Paranoia (Zayn Malik) (editing)

Chapter 36: A Night to Remember

LUNA

I don't pretend to know what I'm doing as I blot the pink blush onto my cheeks. It stands out against my skin, paler than normal from all the time spent indoors but my abundance of freckles still poke through.

"You look beautiful." Zayn's soft voice whispers as he sits on the edge of my bed, watching me as I sit at my desk in my mother's blue dress.

I give him a smile, it's all I can muster knowing the truth about tonight. It doesn't matter if I look beautiful or awful, it will be a night to remember.

"Have you ever been to a prom?" I return his intentional watching, seeing how he sits back on his hands, eyes narrowing as they meet mine.

"No, I never went to school, not like you have." He answers "I never really wanted to go to one, besides I think I'm too old now."

"Why not?"

"Prom is so American, so much showmanship. I'm British and old. I don't like being the centre of attention."

"So you wouldn't have come with me, if I asked?" My voice is softer than his.

He leans in closer, shifting his weight and resting his elbows on his thighs "I'd go anywhere you want me to go, Luna."

Suddenly the blush I put on moments ago becomes redundant. My cheeks burn red, not the pink I pretended to be with my blush.

"Can't you just read Loki's mind, figure out what he's going do tonight so we can just stop it, so we don't have to risk him even close?"

"Doesn't work like that, doll. It's harder to read an occult's mind as it is, but Loki used to be like me, though he isn't anymore, you can't read the mind of other oneirons, past or present."

I imagine of the things that might be in Loki's mind and decide maybe that is for the better.

"How come he will be fine with the full moon?" I ask, swiping a brown lipgloss onto my lips.

"Oneirons want blood as a fail-safe because the witches want to eradicate us, make us blood incubi so we aren't dream incubi. This goes into overdrive on a full moon, like werewolves. All occults are impacted, but some not massively. Blood incubi are already violent, it serves no purpose to increase that on a full moon. There are also drugs and things of that nature the witches have developed to stop the full moon from impacting us, but it's hard to get them if you're not in with a coven. The ghost group coven provides them for our group, but they won't give them to me if I'm not spending the full moon in the group. They don't like me."

"Whys that?"

He falters, clicking his tongue behind his teeth and looking around the room quickly, as if the answer to my question is shoved into a crevasse of my bedroom ceiling.

"A lot of reasons." He nods slowly "Witches don't tend to like Incubi, for one, I've not been the best to witches in my time, for two. I've killed a few, some accidentally, some not. Acts of violence against witches is the equivalent of terrorism in the human world. While not all witches are a part of our governing coven, they are all considered government. If I could be killed easily, if I didn't have your mother on my side, I probably would be dead."

I wait for the drop of horror to plunge in my stomach the way I know it should when someone tells you of the people they have killed, but it never comes. The feeling of safety, of comfort around Zayn, never wavers.

"How did you feel about going to prom? Before Loki intervened, of course." He asks.

Suffocated, sticky, rotten. I shudder at the question.