Chapter Twenty-Nine
Neith
“Oh,” I exclaim suddenly. “Did you see what Betty did?”
Reed nods, “Yeah, how the hell did she manage to kill the fucking thing?”
“Excellent aim by the way,” Raiden grins, looking proud.
It’s at that moment that I realize that neither Betty nor Asael are with me.
I frown, “Did I have her with me when I arrived?”
Raiden shakes his head, “Nope. It was just you.”
An idea forms in my mind, and I push up away from Doc and then move to stand in the middle of the room. I don’t think it would be a good idea to summon my weapons while I’m on the couch surrounded by the guys.
“What are you doing?” Ransom asks curiously.
“Watch this,” I reply. Just to show off because I can, I decide to call them to me in my head and also one at a time. Asael appears almost immediately.
“That’s really cool, we saw you do it in the trial. I didn’t realize that he was coming when you called him and wasn’t just appearing by himself,” Van grins.
“There’s more,” I smile and then call Betty to me as well. They all look confused at her sudden appearance, and I decide to help them out by explaining, “so it turns out that Betty is somehow becoming enchanted. I can call her like I do Asael, and she buzzes and reacts when I talk to her like Asael. Also, she apparently makes her own bullets. I managed to see the one that she shot the creature with. It was fucking huge, the size of my forearm, and purple.”
“No fucking way?” River asks excitedly. “That is so fucking cool.”
I grin, “Yeah, it is.”
“That would explain how she has had bullets when she wasn’t supposed to,” Raiden points out thoughtfully. “She must have been becoming enchanted for a while.”
“Have you ever heard of it happening before?” Griff asks Raiden curiously.
Raiden shakes his head, “No, I haven’t. Every enchanted object that I have come across has been enchanted for centuries.”
“Betty’s just special like that,” I smile proudly.
“She is,” Griff agrees although he frowns as he adds, “she’s also become incredibly sought after, and a massive threat. Some supernaturals aren’t going to like that. A lot of supernaturals aren’t going to like that.”
“I don’t think that anyone else saw the bullet, so I’m hoping that they’re just going to think that it was a lucky shot or something,” I reply. “Not that she can make special bullets.”
“We certainly didn’t see you examine a bullet, and we were all glued to the fucking screen making sure that you were alright,” Raiden admits. “We did see how fast you were moving though and you weren’t moving like a human.”
My eyebrows dip slightly, “Really? I knew that I was moving quicker and able to jump higher. I asked my magic to help me, but I didn’t realize that it was that noticeable.”
Reed smirks, “It was definitely noticeable and really impressive.”
“Thank you,” I smile proudly.
“If anyone had any suspicions that you may be supernatural, then all they had to do was watch that for their suspicion to be confirmed,” Evander adds.
“Well, we figured that might happen at some point,” I point out. “I don’t particularly like it, but it does mean that although HID most likely now know that I’m alive, they can’t do fuck all about it because, as a supernatural, I’m under SID’s jurisdiction.”
“That’s a very good point,” Raiden replies.
The room falls silent for a moment.
“It was hard watching you and not being able to help,” Ransom says.
Raiden nods in agreement, “It really was. Some of us coped better than others.”
His gaze drifts around the room, and for the first time since I walked in here, I allow my gaze to do the same.
My eyes widen at the utter destruction, “Whoa, what the hell happened in here?”
All eyes turn to look at River. He crosses his arms over his chest, his gaze watching me closely for my reaction, and for the first time, I get the sense that he is worried about how I’m going to react.
“I didn’t do very well at watching you be in trouble and not being able to do anything,” he admits, his voice far more controlled than it usually is.
I make Betty and Asael disappear and then move toward River with a smile, pulling at my lips as I hug him tightly. As soon as my arms wrap around him, he relaxes and pulls me tightly against himself.
“There’s nothing that you could do that would change my opinion of you or make me like you any less,” I tell him honestly.
He squeezes me tighter before he lifts my chin so that he can look into my eyes, “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I reply simply.
His lips crash against mine in a heated kiss, and all thoughts fly from my mind. He lifts me up, my legs wrapping around him as a rumble builds in his chest. I can’t help myself, and I bite down on his lip, seeing how far I can push him. The rumble becomes louder as his lips pull into a smirk. His hand moves into my hair, and using his grip there, he pulls my head back, a shiver of heat ripples through. There’s only one situation where I like to be manhandled, and it’s this one. His glowing fox-like eyes study me closely, and an inferno burns in them when he sees my reaction.
“Fuck,” he mutters, his lips trailing down my jaw and neck.
