Chapter 10 Judgment #2
Donavyn grunted when I took a step back, and jerked to look past him at the pale, dying dragon on the ground.
I shook my head. I don’t want this. Not now.
But against my will, my mind filled with memories, searching for faces, cataloging voices, smells, touches—
Oh, fuck. Nausea surged and I took another step back.
“Bren,” Donavyn murmured. “Please, Bren, don’t leave.”
“I’m n-not,” I managed through chattering teeth. “I just—which one?” I had to know. Because if I didn’t, I would wonder, and it wouldn’t leave me alone. I kept seeing their faces, their lascivious smiles, hearing their voices, smelling them, feeling their touch…
My skin crawled and I flinched.
“Bren—”
‘It was him,’ Akhane sent, her voice heavy with empathy.
It was only a flash, a smiling, handsome face with gleaming eyes, dark hair, appearing above the ladder in the barn loft when I’d thought Ruin and I were alone.
As soon as I had the answer, my head stopped spinning.
But my heart began. I was plunged back into the memory of that devastating day…
“Hey-yo! Where the fuck are you, Talon? You weren’t joking when you said this place is in the middle of nowhere.”
I startled at the strange voice below us in the barn, jumping to cover myself, but Ruin grabbed my wrist and pulled his head up, grinning wickedly at me as he pinned my arm back in the straw next to my head.
“Don’t cover up, beautiful. They want to see you,” he graveled, then raised his voice and turned his head to look over his shoulder, towards the ladder. “Up here. The loft.”
“But—!” I hissed, anger and disbelief spearing through me. “Who—what are you—”
“They’re my brothers. I told you, I told them about you,” he said, turning back to stare down at me, his piercing eyes an inferno.
I stared at him in horror, only a small part of me comforted when he leaned higher, covering me with his body, one hand in my hair, his nose almost touching mine, his gaze burning.
“I’ve been bragging about you,” he rasped.
“About how you want me.” My mouth fell open as he slid his marble-hardness against me so my body clenched and I gasped.
“That’s it, Brenny,” he muttered, gritting his teeth, his voice rough and raw. “That’s my horny little filly.”
“No, I—”
Noises below of men joking, footsteps, rustling in the straw near the ladder to the loft. They couldn’t—surely he didn’t mean for them to—
“They want to meet you, Brenny. They’re my brothers. I told you, we do everything together.”
“But—”
“You said you wanted to meet them!” he hissed, the flames in his eyes flaring with anger as well as need, so I froze.
I’d imagined I wanted to meet them clothed.
A second voice said something too low to catch, then more, deep, male voices laughed.
A shrill scream started in my head a moment later when a strange face appeared at the top of the ladder, a handsome man not much older than Ruin, with dark, tousled hair and a scar on his chin.
His eyes widened and darkened, like a cat’s when they sensed a mouse.
I froze, then cried out as my love cursed wickedly and thrust into me—
A sob broke in my throat and I swallowed it back, whirling to turn my back on the dragon, on Donavyn, on everything. As I stumbled towards the compassionate shadow of Akhane, grasping at the pieces of myself that I’d thought I’d armored, I thought I’d healed, I was forced to fight.
I fucking battled.
I would not fall back into that void of fear. I would not cry. Not now. Those fuckers had already taken one life from me. I would not let them steal this new, better life that I’d fought to be worthy for. I wouldn’t.
A hand brushed my back and I flinched, jerking away and turning to find Donavyn, no longer reaching for me, but staring at me with brokenhearted grief. When he opened his mouth to speak, I hurried to fill the silence because I couldn’t bear to hear it.
“Help the dragon,” I said through numb lips, backing up to stand next to Akhane, placing her between me and the launch hollow so I could stop feeling the eyes of everyone in that crowd filing back to the stable. “Help them. Leave me alone. I’m fine.”
“Bren—”
“Please, Donavyn. Go help him. He’s…” I trailed off and swallowed again. “Wait, you said that he killed his own rider?”
Donavyn nodded slowly, his eyes dark and suddenly glinting with a strange light I didn’t understand.
“It’s an ancient, but binding part of the bond,” he said hoarsely.
“If a dragon discovers that his rider has committed an offense deemed unforgiveable, he has the right to enact punishment. But he does so knowing that it might kill him, too.”
I gaped. “He’s dead?” Dark, tousled hair. A wicked smile. A scar on his chin where the hair didn’t grow—
Donavyn looked at Kgosi, grief etched on every line of his handsome face, then he nodded. “Yes,” he breathed. “He’s gone, Bren. He’s dead.”
“G-good,” I murmured, wondering why that truth felt odd in my hands, like a strangely heavy parcel I hadn’t unwrapped, but wasn’t sure I wanted.
Donavyn took a step closer, but I shook my head. “Go. Help the dragon. Help Kgosi.”
“Bren—”
“He’s dead, Donavyn. That’s all that matters. He’s dead.”
But as my mate stared sadly, then turned away to help his dragon, my mind wouldn’t stop turning back, retrieving the past and presenting it to me like plates at a feast.
Calloused hands.
A smile with an edge.
Eyes that gleamed.
A rough touch and a cackling laugh that still haunted my dreams some nights…
I shuddered. He’s dead, I tried to remind myself. Akhane turned to nudge my arm with her snout, but I patted it thoughtlessly, my mind elsewhere.
Dead. He was dead. Gone.
I should be relieved.
I should be grateful.
But all I felt was creeping, lonely dread.