Zion

“I would suggest no witty mouth tonight,” the familiar voice greets as I enter the elevator. With two guards on my side as the doors close, I don’t know whether to be overjoyed that Elijah is here....or terrified. “The second he called me up I swear it sounded like he was going to cut off my dick if I didn’t help find you.”

Find me? He sent Elijah out here to find me?

“You didn’t find me, Elijah, I showed up here,” I respond, crossing my arms as I just want to take a shower. I want to wash off all of the memories.

“You’re glad I’m the one who was sent after you, if Zion took matters into his own hands and went after you, this would be very different.”

I’m glad Zion never did. I’m glad no one ever found out what happened. And I hope no one ever will.

“So, where did you go?”

I ignore him, crossing my arms as I can find myself growing more nervous by the second.

“Did you even use any common sense?”

I scoff. “Common sense is like deodorant, Elijah, everyone needs it, but not everyone uses it,” I snap back, meeting his hard gaze as one of the guards scoff.

“I then take it that you didn’t use any.”

My jaw tightens as the doors open, revealing a long hallway that makes my nerves go out of control.

I’m pushed into the hall, two guards on either side of me as Elijah takes the lead. “Just try and be respectful, it will let you live longer.” If I know one thing from the turnout of the night besides Zion telling me the truth...it’s that I want someone dead.

I went so low to get answers. So low to obtain an answer that I needed just s justification.

“We are now here.”

We stand before the door, my body heating up in the nerves as my stomach ties in endless knots. Whatever will happen tonight only get awaits me.

As the door is opened, Elijah practically forces me in, shutting the door quickly as he gets me in.

I’m left alone in the dark hall of the Presidential Suite of the hotel, the massive room of the entrance only making me speechless. Fit for a king for sure. All I can hear is the beating of my heart and every breath I take. For sure I’m in some deep shit right now.

Taking one step forward, the footstep echoes across the silent hall, letting me know Zion wants me to find him.

As I follow the hallway to the end, it opens up into a circular room, one of a lounge with beautiful furniture. “Zion?”

No response as I continue through the room, picking one of the three doorways as I enter a dinning room. How big do hotels make their biggest rooms? This is like some massive house.

“Where could he be?” I ask myself, entering another lounge now, one with a massive view of the city below.

That’s when I spit him, out in the balcony, staring out at the view. He doesn’t even turn around.

Entering the balcony, I close the screen door gently, not wanting to anger the beast any more.

“Zion?”

No reply.

I step forward, right to where we stand side by side, my eyes staring into his as he refuses to meet my gaze. I know the words I need and must say now to savage what we have left. What relationship and trust we have left.

“I’m sorry.”

I can sense him tense, his shoulders becoming stiff as I watch his golden eyes become dark. “I should not have gone off like that-

“I’m not mad you left earlier.”

He’s mad about earlier, about how I hesitated to reply if I still wanted to marry him.

“I’m bothered by the fact that you agreed to marriage when you do not share the feelings I have for you.”

My heart thumps loudly in my chest, sinking only to my stomach as I can feel my throat become dry.

“Do you want to marry me?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“I thought I was the one to ask that,” he states, watching me as I lean against the railing with my back, meeting his gaze. “I thought I was the one to question you.”

Shaking my head, I take in a deep breath. “I want to know if you really want to marry me,” I explain. “I want to know if you want to marry me because I am a rogue...” My eyes begin to water. “Or if you want to marry me because you love me.”

“Why would I care if you are a rogue?!” He remarks, becoming frustrated as the wind blows hard. “Why would I give a damn?! You’ve seen me, you see that I am not afraid to brag to the Council and Senate about you. I am not ashamed of you being a rogue, I want to marry you because I love you.”

I remember the day we met, how he got my purse back and I hit my attacker right in the family jewels. “But now you hesitate.”

“I hesitated because I was unsure of what I had heard,” I explain, throwing my head back as I look at the night sky. How can someone do this to me? Make me feel things I never thought I could feel? Make me push past all common sense as I cared about them? How does Zion do it? How did he do it? “Because of my parent’s death.”

