Zyah moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and Player did his best not to groan. Not to let his thoughts go south. This was too important to fuck it up with sex. Zyah was too important. She had to know she could count on him.
“Tell me what’s happening here.”
He reached for her free hand because she wasn’t letting go of that gate. Even through the combined thicknesses of their gloves, he felt her tremble. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “I have no choice, Zyah. I have to tell Czar about the side effect of my psychic talent. He doesn’t know. The rest of the club doesn’t know. Not even the doc. You’re very aware of that, or you wouldn’t have been so insistent on staying so close to me.”
He made certain to keep his tone strictly neutral. “This bomb isn’t one I ever built before. I’ve never seen it. The ones I fall back on, I fill with harmless things, nothing lethal. This is very different and I can’t seem to stop it. If you weren’t there with me, something very bad could have happened. On top of that, the illusion has always been the same. Always. There’s been the White Rabbit and then Sorbacov. Now I’m beginning to detect someone else in the shadows. Someone waiting I can’t make out, but he’s aware of me. And he’s aware of you, baby. That makes this situation very, very dangerous.”
Her dark chocolate eyes hadn’t left his the entire time he gave her his truth.
She nodded slowly. “I’ve felt someone looking at us, like a big bloated spider in the corner.” She gave a little shudder. “I hoped it was that horrid man you call Sorbacov.”
Player hated to crush the little note of hope in her voice. “No, babe.” He kept his voice as gentle as the fingers he used to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorbacov is dead. That’s why his figure is always blurred. He can’t come back from the dead. The White Rabbit is an illusion, just like when I created him for my brothers and sisters to amuse them. Whatever or whoever is watching is beginning to blur illusion with reality.”
“How?” Zyah challenged. “Why would reality start taking over the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland illusion? I’m right there with you, making sure you wake up and you’re pulling out of it.”
He had to be honest, because it didn’t make sense to him either. “I don’t know, baby. That’s the problem. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I don’t know if that bullet did more damage to my head than we thought . . . I just don’t know.”
“When you start dreaming, what’s happening?”
He shrugged, his first instinct to shut down, but that wasn’t fair to her. She’d come with him. Seen him through night after night. Now she was risking her life, prepared to walk into the lion’s den with him. She had the right to ask any question and get the truth. She was everything he could want, standing with him. His warrior woman, nothing like him. Not hard. Not honed into a weapon. She was soft and gentle, a woman of the earth, but nevertheless his equal, a woman to walk beside him, everything he could ever want.
“It’s always that first bombing, on my birthday. I despise birthdays. I’ve never celebrated one since.” He confessed it fast. “Your grandmother has one coming up. Alena’s been talking to her about it and asking what kind of cake and frosting she likes.” He added the last, unable to stop himself from revealing the guilt and shame he felt in not being able to join in with the others looking forward to the celebration.
“Player.” Zyah finally pried her fingers off the gate and slid her palm up the front of his jacket, over his chest and wildly beating heart. “Don’t do that to yourself. Trauma can cause triggers. You’re intelligent. You must know that. You can’t beat yourself up because you have a very real one. You were five. You couldn’t possibly have known what Sorbacov was planning to do. I would have done anything to keep from being raped and tortured.”
“Each time I successfully built a practice bomb and beat my time before, he raped me. If I didn’t beat the time, he whipped me until I couldn’t breathe.” His body shuddered before he could control it. That door in his mind had creaked open, the one he kept bolted closed for self-preservation. “None of the alternatives were very good.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his chest.
“Don’t pity me, Zyah, that’s the last thing I want,” he said gruffly, but he cupped the back of her head and held her to him. He didn’t want her pity. He wanted a lot of other things from her, but not pity. He didn’t feel sorry for himself. He’d done enough of that when he was a child. According to Anat, he might still be doing it, but he was determined to win Zyah. To be good enough for her. Soliciting pity wasn’t going to cut it.