14. CHAPTER 14
His warmth still clung to my skin, but silence was dangerous—it left me alone with my thoughts. My heart should be slowing, steadying. Instead, it beat harder, each thud sparking a hundred questions I couldn’t turn off.
I wasn’t exactly regretting it, but gods, I couldn’t stop second-guessing myself.
I’d promised I wouldn’t hand myself over so fast. Every time I’d moved this fast before, I’d paid for it—little pieces of me shaved off in quiet, invisible ways.
Sex meant control when I chose it. Only control never lasted long once the quiet arrived.
Guilt poured into me, but giving myself to someone was a power I struggled with.
That old scar inside me whispered it was about control. About proving no one could take from me again without my permission. If I chose it and started it, then it was mine. Mine to give. Mine to end.
It was the same pattern that had followed me for years—one more impulsive choice, one more way to stay ahead of my own ghosts. For a heartbeat, it worked. For a heartbeat, I felt powerful, untouchable.
Now the quiet pressed in, and doubt crawled beneath my skin. Was this strength, or just another desperate attempt to silence the past? Was I moving too quickly? Was I letting him take pieces of me I couldn’t afford to give?
The thoughts spun faster, chasing each other in circles until my chest tightened.
I wanted to focus on the way his hand had steadied me, the way his voice had pulled me back into myself.
But my brain never let me sit still—it tore at everything, tested every angle, demanded to know how this ended before I’d even caught my breath.
Maybe this time was different. Maybe he was different .
I pressed my face into his shoulder, letting the silence stretch. It was safer that way, safer than saying the questions that gnawed at me. But silence would never last with him.
“And I thought I came in here to talk,” I whispered in his ear.
“I had plans to talk, I did, I promise. Once I saw you, I let all self-control go. I guess it’s better to have fun before we talk about serious things.”
“I hadn’t wanted to move this fast either. My self-control has never been my strong suit.”
He handed me a towel and helped me clean up. I stood up to grab my clothes, but he grabbed me and pulled me back into his arms.
“Let’s cuddle while we talk. I want to feel you next to me.”
“Where do we start?”
“Ella, huh?” he said, almost annoyed, maybe bitter.
I pulled my head to the side to look up at him, raising my eyebrows at him. “He told you?”
“What he told me was that he was in love with a girl that he had been off and on with. He said her name was Ella. He mentioned that it was complicated, but that when he went home last year, you two spent time together. He told me about your birthmark, which is why I ran that day on the mat. Later I thought, since it was a bloodline birthmark, maybe it was someone else because clearly you didn’t go by Ella. ”
“He is the only one who calls me Ella. When we were little, he couldn’t say Auri or Auriella, but he could say Ella. It’s always been a nickname that he’s called me. It’s not one that I go by.”
“I hate that he has a special nickname for you,” he said. He slid my hair to the side, lifting my chin and placing a kiss on my lips.
“Is that jealousy I hear?”
“No, maybe I don’t know. Can I be jealous?”
“Jealousy and possessiveness are two different things, as long as you don’t confuse them.”
“I’ll try not to be both. My bond with you has feelings I didn’t know existed. ”
“Alex and I were over a long time ago. If there was even a remote feeling left. The moment our eyes linked, it was gone. We are better as friends. He nearly broke me.”
“What do you want us to be?” he choked out.
“Um. I guess I hadn’t thought of that,” I couldn’t imagine being with someone else, nor him with someone else, but I didn’t want to sound clingy.
“Look, I want to be honest. I don’t think I can handle you being with someone else.
In the courtyard earlier, Alex reached down to kiss you, and I nearly lost it.
I put all the pieces together in those minutes that you were the girl he always talked about.
I felt my temper rising, but I kept it controlled. ”
“I felt your anger.” I told him, looking back up at him, placing my hand on his heart, “I felt it again when he mentioned sparring.”
“Sorry,” he said, kissing my forehead.
“I don’t know what label, or if we need labels, but I want us to be exclusive.”
“Am I allowed to kiss you in front of other people?”
“Is that allowed? Are there rules?”
“No rules on intermingling, and you are far from my chain of command.”
“In that case, yes, but I think I should talk with Alex first.”
“Can I talk to him first?” He asked, which gave me a sense of relief.
