Chapter 112 Aria #2
Myla chuckles and finally steps into the open beside the dragon’s head, the pair making quite the menacing duo with the all black they both wear.
“I’ve let her know that you are… not a snack.
” The corners of her mouth curl, and it does nothing to temper the odd beating of my heart. “At least, not yet.”
“Comforting,” I rasp, resuming my steps towards the center of the cavern where I wait for Myla to meet me. “Is she your dragon?”
Myla stops a few feet away from me, looking over her shoulder at the beast who waits just beyond the large archway.
“She is.” When she turns back, any follow-up questions I have about dragons and why she has one vanish at the look on her face.
She’s… smiling. And not a smile tainted in cruelty or mockery.
It’s a genuine one. One that lifts her cheeks and makes her eyes squint.
I’m acutely aware that I’m staring at her, that I’m sure there is a stunned look on my face, yet I can’t force myself to look away.
Myla meets my fascination with an arched brow, her smile slowly falling until her lips are a flat line.
“Little Siren,” she says, warning laced in her low tone.
I catch the tunic she tosses my way but don’t put it on, instead reaching a hand into the bag strapped across my chest. “I have something for you,” I tell her, forcing my breaths to come in evenly as I grip the smooth hilt of the dragon bone dagger.
Pulling it out, I lift my head to find Myla watching me curiously, her hand pressed into the side of her thigh where her curved blade is strapped.
“This,” I say, taking a step towards her with the dagger resting in the palm of my outstretched hand, “belongs to you.”
Myla stares at my hand for a long moment before her eyes narrow. “As I recall, you won the ownership of that dagger in a rather ruthless display if I do say so myself.”
A soft laugh tumbles from me, but I again take another step towards her. “I did. But this blade is yours. Or, at the very least, your father’s. It should be wielded by fae alone. So take it.”
When she again makes no effort to grab the weapon, looking at me like she’s trying to figure out the trap in my words, I exhale sharply and throw my other hand in the air. “This isn’t some kind of weird exchange or bargain, Myla. Take the dagger!”
“Why aren’t you keeping it for yourself?”
“Why are you not taking it when I know you want it?” I counter.
She smiles again, though this one is all jagged edges. “Let’s fight for it—”
“Oh my gods. No!” Marching towards her, I reach for her hand, like Sade had done to me, only for her to latch on to my wrist and twist my arm until I’m forced to spin and give her my back.
Then she tugs me close, her scent overwhelming me as the heat of her body radiates over the bare skin at my back. “What are you doing?”
Her cheek brushes mine as she lowers her head.
“Fight me,” she says, the caress of her voice sending a shiver down my spine.
I send the elbow of my free arm back into her torso, just as she taught me last week.
Only she dodges it, because of course she does, and then has the audacity to laugh in my ear.
“Why are you trying to give me the dagger?”
“Because it is yours!” I grit out, lifting my leg and kicking it back towards her shin. My bare foot slides against the outside of her leg, and the growl that leaves me is nearly animalistic.
“You were so adamant that it was yours only a few weeks ago, Aria. What changed your mind?”
“Does it matter?” Damn fae and her need to turn everything into some sort of exchange!
“It shouldn’t matter,” she says like a confession, her tone making me pause.
“And yet…” Myla’s hold on me relaxes slightly, as if she’s just realized our proximity to each other.
Or the fact that I haven’t dressed in the tunic she gave me, leaving me naked in her hands.
I hear her throat work with a swallow, her next inhale painfully slow.
“Yet it does. I want to know why, Aria, and I find that fact entirely too infuriating to examine closely. Do you understand what it is like to have someone show up in your head despite your best efforts to push them out?”
Yes, I want to say. I do. With you. But instead, I finally remember how to get out of the hold she has me in.
I go limp, turning into dead weight and dragging us both down.
Myla curses, using her quick reflexes to turn us at the last second so her back hits the ground first and I land on top of her.
Facing her, I brace my weight on my knees as they bracket her hips, keeping space between our bodies as I angle the edge of the dagger over her throat.
“Will you take the dagger now?” I ask through heaving breaths, her closeness making my skin tingle with awareness.
“Tell me why.”
