Chapter Three
––––––––
GRAHAM WAS USUALLY quite good at sneaking away after dinner.
He knew it would be odd if he didn’t have dinner with the mages and their dragons, especially after he’d been invited to do so several times.
It wasn’t like he had anyone else to have dinner with, so everyone knew that if he wasn’t there, he was alone in his room, and if he said no, Penley especially, would just push harder to get him to change his mind.
But if he was careful, he could slink away from the dining table without anyone noticing. He didn’t want to make things awkward, so it was the easiest option. That way, the mages wouldn’t have to deal with his presence for any longer than absolutely necessary.
But today, he was sliding out of his chair while everyone around the table was still talking when he heard someone say his name.
“Are you going back to your room, Graham?” Penley asked.
Graham froze. His gaze flickered to Penley, then to Emory, who looked amused, which wasn’t surprising.
Graham was behaving the same way he had the other day with Emory.
He’d stopped moving as if it would be enough for Penley to forget he was there.
He wished it was, but Penley was the one mage who’d been pushing to get Graham to settle down and for them to become friends.
It was impossible to say no to him, especially when he was watching Graham with his big puppy eyes.
“I was,” Graham said, slowly sitting back down. “But I can wait a little longer if you need to talk to me.”
“We’re watching a movie after dinner. I think you should watch it with us.”
Graham looked around the table for someone to help him say no.
Everyone was either too busy with their own conversations or unwilling to help because no one said anything, not even Tyne, who hated Graham and who no doubt would want him out as soon as possible.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Graham tried.
“Of course it’s a good idea. I know you like being on your own, and that’s okay, especially considering the circumstances, but you don’t have to spend all your time in your room. We’re here to help you.”
Graham was pretty sure that if Tyne could get away with it, he’d help him jump off the highest castle tower, but the man didn’t say anything. He continued his conversation with his dragon as if nothing odd was happening.
That was how Graham ended up sitting on the couch in the living room after dinner, a movie playing on the massive screen in front of him.
He glanced left and right, but no one was watching him.
No one cared about him or about what he was doing.
Everyone was cuddled up with their partner, even Tyne and Meyer.
A few people were whispering to each other, but most were watching the movie, just like Graham was supposed to be.
Graham didn’t even know what the movie’s title was.
He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t even be in the castle, and he knew that was what almost everyone here thought.
They might not say it to his face, but that was the truth.
They were helping him because he’d saved Emory’s life, so they probably felt obligated in a way, but they didn’t owe him anything. It was the opposite.
“I’m really sorry for what my brother and I did,” Graham blurted out.
For a moment, nothing happened, but Penley quickly paused the movie. Graham didn’t look away from the TV screen and the man frozen in action there. He could feel everyone watching him, but he wasn’t strong enough to face them.
“We know that,” Penley said gently. “You’ve already apologized.”
“No one thinks that what you did was okay, but you definitely didn’t do as much as your brother, and the two of you are very young,” Dallin added. “Were young. I’m sorry you lost your brother,” he quickly added.
“And correct me if I’m wrong,” Jarvis interjected, “but it was only to two of you, right? That’s why you’re still here. You don’t have a family to go back to.”
“It’s always been just the two of us,” Graham admitted. “But it doesn’t make what we did right. We might have been desperate for a family and a place to belong, but we looked for it in the wrong places. We hurt people because of that.”
“What did Carlyle promise you?”
Graham looked down at his hands in his lap. “He told us that we were family, and we were, but he wasn’t the kind of family I wanted.”
“It was still more than you had, and you didn’t know what kind of man he was initially. How could you have? You didn’t know him.”
Why did the mages do that? Why did they find an excuse for Graham every time he tried to apologize?
“And now, you lost both your brother and Carlyle,” Dallin pointed out. “You lost every person you had in your life, didn’t you?”
Graham’s eyes burned. He didn’t want to cry, not in front of the mages, and, for some reason, especially not in front of Emory. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice shaking.
“But it does. Carlyle was a smart man. He knew how to manipulate people, and he did just that with you and your brother. He used your weaknesses against you. He knew what you were looking for, and he used that knowledge to make you do what he wanted.”