He raises an eyebrow, turning to face me as the noise of cars below calm me down. For some reason, the sounds of cars passing bye, some honking, just helps me out in stressful times.

“I told you I did not kill the-

“You asked me if I trusted you!” I snap. “You asked me if I trusted you and told me that that’s all I would ever need to know. But guess what, Zion, guess what!” I shout, my anger rising. “You cannot just ask someone I they trust you and not give them the answer.”

His face hardens.

“People have been telling me to not trust you, people like Sebastian, Trent, and even that insane elf lady that always appears.”

“Appears?” He asks, raising an eyebrow as I watch the moonlight make his facial features become sharper than knives.

“She warned me about you, how I should not trust you, about how I should leave before I was too late.”

Suddenly, I’m against a wall, a body flush against mine as my wolf wants to be loose. Zion’s eyes are pitch black, his canines extending as my eyes widen as big as tennis balls. With his chest rising falling quickly, I know he is trying to control his wolf, to keep it down.

“You. Are. Mine.”

He’s getting possessive, completely pissed off that someone would tell me to leave his side. To leave him all alone. To take away what he claims as his. “I am only your’s if I agree,” I snap, pushing at his chest, gaining a bit more room to breath. “I want to trust you, Zion, but I have barely known you. Hell, I don’t even know your stupid favorite color.”

He lets me go, moving away and back to the railing. He just stands there, staring at me, his eyes turning back to gold.

Tears begin to fall, my hands quickly wiping them away as he just stays silent. He knows I am right, he knows we barely even know one another. Sure, we get along well for the most part, we are compatible, and he never looses my interest, but we both know we barely know the other. To think we are engaged.

But that’s when I see it, when I see one tear fall from those eyes, rolling down his cheek as it follows the curve of his jawline.

I’ve mad the big, bad wolf cry.

I’ve made the big, bad wolf becomes a bit more human than ice cold.

“Brown, a hazelnut brown, just like your eyes,” Zion states. “That’s my favorite color, the color of your eyes.”

I loose it, crumbling to the floor in a mess of sobs and tears as my Luna beg for air. Struggling to breath as my sobs take up all the time, I burry my wet face in my hands, rubbing my eyes.

Shortly, I look up to Zion as my lip quivers, watching as I slides to the floor, his face showing no emotion but complete sadness and regret. He just watched me, his face blank, no longer the suave and dominant King I’ve been so used to.

We are both broken people, people who know what we have done, how we are destroyed something so beautiful.

“Sky blue,” I manage to get out, my sobs seizing for my words to come out. “Like when there is not a single cloud in the sky.” Now we know each other’s favorite color, just a small portion of each other we have yet to learn about. Closing my eyes, I try and calm down, trying to take deep breaths and steady them.

Suddenly, hands are upon my cheeks, wiping away the salty tears as I don even louder. A forehead rests against mine, a warm body close as the breeze blows one again. “I’m sorry, so damn sorry.”

A soft kiss. One that would be expected under the stars, one so gentle and filled with pure adornment that it makes my heart flutter.

Right away my arms wrap around his body, pulling him closer to me as my tears begin once more. I don’t know if my tears are from the sadness of the moment, or the happiness of the feelings he has shown for me.

“Zion?” I man age to ask as he briefly pulls away, getting air.

“No words,” he mutters, going back as I’m gentle pushed against the wall, my back straight against it as he settles between my legs. “Please no words.”

But I need my words to be heard.

“Zion, I want something done,” I inform, pushing him away gently as my parents flash through my eyes. He looks at me, watching as I get onto my knees, eye-level with him as I grow impatient. “Can you promise me that.”

Silence, the wind picking up as Zion nods his head, running a hand through his locks of hair in stress.

Taking his face in my hands, I lean forward, my eyes searching his for any emotions that may tell me to be warned off. But there are none. “I want you to find the rogues that killed my parents.”

He’s not shocked. No, the emotion that passes bye is one of pride.

“On one occasion,” he replies, getting to his feet as he helps me up at the same time. “I want you to do a favor.”