I groan in frustration, moving to push away from her when she grabs my wrist more gently than before. Her eyes search mine, something desperate and edged staring back at me from their dark depths.
“Tell me.” This time, it comes out as a plea.
“Myla—”
“Why, Aria?”
“Because I’m freeing you from the life debt!
” I shout, my voice scraping over the stone and stirring Myla’s dragon from where she rests just outside.
She releases a low rumble, and I look out the opening and meet those luminous eyes again, the dragon’s top lip peeled back a fraction and showing just a hint of the large teeth that wait behind it.
A soft grip on my chin guides me until I’m looking once more at Myla, at the confusion that forms a line between her brows. “Say that again.”
“I am freeing you from our life debt early. You have met the terms we set when we made our bargain.” I gesture for her to take the dagger again.
But she doesn’t move, held in stillness by a rare show of emotion.
With a soft exhale, I keep my eyes on hers as I reach back to the empty sheath I know is at her upper thigh, finding the open spot with my fingers before guiding the dagger into it, the sound of it sliding in making Myla’s eyes shutter.
I plant my now free hand near her shoulder, letting my eyes trace the sharp edges of her face.
“You taught me how to fight in every aspect. I wanted to learn how to protect those I love, but I needed to learn how to protect myself too, and no matter how you feel about me or how much you loathed to do it, I need you to know that you helped me. You gave me a choice in my life that I never had before, so I want to try and return that to you. You have fulfilled the debt. You’re free. ”
I had made the decision after our last lesson.
It makes sense, given the fact that Lyre will be having her babe soon.
It is coincidental that Sade thinks our mother is going to have Rhea heal me to pass through the Spell, which likely means that I won’t so easily be able to return to our meetings anyway.
But beyond those things, I don’t need to know every facet of Myla’s life to know that she is a female who understands what it is to survive in oppression.
Where I had spent so many of my years failing to do anything but feel sorry for myself, Myla had taken action.
She became something to be feared. I knew as she told the story of the Shadow, she was talking about herself.
I knew as she carefully bandaged my arm and told me that “no” should have been enough, she was speaking from experience.
Myla is a complicated fae, but I have seen enough glimpses beneath her hardened exterior to know that complicated can also be generous.
Protective. Beautiful. I should tell her those things, but I’m afraid I’ve already said too much and her silence is because she’s convinced herself that I’m lying.
“Say something,” I whisper, only to gasp as she surges from the ground, sitting up and forcing me into her lap fully.
I try to brace my weight onto my knees, very aware of the fact that I’m still nude.
But the warmth of her hand settles on my hip, and though her touch is light, I heed to her command not to move.
“You’ve fucked everything up,” she rasps, releasing my wrist and moving her hand as if to cradle my face or weave it into my hair, only to hesitate.
My eyes widen at her words, hurt slicing into my chest as she exhales roughly.
“I should be elated by this. I should feel freed by it, and yet”—her voice drops lower, a seductive song all its own as she studies me—“tell me why all I can feel is disappointment?”
She stares at me like I might actually hold the answer to her question, and what could I even say in response?
The truth? That I am disappointed too? That when I think of my future, the silhouette of her is always there, haunting me from the shadows because there is no way in this world that the two of us could ever be anything more than this and even that has a time limit.
And yet, as I watch her study me, her face full of vulnerability for the first time ever, I decide that maybe I’m the one that needs to be braver.
The one to show her that she’s worth the risk.
“This doesn’t have to end,” I say softly, laying my hands on her shoulders, my fingers brushing against the delicate skin at her neck.
“We just get to choose whether or not it continues.”
“And is that what you want?” she asks, head tilting to the side, her mouth perfectly lined up with mine.
My pulse races as I lean in slowly, giving Myla ample opportunity to stop me.
But she doesn’t move as my hands travel up to cup the sides of her face gently, bright hazel eyes meeting dark onyx ones.
“It is one of the things I want. And before I show you the other, I want you to know one more thing. I know you are the Shadow.” Surprise flares as she watches me, her eyes dipping to my mouth and back up again, like she can’t decide what part of me she wants to look at most. “I know who you are, Myla, and your darkness does not scare me.” And then I crash my lips onto hers.