Chapter 6 Wrath #2
Shock blazes through me, as Mikkel suddenly apologizes for everything he put us through in Copenhagen. Fast on its heels is an incredible wave of love, however—that he just called me his beloved mate.
Something he’s never said before.
It leaves me in a conundrum as I heave hard breaths, flushed, but not because I’m trying to separate two of my drakes from a fight. It’s because Mikkel and I have shared nothing like this intense tenderness I’m feeling between us now.
As he finally opens up—and shows me his true heart.
I don’t know what to say, as Aesa’s Truthstone sings upon my chest. But I know that this Mikkel, this truthful, honest, real Mikkel, is the one I bonded him to find.
I reach out, setting my hand on his heart.
“I forgive you, you know,” I tell him honestly, as I gaze up at him.
“You don’t have to grovel; you don’t have to beg.
You don’t have to shower me with remorse or do anything else to have my forgiveness.
Because you already have it. I would do anything for you; I want you to know that.
Because you’re my drake, too… even though sometimes I still feel you wonder why that’s so. ”
“So do you.” Mikkel has a wry smile now as he gazes down at me.
He’s pulled me closer in the dark, vaulted hall, our hips touching as he holds me in the torchlight.
“I can feel it, Rikyava; more than the rest of your drakes, you wonder why your magic pulled me into your bond. Not just because I’m powerful…
but because I seem to be anathema to the rest of your heroes. And I know it.”
“You also have a deep honesty to you, and self-awareness, though,” I argue as we stand in our intense place together, not a standoff now but a strange coming together, in the near-dark.
“You know to not close the door on your inner darkness, but to open that closet up and take a good look, to sort through all the most terrible parts of yourself, and figure out why they’re there.
Even if you haven’t done counseling, Mikkel, you’ve looked inside yourself, deeply.
You’ve lived there and you know your innermost darkness; you don’t deny or try to hide it.
The only thing you’ve not done is allowed in your deepest light.
You think you’re different from my other drakes, but you’re not.
If you gave yourself half a chance, you might see that you are a hero, just like them—giving up everything to join this bond and keep us from dying on Alfhild’s cursed boat.
Then playing the bad guy so we could all see the truth about ourselves. Even though we might hate it.”
“It’s like you can look into my very soul, drakaina.
Exposing me with your beautifully eviscerating words.
” Mikkel chuckles as he caresses back a lock of my hair, though his look is complex.
“We have enemies all around us; our chances of surviving are next to none. Yet, something inside you shines so brightly, despite all the ways we’re fucked.
And you hold on to that brightness… for everything you’re worth. ”
“Not always.” I darken now as we come to my inner conflict again.
“You saw what I became in the Jarl’s hall in Copenhagen—a demon just like the Black Dragon when I tried to command it.
That place lives inside me, Mikkel; I have a darkness to match yours.
I know you can feel my inner doubt right now.
This fear I have, that my hatred, with everything we’re up against, is stronger than my love.
But this is where it gets real: I will not give in to that vast inner hate.
I know we need to hold on to our light, and grow it as much as we can, while we can.
Because the Black Dragon makes us forget that light.
If we’re going to have any chance of battling it, ever, we need to focus on each of our inner brightness.
And work through our dark sides, so we even have a chance at being bright when the creature comes again. ”
“So noble. So righteous.” Mikkel sighs as he gazes down at me, his smile wry. “Will I ever have righteous nobility like that, do you think?”
“You’ve seen your inner dragon in the Void,” I challenge him now as I remind him of what he looks like in the place of our Ancestors. “You tell me: is there any light that lives inside you at all? Or only darkness?”
“There is light.” Mikkel’s words are so soft, they’re almost a whisper, as he stares down at me in the torchlit hall.
Even though he’s looking at me, his gaze has gone long, and I know he’s thinking about what he saw when my power showed him his own dragon out in the cosmos.
Beautiful, shining with bright copper throughout the black and chartreuse green, that dragon was a wonder in the Void's darkness.
On fire with burning light and life.
“But I’m scared to hope. Hope is deadly.” Mikkel’s dark eyes pin me again, a vivid copper ring in them now, beautiful.
“Hope is only deadly when you’re around people who don’t love you,” I counter as I remove my hand from his heart to touch his face.
“We love you, Mikkel; I love you. You’re real, and you challenge me; you expose this darkness inside me that I’m tempted to just run from.
You show me that I need to face it and deal with it.
Because if I don’t—and if Baldur doesn’t—it’s going to take us all down.
As we go blacker than black, when we have to face off with the Black Dragon again.