“I guess, if that’s what you prefer. I am going to tell Lili, though. So, am I going to run into any of your exes here?”
“Um… No…”
“Alrighty then.”
“So… There is something I need to ask…”
“That sounds ominous…” I put my head down.
“You’re General Blackcreek’s daughter?”
I furrowed my brow and looked up at him, “Yeah, why?”
“Fuck me.” He rubbed his eyes.
“Does that change something? I guess I don’t understand.”
“Gods. I hate him. ”
“Oh… I’m not him, I mean, I do love him, but we aren’t the same. Why?”
“Fuck, I know you’re not him,” he said, anger rising.
“Hey, I am trying to understand here.”
“I am sorry, I know. I have a lot of feelings about him. Five years ago, he sent a drift of dragons and phoenixes to my town. They incinerated a building where a group of leaders was having a meeting. My two uncles died that day.”
“Five years ago—near the Winterhand Stronghold?” I asked, a lump in my throat so big that I might stop breathing. I knew the answer, and I didn’t want to hear it. This couldn’t be fucking happening.
“Yes.” He cocked his head to the side.
The floor tilted. I slid off the bed and vomited before I could even breathe. Cold tile bit my knees. My arms locked around my shins, and everything narrowed to air, then no air at all. Every memory from five years ago flooded into my head.
“Auriella… you’re okay. You’re safe with me. What happened five years ago, because I am missing something. The amount of fear that overwhelmed me tells me something happened.”
I didn’t realize he had moved to the floor beside me.
I felt his arms wrap tightly around my body as he lifted me into his embrace.
I kept sobbing, trying to breathe, overwhelmed by a whirlwind of emotion.
My racing mind refused to quiet. He carried me into another room.
Through blurred vision and tears, I saw we were now in a private bathing chamber, with water running.
He brought us into the shower, still holding me securely.
“Breathe, love, breathe,” he whispered in my ear.
He moved to sit down with me in his lap. He pushed my hair out of my face and lifted my chin to look at him. All I felt was sorrow. I was afraid to know what his uncles’ names were.
“It’s okay, love. I got you.”
“I don’t even… know… where or how…to tell this…
” I managed to get out in between sobs. I was starting to get control of my crying.
I couldn’t let this control me. It controlled the following two years of my life.
Alex, knowing this, made him look at me and treat me differently.
I looked up at him. Lili and I were raped!
I screamed inside my head. His eyes widened, his eyebrows shot up, and he moved back from me.
Wait, did I say that aloud? He stared at me.
“Did you just talk into my head?”
“I… um… I… don’t know? Maybe you read my mind, can you do that?”
“Not that I am aware of, one of my aunts told me that there were some unique bond abilities that happen for mates, I guess that would be it.”
He pulled me in closer, kissed the top of my head, “I am so sorry that happened to you.”
“Drusearons terrified me before coming to basic, because…” Tears started to flow down my face again, and he wiped my cheeks. “It happened five years ago. Lili and I were walking around when he stopped to ask us where this one store was...”
My chest felt tight, it was like I was right back to that day.
Where we stood walking through town. Fuck.
I don’t know how I can tell him this. I definitely never told Alex all of the details.
Then again when he found out and came to the sanatorium, he looked at me like I was broken—as if I was a different person.
“Before we knew it, he wrapped his wings around both of us and shot into the air. We landed shortly after into a field. He tied us up… he—” I gasped in a large breath. Do I really have to say it out loud? It’s been five years, and it still consumed me.
“—He raped us. One at a time—making us watch. While he was raping her, I managed to get free, and I jumped onto him and tried to choke him, but I was weak and disoriented. He headbutted me and… I woke up and Lili was still tied to the chair, and I was on the ground. Blood everywhere. I untied us and we walked in the frigid air. I was convinced he had left us, hoping we would die out there. Kim, my dad’s dragon, and I had a unique connection.
She sensed I was in distress and told my dad, and they found us.
We both spent days in the sanatorium, recovering.
The guy told us a name when he first approached us, David.
It didn’t take my dad long to figure out it was indeed his name.
He met with a couple of leaders, in forming them that he needed to be turned in for punishment.
After a couple of days, they responded and denied the request.”