My nails dig into his shoulders, before my hands move into his hair, I tug, making him nip my neck in retaliation.
The sound that I let out is absolutely nothing like I have made before, at least not by only kissing, and there’s an echo of groans around the room that makes me remember that we are not as alone as we have been behaving like we are. River’s lips meet mine again though and all thought leaves me.
After a moment, we’re interrupted.
“River,” Raiden says, his voice strained. There is no denying the heat that’s in it.
River reluctantly pulls away, kissing me softly one more time.
I unwrap my legs, and my feet hit the floor as I pout,I can’t help it. Under no circumstances did I want to stop.
“You’ve got to stop looking at him like that,” Reed mutters.
Turning to face them all and realizing that they look just as turned on as I am, I bite my lip, “Why?”
“Because it’s making us all want to strip you naked,” Ransom replies honestly.
“No one is stopping you,” I reply. I’m aware that I’m playing with fire, but I really don’t give a shit. At this point, the only thing that is holding me back is because it could kill me.
“Neith,” Griff warns.
“None of us would forgive ourselves if something happened to you, and at the moment, it’s not safe,” Doc says, it sounds like he’s trying to remind himself of that more than he’s trying to remind me.
I sigh and step away from River, so I’m not tempted to jump him again, “I know you’re all right. I just hate that you are.”
“Trust me, we do too,” Van says as he pulls me closer.
“Should River come to dinner if he reacted like this when Kylen was an asshole?” I ask changing the subject because otherwise, I’m going to decide that it’s worth the risk and fuck them anyway. My magic is pretty close to the surface. I’m sure it would be fine.
“That’s actually something that we hadn’t thought about. We were too focused on you,” Griff admits as he looks at River with concern.
River shrugs, “I’ll tear his throat out as soon as I lay eyes on him.”
“That’s hot,” I mutter. The guys all look at me with raised eyebrows, and I shrug, “What? It was.”
“I love that you think violence is hot,” Ransom grins.
“Yeah, it’s probably a good thing that you love that because I don’t think that I can change that reaction,” I admit.
“Don’t change,” Van replies.
I grin but don’t reply because if I do, it’s only going to send the conversation off on a tangent, and we were talking about something fairly important before I interrupted again.
River grins, “I could control my reaction if I had to, but right now, I don’t want to.”
“Fair enough,” Reed agrees.
“You guys go. I want to know if Coen is okay. If they let you, can you bring something back for me, please?” River asks. He looks around at the destruction of the room, “I should probably stay and clear this up anyway.”
“Alright, man, we aren’t going to be long. I don’t think any of us want to be around the Draconian Team for any longer than we have to,” Van replies.
“Agreed,” Griff grumbles.
“Let’s get this over with,” Doc says. “We’ll eat, check on Coen, and make sure that he’s okay, and then we’ll get out.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say. “I’m fucking starving.”
We leave River in the room, and I quietly ask the castle to keep an eye on him for me. I don’t like the fact that we’re leaving him here by himself, but River is more than capable of looking after himself, and with the castle's help as well, he will be absolutely fine.
We’re on guard as we enter the dining room, but the Draconian Team doesn’t acknowledge us at all, which I’m grateful for but probably has more to do with the fact that we have far more giant guards in the room with us right now compared to yesterday.
They are a very effective deterrent.
I frown and then share a look with the others as I realize that Coen isn’t in here.
We finish eating really quickly, the only reason why we were here was to see Coen and he’s not here. Evander quickly grabs a plate for River as we head out. Most of the Draconian Team have already left the left, leaving only two of them behind. We leave in silence, and as soon as I’m out of the room, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“That was one of the most awkward meals I’ve ever eaten,” I say as we make our way up the stairs.
“Same, and we have no idea where Coen is. I don’t like that he wasn’t there,” Reed agrees.
“Neither do I,” Van agrees.
As we get to the top of the stairs, we run into one of the quieter members of the Draconian Team coming back down.
They spot us and start to move past us before deciding to stop instead.
He looks at me, “He should never have helped you. All it’s done is caused him more pain. Kylen has ways to make you obey.”
“What do you mean?” I ask sharply.
The guy shakes his head, his eyes widening like he’s said more than he was supposed to, and then rushes off, looking terrified.
“Well, that’s concerning,” Doc says, a heavy frown on his features. “It does make me wonder if Kylen is controlling more than one of them.”
“Let’s get this food to River. After he's eaten, we can see if he can pick up Coen's scent with his nose, and we'll try to find him. If he can't though, then we're going to have to wait and check on him at breakfast,” Raiden says, clearly not liking that we might have to wait.
