Page 75 of Guarded By the Vodnik

He nodded, his chin brushing the top of my head. I stepped back so I could look into his eyes, but my hands stayed on his waist.

“I’ve had eight long-term partners before you. I was engaged twice. With each and every one of them, I felt a connection, and most of those relationships were good. But—this part is important. None of those men made me feel the way you do. I thought I knew what it meant to love someone, but I was wrong. Because now I know, and all those feelings I felt for other people in the past are pale and washed out in comparison to what I feel for you.”

He swallowed thickly, his eyes softening, though he was still frowning.

“Why so many? Did you get bored? Didn’t they do it for you?”

I winced, because the question was crude, his tone harsh, but I understood where it came from. He probably worried I had a pattern of breaking things off. He couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I wish, baby,” I said, pressing my lips together, because the truth was embarrassing. “Actually, out of all those people, I was never the one to end things. Never. It was always them finding me lacking. Or too much, depending on how you look at it.”

His eyes bored into me, so intense, I had to look away. My face burned with shame. I knew it wasn’t my fault, I knew nothing was wrong with me, but statistics didn’t lie.

When eight men break up with you, most of them in under a year, you gotta wonder.

That shame rose in my gut, hot and choking, but before it could become too much, solid arms and tentacles wrapped around me, Vodyan’s lips pressing to the top of my head.

“Idiots, all of them,” he growled, showering me with kisses. “You’re too precious to ever let you go.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, while that shame inside me murmured, “Just wait and see. Will he still think so a year from now? Or will he tell you to go?”

I sniffed, melting into his embrace as I pushed that unpleasant voice away.

“There’s literally no chance that anything in my email will make me want to leave you,” I promised. “You don’t have to worry. And if you want, you can even look over my shoulder. I don’t mind.”

He stiffened, then relaxed with a deep exhale.

“I really want to do just that, but I recognize how fucked up it is,” he said after a moment. “No. Check your email, Zoe. I’ll go to the main level to grab the food when it arrives, okay?”

Since Vodyan didn’t need chairs, there weren’t any in the apartment. I used his computer while standing. The screen was big, set into the wall, and the keyboard rolled out after clicking a button.

My inbox was stuffed, and I scrolled to the very bottom first to look at my messages chronologically. Most of it was newsletters, but my sister sent me occasional emails since she knew email was always the first thing I checked. I read through her brief messages letting me know she and my parents were safe.

Vodyan came back, and I still wasn’t done with the avalanche in my inbox. I couldn’t believe how many things I was even subscribed to. It was fucking unhealthy.

“Almost done,” I called when he asked me if I would eat. “God, what’s this morbid thing? What kind of freak sends an email with the subject ‘Come out or he dies’? I swear, those marketing people will do anything to…”

“What? Show me!”

Vodyan was by my side in seconds, just as the message loaded. We both stared at a blurry photo of a skull submerged in water.

“Is this the boy?” Vodyan asked sharply, putting his arm around my shoulders.

“What b—oh my God.”

It was Azahl. I hadn’t realized it at first, because his face filled the screen, and it seemed bigger because of the perspective. But now, I saw it. It was him.

“Is there anything else?” Vodyan asked, his tentacle winding around my leg like he needed to touch me as much as he could.

“I… Yeah, let me just…”

I scrolled down, but there was just the photo. No text apart from the ominous subject line.

“I knew he sent you threats in your email,” Vodyan said grimly. “How old is it?”

“It’s new, so… From two hours ago,” I said. “That’s… How did he know?”

When I looked at him, Vodyan was grim. “He knows you’re in Yeseera, safe and untouchable behind the fence. He knows you’re not hiding anymore. I’d say it was a pretty good guess on his part that you might check your inbox. Or he might have sent this across multiple channels, you just happened upon the email first.”

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