Chapter 17 #2
The silence dragged on, for once not so heavy or stiff, and Kier found himself wanting to... fill it. He’d told her a bit about his past, his family, and himself. Just little pieces to satisfy her curiosity but not quench it.
She’d sat in this very spot the day before and hadn’t stopped smiling or chatting with a dragoness who had freely shared.
His chest was prickly and agitated over that. Perhaps he was a little jealous that they’d found a comfortable companionship between them in only a few hours – more so than Kier had managed with Carwyn over the course of an entire week.
I shouldn’t be irritated when that’s what I demanded, he mused, scratching his claw against the ground harder.
I shouldn’t want to share with her. His history was wrought with pain, and any tenderness or enjoyment had been tainted by what witches had done to destroy it.
All he had were memories of the long past.
“I wanted to ask,” she started, clasping her hands on her lap. “Perhaps I should attempt to dream walk throughout the day as well.”
“No,” he answered curtly, his tone intending to brook no room for argument.
She did anyway, and he admittedly liked that about her.
“But there’s nothing else I can do here.” She tilted her head to the side, away from him and the horizon, to look at the wall next to her. “It might allow me to find the answer quicker.”
Quicker. Why did his heart speed up at that, and for the wrong reason? The pesky organ should’ve rushed in steadfast determination, not mild panic. Panic he didn’t understand the cause of.
He frowned at the place where the ocean met the sky in a collision of blues.
Quicker would mean Selene would open her eyes, and this witch could leave – that was a good thing. He wanted his home back.
“Aysu will return. She may enquire after you, wish to speak with you, and she is pushy. She will ask why I’m withholding you, and since I’ll be unable to wake you from that state, she will seek to discover why.
” He finally brought his gaze back to her, frowning deeper now that the damn sun was on her face and it was even lovelier. “No one can know what you are doing.”
Her dark brows came together as she waved her hand to the side. “Surely she’d understand if it’s to bring Selene back.”
“No,” he admitted truthfully. “What you are doing for her doesn’t outweigh the risks it presents to my kind.” He lowered his snout to peer at his claws. “Aysu will be conflicted. She’ll want to allow it, but in the end, she will tell her queen, who will inform my king of what we’ve done.”
“But why? I don’t understand.”
“There are secrets about us dragons in her mind,” he stated, feeling the nip of shame and guilt that he was betraying his own kind just to save someone he dearly cherished.
“You may discover them. Where our island is, in which mountain or cave our king dwells, or where the lairs of many dragons are. Not to mention our plans, our fortifications, who guards what lands and possibly why. How much information we’ve gathered about the witchlands and what we specifically know. ”
The balance we provide in the barbaric southlands to keep humans and witches apart and disengage war that would see all of humankind lost.
“But I’d never share them.”
His words were solemn as he said, “For now.”
Her lips tightened in annoyance as her confusion pinched into a tight glare. “I would never.”
“Your own sister turned to dark magic.”
Her features grew ashen, and she averted her gaze.
“Yes,” he continued. “I’m quite aware of why we know of your sister and how she came to be with the ShadowHunter. She sought to be cleansed in dragonfire for her sins.”
“But she hasn’t...” Carwyn dug her nails into the back of her wrist. “She hasn’t turned corrupt. I know she hasn’t.”
“Yes, we know. We monitor such things closely. There are few secrets among our kind, and large pieces of information are shared freely and rapidly. All know of it.”
He was bypassing the fact that he knew she’d lied to him about it, likely to save face and earn his trust, earn his favour.
“I... don’t think you will turn either,” he stated honestly, causing her lips to part in surprise.
“But I won’t be able to convince others of my kind.
They will think of you as I first thought of you.
They will think ‘for now,’ and some of them are the most annoyingly stubborn creatures you will ever meet. ”
Despite the sadness in her expression, her lips curled at his comment. But it was true. His kind were hard, emotional, and sometimes unwise creatures when it came to matters of the heart and their worries and fears.
Her eyes crinkled as a soft smile lifted onto her face. “Do you really mean that?”
He grunted. “What? That my kind are stubborn?”
Her face lit up as she covered her lips to hide her laugh. “No. That you don’t believe I would become corrupt.”
Oh. He looked away with a false roll of his eyes. “Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
A giggle exploded at his sour, embarrassed tone, and something about it made his chest fuzzy until he chuckled in return. It’s been a long time since I heard that sound. He didn’t feel as sad over it as he expected.
Kier brought his gaze back to Carwyn to find hers already upon him, alight with a warmth that she hadn’t directed towards him before.
His heart raced when he took in the image of her face, half cast in shadow, the other side in bright, hot sunlight.
It cut her right down the middle, highlighting her skin in the differences; one side was a soft, cool brown, and the other appeared molten, like it might turn into bronze ore.
The chestnut of her hair was illuminated, causing the tips of her curls to glow brightly.
“Your eyes are mesmerising in the sun.”
His chest caved in because he’d been thinking something similar about hers. The right was still onyx, but the left had shifted into a liquid cinnamon.
She held his stare unabashedly, even after her honest words, and it tugged him into her eyes’ differing pools.
Unlike before, the desire that surged within him was much more powerful this time.
His shaft hardened entirely, uncomfortable behind his slit, and he was thankful he was lying upon it, or he might have accidentally extruded.
Why is she making me react this way?
The throbbing deepened until his breaths strangled out of him and his groin electrified. He had to hold back an unbidden groan.
Great. Now he was stuck here until he softened or she left.
Her eyes crinkled with tenderness. “I thought your scales might sparkle.”