“I fucking hate this,” I say.
Coen
W ell, I certainly didn’t expect that.
Apparently, my need to keep Neith safe and make sure that she doesn’t die is even stronger than the stupid thing that Kylen is using to control me.
I shouldn’t be surprised. Neith is my everything. Being away from her has been its own kind of torture. If Kylen knew how I felt about her, then he would be absolutely over the moon that there was something else that was working better at torturing me than everything that he put me through. I couldn’t help her at any other point, and I really fucking tried. I was pushing at the bonds that stop me from going against Kylen, but it wasn’t until her life was actually in danger that I could defy him, and I am so fucking grateful.
Speaking of Kylen, he twists the knife in my leg, his expression greedy, wanting to hear my screams. My expression stays blank, I don’t even fucking twitch.
He's been pulling this same shit for years now, and I have built up a tolerance. Sure, it hurts like a mother fucker, but I have learned that I can block it out so effectively that even with multiple wounds, I can function and even fight without giving away any sign that I am injured. I heal quickly; all dragons do, but thanks to a special poison that Kylen coats his blades in, it takes me a couple of hours to heal instead of only moments. He’s not stupid, though, and he makes sure that none of them leave a scar behind, it wouldn’t be very easy to explain how I got so many scars.
“Never go against my orders again!” Kylen screams at me, spittle flying everywhere as his knife plunges into my stomach.
He doesn’t seem to have realized how significant it is that I was able to go against his orders, and I hope that he never does. I hope that his focus remains on me and not on her.
I will do everything to ensure that his attention stays on me. I’m not entirely sure why he is so focused on her, but if I had to guess, I would say that it is simply that she joined the guys' team. I don't think he would have even acknowledged her existence if she had been on any other team.
He rages and tortures until he wears himself out and leaves in an angry huff like a toddler who hasn’t gotten his way. He leaves me tied to a chair in the dungeon. God forbid I defend myself. He knows that if I got the chance and he didn’t get the command out quickly enough that, I would thoroughly enjoy hurting him as much as possible. Unfortunately, he let me know right at the very beginning that there were some sweeping commands that were always in effect, and of course, one of them was that I couldn’t kill him.
Of course, one of the first things that he did when we arrived at the castle was to have me find him somewhere suitable to torture me when I inevitably did something he didn’t fucking like, or when he decided he needed a punching bag.
My dragon roars in rage.
We’re so much stronger than he is, and it’s insulting and degrading that he’s managed to get us under his control.
I will kill him. As soon as I’m free, I’m going to destroy the evil fuck. I’m going to revel in his screams, and I’m going to feel his bones shatter between my teeth. I was going to kill him anyway, but now he has threatened Neith and caused her pain. She could have died today because of him. He shouted to tell the creature where she was on him, and under no circumstances will I allow him to live now. She was fucking amazing, I have always loved watching her fight, but there was something about her today that was different, almost supernatural, although that can’t be the case, and I won’t allow myself to think any more on it just in case Kylen cottons onto something and questions me.
He got too close to ending her today, and I’m going to enjoy killing him.
For now, I have to wait, I have to make sure that he doesn’t realize that there’s a link between Neith and me.
She knows now, she knows that there is something wrong, and honestly, it has given me hope. I haven’t felt hope for a very long time. I know Neith, she’s going to figure it out, and she’s going to help me.
I smile as I stay seated in the chair the fucker tortured me in, waiting for my wounds to heal. I’m actually surprised that she hasn’t killed him yet, and I’m going to assume that the guys are warning her to be cautious, and thank fuck they are. Kylen is more powerful than he should be, and I don’t want Neith to get hurt. Or the guys, they’re still my brothers, my chosen family. I just hope that they forgive me for everything that I’ve been forced to say and do over the years.
I know it hurt them when I said that I wanted to be on the Draconian Team. I didn’t, I really fucking didn’t, but Kylen was and is my puppet master, although his control is clearly beginning to slip.
I keep my mind busy with thoughts of Neith and the guys as my body slowly pushes out the poison and heals. As soon as I’m healed, well, not exactly healed. There are still some parts of me that need longer, but in all honesty, I can’t wait anymore, I’m not willing to wait anymore, I want to see Neith. So, as soon as I think that I’m healed well enough, I snap the ties that are holding me to the chair, and I stand up. Kylen has no idea that the poison soaked bonds that he uses to keep me tied to whatever it is he has attached me to no longer work, and I intend to keep it that way. Stretching out the kinks, I grin when I find that I can move easily enough that I don’t need to wait much longer.
I frown as a thought occurs to me, how the fuck am I going to find Neith?