And lose the why of why we fight. Becoming only demons like it, which destroy the world, rather than save it. ”
“You talk a big game, drakaina.” Mikkel is dangerous now as he draws closer—whispering his lips over mine and making an electric thrill surge all through me.
“You say you love me and that you cherish my ability to get real with my inner darkness, and yours. Will you truly face it, though, when the time comes? And embrace everything you are… along with me, and why I’m a part of your bond? ”
As he speaks daggers of truth right into my very soul, I know Mikkel is right. Because although I talk big about embracing my inner darkness, I know there’s still a huge part of it I’m running from, and never want to haul into the light.
It’s that side of me I still feel is evil, which wants our enemies to suffer endlessly for their crimes. It’s that part of me I will have to face, I know, whenever we go up against the Black Dragon again.
Because it nearly undid me, and all my drakes, when I gave into that siren song inside my darkest nature and tried to command the beast. It’s that part of me that made me believe I could, as I listened to an ancient voice inside my very blood, bones, and soul, telling me I could handle it.
I couldn’t—not by a long shot.
“You’re right.” I am blunt now as I gaze up at him, our lips inches apart.
“I will have to face that darkest place inside me again. I’m hoping that by having you in this bond, you can help me with that when the time comes.
Because that part of you is your strength, Mikkel.
Though I also know… your other strength is your light. And I love you for both.”
“Only Laerke’s really ever seen light in me.” Mikkel’s gaze is soft now as he looks down at me, intense, as a hot copper fire burns in his dark eyes. “Only she has ever truly said she loves me… and meant it.”
“Now there are two of us.” I am firm as I touch his face again. “Maybe you’ll believe it, eventually, if I say it enough. Who knows?”
“Who knows?” Mikkel laughs—though his gaze pins me now like black daggers.
“Can you love me after I do what I need to against Emil Beck, though, after we vanquish the Black Dragon? Though our people beyond The Chartreuse are safe, in the wind currently, since Laerke and I had a system for that if any of our clubs were ever attacked, he has stolen everything from us. I fully intend to get it all back, once this is all over. But can you support me in that, as my sister and I do what we need to, to return our empire to our talons?”
As Mikkel’s dark gaze digs into me in the barely lit hall, I feel the black wrath of his dragon blitz into me. As chartreuse green poison sears around his irises now, along with the copper, I feel the monster that lives within him gnash its teeth and roil, deep inside our bond.
Where once he would have vanished into his dark inner Wraith, however, I feel it get balanced now by a deep, searing light.
As the ring of copper blazes around his irises, along with the green, I watch that strange conflagration burn.
I feel his promise of retribution get balanced by love now for those he cares about.
Which lights up his very soul—even as it seethes with darkness.
“I won’t stop you when you punish those who wronged you,” I tell him point-blank now, as I feel what my Third Drake needs to do once everything with the Black Dragon is over. “If Emil Beck survives how we’re going to fuck up Litha, her mates, and the Usurper… you can have him, Mikkel. I swear it.”
“Good.” Staring at me with his darkest wrath devouring his eyes, I feel Mikkel wrestle with his black drake for just a moment. But then he takes a deep breath and something in him clears. As he closes his eyes, he stands taller, smoothing his hands up and down my waist now, as if it helps him.
When he opens his eyes, there’s not a trace of chartreuse left.
The strangest look of befuddlement is on Mikkel’s face, however, as he smiles wryly down at me.
“You’ve done something to me, drakaina,” he says now, as he gazes at me. “You’ve changed my wrath. I can feel it, deep inside... making me want to do this to secure my clubs simply as a support and income system for those I love… rather than doing it out of vendetta.”
“You’ve done something to me, too.” I gaze up at him, feeling us draw even closer in the dark hall as Mikkel pulls me to him with his firm hands.
“Because I’m looking at my own innermost darkness now and realizing I’m not all that different from you, Mikkel.
At first, I thought we could never get along, much less be life-mates.
I thought I didn’t have a ruthless side like you.
I discovered I was wrong when the Black Dragon came calling and something terrible inside me told me I could command it.
It still wants me to—to wreak havoc on our enemies.
And make them suffer forever, for what they’ve done. ”
“Pirate.” Mikkel chuckles, though his look is deadly serious now as he whispers his lips over mine.
“Hero,” I challenge him back, unrepentant as I understand we’ve both got each other’s numbers now.
Gazing down at me with a complex look, Mikkel’s dark eyes suddenly blaze, entirely copper.
He surges in, kissing me.
I kiss him back, careening into him as heat roars between us in the dark hall.