“I should’ve been smarter. I should’ve known.”
“But the point is that you couldn’t have. As soon as you realized what was going on, though, you tried to leave.”
“Not really. I knew we had to, but I didn’t want to leave my brother.”
“But you did,” Jarvis said, his voice so gentle it almost broke Graham.
“Even though you didn’t want to leave him and he was your only family, you didn’t stay.
You knew that doing so would be wrong, and you acted accordingly.
I’m not saying that your brother was evil, but you tried to stop what was happening, and he didn’t.
He stayed with Carlyle, and whatever reason he had to do so, we’ll never know. ”
“Do we need to?” Tyne asked. “Does it matter?”
“Maybe to us, it doesn’t, but it does to Graham,” Jarvis pointed out. “He lost his only family. Maybe you should remember that sometimes.”
Tyne didn’t look like he cared much, but that was okay. Graham hadn’t expected him to. He hadn’t expected any of the people in the room right now to care about anything when it came to him. Why should they?
“You don’t have to continue apologizing,” Penley said, sniffling a bit. “You’re one of us now. What you did doesn’t matter, and even if it did, you saved Emory’s life. That’s what matters to us.”
It might matter to them, but would it be enough for them to truly forgive him? Had they already, or were they just saying that because it was the right thing to say? Graham didn’t know, and he had no idea how to find out.
* * * *
EMORY WASN’T PLANNING on being part of the conversation. Why should he be? They were talking about Graham and what had happened to him, and that was none of Emory’s business. He was just in the room, listening, because he had to.
He wasn’t sure why he opened his mouth beyond the fact that Graham looked uncomfortable enough that Emory wouldn’t be surprised if he ran out of the room.
“I understand the feeling of being completely alone in the world,” he said softly.
“After I lost my dragon, I left everything behind. It was the worst betrayal I could’ve thought of, and it had been my mage who did it.
I didn’t want to deal with anyone’s pity, so I left.
It was probably the wrong thing to do. I was alone for decades, and I convinced myself that was how I wanted things, but it was a lie.
I do understand how you feel. It’s like you’re disconnected from everything around you, like you don’t have anything to anchor you down.
You don’t have a reason to stay anywhere because you have no one there.
” Emory looked at Penley, who was full-on crying now.
“That’s why I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you.
” He glanced around the room. “All of you. You changed my life by giving me my dragon back and welcoming me here as if I’ve always belonged.
You gave me a home when I convinced myself I didn’t need one for years. ”
Emory wanted to stop talking, but for some reason, he also wanted to keep Graham out of the spotlight.
It was clearly what Graham wanted, and he’d already been through enough.
He didn’t need the mages gawking at him while he poured his heart out, but he’d continue doing so because they’d asked.
He felt like he owed them something, and clearly, he was willing to do anything in his power to repay them.
It didn’t matter if it was scrubbing in the castle’s floors or putting his heart out there for all of them to judge.
He’d do it either way. He was trying so very hard to convince the dragons and the mages not to hate him that he hadn’t realized that they didn’t—well, except for Tyne, but Emory was half convinced that Tyne hated everyone but his dragon, and even that was dicey some days.
“You guys,” Penley said with a sob. “I wasn’t planning on crying tonight. It’s why I chose a movie with a lot of explosions.”
Luckily for him, his mate was there to comfort him. That didn’t mean that Emory was out of the spotlight, though. Everyone was still looking at him, and he hated that. Unfortunately for him, he’d brought it on himself.
He glanced at Graham, who looked grateful.
He had brought it on himself, but did it matter?
Graham seemed relieved, and something in Emory liked that.
He liked the way Graham was looking at him and feeling useful, especially after what Graham had done for him.
Making him less uncomfortable by taking most of the attention that had been on him away was a tiny thing considering that Graham had saved Emory’s life.
That wasn’t something Emory would ever be able to repay, but something told him that Graham wouldn’t want him to, anyway.
That was okay. Emory didn’t have to make any grand gestures to show Graham how grateful he was. Something told him that Graham was happy with what he was doing right now.
Even though it meant that Emory had all the attention on him.