“Why is there always a catch?!” I mumble, becoming frustrated. “Zion, I want one thing from you and right away you want a payment for it.”

“Yes.”

“That’s ridiculous....absurd, it’s stretching-

I’m caught off guard as my lips are captured in a beautiful kiss. Right away my legs wrap around his waist, my hands landing on the back of his neck as I pull him closer to me than humanly possible. Hands run through my messy hair as I do the same, enjoying the way the silky locks slide through my fingertips.

“That was my part of the deal.”

I blush. I blush like some stupid pre-teen who just had a kiss to the cheek. What the hell has gotten into me?!

“You know I would die for you,” Zion whispers, his lips grazing my neck as my back meets a wall. “I would do anything for you. I would take all the pain in the world just to know that you love me back.” My cheeks flush bright red as he gives me a kiss right where his mark will one day go. “My parents had one relationship of beauty, one the kingdom saw as a true fairytale. However, the second my mother died, everything turned sour. Father hated anything to do with the memory of her, burning all of her items and even having a new King’s suite be made. No one outside the royal housemaids ever knew.”

I raise an eyebrow, wondering why he is telling me this. Why he is saying words that make me feel a hole at the out of my stomach.

“One day he lost it, heading into battle head on against a tribe of witches. In the process he was cursed to die before he could ever see his son become the true King and find love. He was killed three years later by an assassin, one of the few demons out there still to destroy the supernatural world.”

I never heard this. I heard the King died in his sleep due to a stroke that was followed by a heart attack. “What did you do?” I ask, concern flooding my voice as Zion brushes his lips across my jugular vein.

“I spent four years of my life in Africa as I hunted down the demon and witch tribe. After finding the witches and burning them, I found the demon in Madagascar, calling upon a demon hunter to preform an exorcism.”

So he got his vengeance upon the demon after all. He loved his parents. He valued his parents’ legacy and their love that they gave him.

“Sybil?”

I look up to meet his eyes, feeling so small under his gaze. The lowest of the low with the highest rank out there. A King, one who rules and values power. One who has enough influence to cause a war or peace.

“Yes?”

“Do you still want to marry me? Would you live just to know I love you? Would you live for me? Would you be by my side every step of the way, even when I’m old, you’re old, and we can barely even take a shit without the aid of a nurse? Would you be there every night I went to sleep as every morning I awoke? Would you be willing to live the rest of your life with a man whose title will put you at risk everyday for the rest of your life? Would you let me love you?”

He’s proposed again, this time not on his one knee as I’m against a wall, my legs wrapped around his hips, and his eyes looking straight into mine.

Would I? Would I give my life to be his? Would I give up my freedom to be tied down to a man who the media loves and enemies will want to target? Am I ready to say yes another time?

“Zion,” I begin, my voice soft as he awaits my answer. “Would you be willing to marry me, a rogue and girl without common sense who is stubborn and just plain naïve?”

He laughs, a soft and joyful one as his eyes begin to water. But this time they are not tears of pain, but ones of pure and raw joy.

“Yes,” Zion replies, pulling me in for a short yet powerful kiss.

“Then I say yes as well,” I answer, watching as his face becomes brighter than the sun.

My legs are let down, my feet touching the floor beneath them as Zion just stares into my eyes. This time nothing feels rushed, as if no pressure was placed upon me as I’ve accepted the idea of marriage once more. This time I’m not pushing away common sense. This time In doing this on my own accord with no doubts in my head.

Just as another kiss is placed upon my lips, one that makes my heart clench tighter than ever, knocks sound at the door.

“Damnit,” Zion mutters, pulling away as he places a small peck on my cheek. “Be right back.”

As Zion goes out of view, I’m left alone, but this time, this time I do not feel empty. This time I know he will return to me, overjoyed to see me.

“You’ve got to be serious!” Zion growls from a distance, causing the walls to shake as I begin to worry.

The door slams, Zion’s footsteps echoing across the hotel suite. “We’ve got company, Sybil.”

“Who?” I ask, worried as I see the King head for his bed, grabbing a suite.

“The Ring Leaders.”