Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
FRID
Iburst through the shattered window, the remaining fragments of glass that were still attached to the frame pierced right through my skin.
The stars shined so brightly in the sky, as if nothing that happened in the building below was even real.
The stench, the violence, was just a part of a wild, distorted dream I could not shake off.
I thought I was going to die. I thought it was the end. My limbs were still shaking. The skin around my neck felt inflamed and raw.
“Frid, the temple!”
Victor was right behind me. I lowered my head and pain exploded in my throat.
We would be lucky not to run into the crawler dragons that were partial to this abandoned city.
I dove below, slashing the chilly night air with my wings.
Victor followed me all the way down. After all the time I spent on the surface, I knew exactly where to go.
I flew straight to it, cutting corners, leading us right to the doors of the temple.
Finally, I landed on the platform in front of the entrance and swiftly transformed, taking out my weapon.
Everything seemed quiet. A moment later, Victor landed right behind me.
I opened the door and checked the room while he shapeshifted.
When we got inside, Victor closed the heavy door and locked it with a steel rod that was conveniently left on the floor.
I picked up a torch and lit it. The flame ignited, painting the surroundings with gold shimmering light.
Victor’s suit was opened in the front, his face was covered in blood, even his hair had streaks of crimson in it.
There was something odd about his posture.
I could not figure it out. He was right handed, but he was barely using his right arm. It dangled lifelessly by his hip.
“What happened to your arm?” I asked.
He shifted his eyes to me and I saw a piece of glass sticking out below his eye.
“Victor!” I stepped forward.
At first he stilled, then moved his head, not allowing me to touch him.
I remained standing with my hand outstretched.
Deep sadness seeped into my chest. He was angry with me, because of what I did.
While blindly following the lies, I never listened to him.
I only tried to do what I thought was right, but I placed both of us in danger.
He had the right to be mad, but I just could not stand this new version of him.
“You broke your thumb . . . and your wrist,” I said, lifting my eyes to his face. “What happened?” I repeated.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“The fucking sisters.” He took a step into the room increasing the distance between us.
“The sisters?”
“You asked me why I couldn’t transform to talk to you.
I wanted to. I tried to. I would’ve done anything just to talk to you.
” He glanced at me briefly. “While you were flying the missions, they wanted me to stay put. They drugged me at first, but that wasn’t enough. They started keeping me tied up.”
“What?”
“They didn’t want me to transform. They never trusted you. They wanted to keep me as collateral in case you went rogue.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked at his hand, noticing the swelling and almost purplish bruising on his skin.
Victor frowned, a streak of blood traveled from the wound on his face to his neck and disappeared behind the open collar of his flying leathers.
“They made me understand that I would put you in danger.”
“Why did you let me think that you were . . .?” I shook my head, stopping myself. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. How did you find me?”
“I heard your voice. You called me,” Victor said quietly.
His gaze was full of deep underlying meanings I was not able to decode. For some reason, now more than ever before, I wanted to know everything he was thinking.
“How is that possible?” I whispered.
“I would do anything . . . to find you.”
This time it was me who pulled back. Whatever it was that bloomed deep in my stomach, I could not think about it now. I had to get us to safety. Victor’s eyes hardened. He was silent as I stepped around him, and moved toward the pitch black tunnel.
The dark stripes of shadows stained the walls, blurring into the pitch black void.
“Let’s get you to the pool.” I picked up another torch and softly blew fire on the carefully wrapped oiled fabric.
The light from the flame sailed across the walls, exposing the uneven bricks as we travelled along the ceremonial path through the tunnel.
I vividly remembered every time I had come down this way, fighting for my life.
I clenched my teeth, reliving the last time when a crawler dragon had followed me.
The smell of burning flesh in the air, and so much pain that I thought I would not be able to make it.
Then, I thought about my conversations with the high priestess when she claimed that every temple is considered their territory.
“I’m wondering if this place belongs to sisters too,” I mumbled.
“They’re definitely not going anywhere tonight,” Victor responded.
“Why?”
I looked back at him, his eyes scanned the walls before meeting my gaze.
“Remember the communal room they used as a marketplace?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not as it used to be.”
“Did you burn it?”
Despite all my anger with the sisters, I did not want any one to take an innocent life. Mahin was a terrible person, but there were so many kids in the compound.
“No, just crushed a couple of things and destroyed their ceiling.”
“I don’t think we can ever go back,” I breathed.
“Fuck no! I’m not going back there!”
When we approached the pool, the dragon’s body had turned into a skeletal mound.
The beast still watched the edge of water with its empty eye sockets. I shrugged, remembering that endless night.
“What happened here?” Victor muttered, moving his head toward another set of crawler’s remains.
“You don’t want to know.” I placed my torch on the stand and started to pull off my suit.
Finally, I could concentrate on all the injuries I got from my short time at the Scars’ compound. My neck was severely bruised, and every time I opened my mouth, pain seemed to settle even deeper. The muscles of my shoulders, my ribs, the entire side of my body, were screaming in pain.
But Victor had also been injured. I looked up at him. He had done his best to take one side of his flying suit off his shoulder but struggled with the other side. He sunk his teeth into his lower lip, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Let me help you.” I moved closer, tugging on the edge of his suit.
My fingers brushed against his collar bone and the heat burned my own skin. I kept my attention on my task, but I could not forget that I was undressing him. I was embarrassed enough as it was, especially because this time, Victor was conscious, and he was watching me. Silence stretched between us.
I could physically feel his gaze travelling from my face to the silk undershirt that barely covered my own skin. I wondered if he still thought about me, because I thought about him all the time. His words back in Darragh, everything Alina had told me about us.
I helped him out of his flying leathers.
He has always been incredibly handsome. I loved his hair, lightened by the sun, his gray eyes, the shape of his dark eyebrows.
I swallowed, trying hard not to stare at the lean muscles of his arms and back.
The body of a warrior. Every line, every inch of Victor was earned by fights and extreme body exertion.
He was difficult to deal with, so stubborn, and opinionated, but every time I needed help, he was there.
So much so that I could not remember my life before meeting him.
“I got it from here,” Victor said when I lowered his suit all the way to his waist.
I could feel the blood rushing to my face and within moments, I was on fire: my cheeks, my forehead, even my ears. If I went a little farther, I could repeat the scene in the compound when I touched his . . . Damn it!
“Frid?”
Victor’s voice returned me back to reality.
“Huh?”
“Are you going to be alright?”
“Why?”
“Stop lusting over me.” Victor kicked off his boots.
“What? You wish.”
He smirked, removing his suit the rest of the way. My eyes landed on the inked design I had seen before that was just below his hip bone. Three swirls of black were clearly visible on his skin.
“Do you have a tattoo?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I didn’t know you had one.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should pay more attention.”
“What is it?”
“Do you want me to show it to you?” He tilted his head to the side.
“No!”
“If you say so.” Victor slipped into the pool.
I remained watching him when he dove under the water. The ripples on the surface sparkled with dozens of colors. The light from the torch colored the entire room in warm shades of orange and gold. Victor reappeared on the surface.
“Get in, Frid.”
I glanced at the partially mummified head of the crawler dragon. It seemed like it was still watching me as I stepped toward the edge of the pool.