finger.
Snap.
A soft shimmer of jade-gold power passed over her body.
The same style of gown that had been ruined on the floor reformed around her in a clean sweep of ivory silk and gold, restored perfectly as if the previous chaos had been nothing but a private hallucination the library had been bribed to forget. The Grecian drapery settled over her shoulder, cinched at her waist, fell over her hips, and trailed behind her with that same provoking elegance.
Phei’s expression darkened.
"Dravenna."
She stood, graceful and utterly unashamed. "It has been eighteen years."
"That is not an explanation."
"It is the beginning of one."
"Sienna was watching all that?"
"Yes."
Phei’s jaw tightened. "Explain quickly." He did not mind a bit of vouyeribsm but this was Sienna alright?
Dravenna’s jade eyes moved to Sienna, and for once the teasing vanished from them.
"Sienna wants to lose her chastity to you," she said. "Tonight."
The library went silent.
Phei stared at her.
Then slowly turned back to Sienna.
Sienna’s face remained composed, but the redness had not left. If anything, it had deepened by a degree, and the vulnerability underneath it was now impossible to ignore. Not because she looked weak. Sienna could have stood bleeding under a collapsing moon and still looked like she was evaluating the moon’s incompetence.
But this subject touched something too private.
Too raw and too unlike the cold goddess everyone thought they understood.
Her breathing had grown shallower, the rise and fall of her chest quicker beneath the glittering bodice. Her slender fingers trembled once at her sides before she locked them still again.
Phei’s voice lowered. "What?"
Dravenna did not flinch. "It is not metaphorical, Phei. It is not symbolic or a poetic birthday tradition someone invented after drinking too much legacy wine. She truly has to. If you want the reason before she is ready to tell you, then ask her."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Or trust us."
Phei looked between them; Dravenna, proud, calm, dangerous, hiding too much behind jade eyes; Sienna, silent, flushed, wearing celestial blue like a reluctant goddess and looking as if she would rather fight a dead god than speak first.
He could trust Sienna.
Phei released a slow breath and took Sienna’s hand, like family and someone offering ground beneath her feet before asking her to cross a bridge she clearly hated.
"Sienna," he said quietly. "Are you sure? is she harassing you?"
Her eyes flicked down to their joined hands.
Phei’s thumb moved once over her fingers.
"I can only do that if you want it," he continued. "Not because of fate not because Dravenna said so."
Sienna looked up.
His voice softened further, and he could not believe he was actually considering it.
’Who I am I kidding? I want her so much but I don’t want this to be out of obligation or some shit.’
"Only if you choose it."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Dravenna sighed from behind them.
"And here I thought you knew women, my mate."
Phei’s gaze cut toward her.
Dravenna folded her arms, the ivory silk shifting around her with poisonous elegance. "Do you truly think Sienna would ever tell you first? That she needs this? That she wants this? That she loves you?"
"WHAT?!" Phei couldn’t believe his ears.
Sienna’s head turned, the temperature in the library dipped.
"Jade Dragon."
Her voice was cold enough to make the amber lamps feel decorative and useless.
Dravenna stopped; she held Sienna’s gaze for one long moment.
Then she shrugged:
"As you wish."
Before Phei could say another word, she disappeared.
Next, the library held only silence, books, shadows, and the two people left behind.
Phei stood facing Sienna and still holding her hand.
Sienna looked at the place Dravenna had vanished from, then back at him. Her violet eyes met his amethyst ones with the same old aloofness, the same impossible calm that had always made her seem like she was standing five steps away from the world.
And now there was no Dravenna to distract them from it.
The deep blush on her face had not faded. If anything, it had spread further down her throat. Her slender fingers trembled faintly in his grip. Her breathing remained slightly uneven, the soft sound of it audible in the heavy silence between them. She stood perfectly still, yet her body radiated tension — shoulders tight, the line of her throat working as she swallowed once.
Phei’s mouth twitched despite everythin:.
"You saw all that, huh?"
Sienna looked down.
That tiny movement hit him harder than any confession could have.
Sienna; looking down? Embarrassed and not cutting him apart with a surgical insult and walking away before he could answer?
Just looking down.
Her free hand curled into a tight fist at her side; her slender body shifted — just a fraction — betrayed how exposed she felt but her violet eyes stayed fixed on the floor, refusing to meet his.
Phei’s expression softened.
"Sienna."
"Do not say my name like that."
"Like I love your name?"
"Like an idiot."
"That is most of my range."
Her lips pressed together.
For one second, the corner of her mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then she hid it.
’Too badly.’
Phei stepped closer, still careful, still holding her hand like it mattered more than any explanation Dravenna had left behind.
"You could have spoken to me."
"No."
"That was not a suggestion."
"It was still wrong."
He studied her face.
The blush. The stubbornness. The tension in her fingers. The old coldness wrapped around something exposed and painfully alive.
"Are you angry?" he asked.
"Yes."
"At me?"
"Yes too."
"At Dravenna?"
"Very yes."
"Ant at yourself?"
Sienna’s eyes lifted..
Too honest for comfort.
Phei nodded faintly. "That one hit."
"You talk too much."
"I am nervous."
That made her pause, a strange thing crossed her face.
"You?" she asked.
Phei smiled without humor. "Yes, me."
"You are always shameless and a pervert Dragon."
"I am shameless when I know the game." His gaze did not leave hers. "This does is beyond even my imagination."
Sienna said nothing.
She looked otherworldly but right now Phei saw past the dress, past the goddess, past the birthday girl who had fled in a supercar and the Ice Robot who pretended affection was a manufacturing defect.
He saw the girl who had left him small secret gifts and denied every one.
The girl who had helped him survive the Maxtons in ways he had only begun to understand and the girl whose power was too old for her body and whose heart, apparently, was still human enough to blush in a dark library after watching him with another woman.
Phei squeezed her hand gently:
"If there is something I need to know," he said, "tell me when you are ready."
Sienna’s gaze lowered again.
"And if there is something you need from me tonight," he continued, voice careful, "then I need to hear it from you. In your own way. It does not have to be pretty. It does not have to be romantic. You can insult me through the whole sentence if that helps."
Her eyes flicked up.
He smiled faintly:
"I am experienced with your communication style."
"You are very annoying."
"There she is."
She glared weakly at him which, from Sienna, was almost a hug.
Phei lifted her hand and pressed a soft kiss to the back of it.
No hunger or lust but just warmth.
Sienna froze.
Her blush returned in full force, Phei looked up at her from over her hand.
"You are safe with me," he said.
The words were simple.
Perhaps too simple for a night filled with goddesses, dragons, hidden laws, old titles, lust, gifts, prophecies, and women who vanished instead of explaining themselves.
But Sienna heard them.
That was enough.
Her fingers tightened around his.
Only once.
Then she looked away and muttered, "Idiot."
Phei smiled.
"Happy birthday, Ice Robot."
This time, she did not threaten to kill him.
Progress, apparently.
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A/N: Didn’t see this coming now, did ya?