Chapter 12 #4
“Does that mean you have to go?” She was kidding, yet the thought tightened her chest.
“I’m not going anywhere, babe.”
The words washed over her, spoken in his low, intimate voice.
Especially babe. No one had ever called her that other than Kade’s pretend usage.
Maybe a whispered “oh, baby,” but nothing meaningful.
“Good.” She snuggled closer, her face next to his.
She wouldn’t ask him about the future, wouldn’t extract any promises. She wasn’t ready to make any herself.
She would always be a Dragon, a Fringer.
And Kade was a Deuce, a Vega to the core.
But in the quiet afterglow of the most incredible sex of her entire life—hell, she’d never even imagined that it could be that good—Violet didn’t care about their differences or the inevitable end to their arrangement.
She wanted to sink into this moment. She stroked his dagger tattoo.
“Does your tattoo have a consciousness? Does it make demands?”
“No. The tattoo is probably like your Dragon in the way it changes my cellular structure, but mine is just a weapon. The Guard commissions a magick inker to make them.”
Her finger traced the V on the dagger’s hilt. “Tell me what it’s like to be you. To be respected, perhaps feared.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “The people whom I want to fear me—my opponents—aren’t usually afraid of me. They think they’re better, faster. They’re usually wrong.”
“Oh, and tell me what it’s like to be so humble, too, while you’re at it.”
Another laugh, as rich as chocolate. “Who needs to be humble when you’re great?”
She nudged him.
His smile faded. “People respect me because I’m a Vega, not because I’m Kade Kavanaugh. Probably like they disrespect you for being a Castanega. It’s not personal.”
“I wish I could see it that way.”
He kept staring at the ceiling, absently stroking her arm with his finger. “I know how it feels to have people look at you like you’re dirt.”
She propped herself up on her elbow. “I would have guessed you had a charmed life.”
“I did until twenty years ago, when my father tried to release a prisoner.”
He told her the sketchy details, pain and humiliation etching into his voice. “It drives me crazy not knowing exactly what happened. Did he fall madly in love with this delusional woman? Seems unlikely. Everything for him was about his reputation. And upholding his honor.”
“But why did people look at you like you were dirt? Your father was the one who supposedly went against the law. Ah yes, people judging you for your family’s sins.”
“Yes, but that was only part of it. There were some who were jealous of my fast rise to Vega, especially since I flouted the rules. When they called my ascent into question, the Guard backed down and demoted me.” He met her gaze.
“The way you probably felt walking in there was how I felt every day. For five years, sacrificing who I was, toeing the line and ignoring my instincts just to prove myself. And now…” His expression tightened.
He obviously wasn’t used to sharing, which made this even more special.
“My sister is an Argus. If I screw up, she’s going to pay for it. ”
Violet remembered the woman with the green eyes like Kade’s. “You mean screw up as in investigating this on your own?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you did.”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “Me, too.” His sincerity saturated those words…and her heart.
“It’s odd how much we have in common,” she said. And how perfectly natural lying there sharing their bodies and souls felt. “My father also died under mysterious circumstances. We’ll never know why he ended up on Garza land, and why they felt compelled to shoot him.”
His expression darkened. “Did you ever doubt your father? Ever think he was up to something he shouldn’t have been?”
She shook her head emphatically. “My people have flaws, no doubt, but my dad wouldn’t have been up to no good.”
“I thought my father had fallen prey to human emotions. I didn’t know him, not on any deep level.
I believed the rumors. I bought into the corruption of a man but never considered the corruption of the Guard.
” Kade looked torn. “My father was a regimented, cold hard-ass, but he always backed me up. When I got into trouble for breaking the rules, he reminded my commanding officer that I went with my gut, just like he’d taught me. That I usually succeeded.”
“And you regret not believing in your father,” she said, reading his pained expression.
“Yes.”
She sighed, looking at her closet door. “My biggest regret is not wearing the dress my father bought me when I was nine. I was a tomboy, because that’s how I was raised.
I knew Dad suspected that I wanted to be girly, at least at times.
That dress meant a lot to me, but the only time I wore it, my brothers teased me and called me baby doll.
I put the dress away. Dad never even saw me wear it. ”
Kade pulled her closer against him. “Regrets suck. But I don’t regret this.”