18. Jerrid
JERRID
Ava’s mind felt different from Jerrid’s.
Dragon delved into it, escaping the prison of his own body and the screaming presence of the shadow trying to find him in the recesses where he had been hiding.
Her mind was open, eager, young. Full of life and passion and a desire to prove herself. A desire to be more. To be better.
What are you doing? Ava shrieked.
Her mind raced to understand what was happening, even as her body remained frozen in Jerrid’s arms, and poor, stupid Jerrid had no idea what was happening.
No, this was Dragon. He had figured out how to escape, how to reach Ava…
“I’m teaching Jerrid a lesson,” Dragon whispered to her. “He’s being stupid. Thinks he is in control. Thinks he knows best. But we both know differently, don’t we?”
Ava shivered as his thoughts brushed past her. In her mind, he felt unfettered—free. It was as if he were loose on the four winds, and all of Rhuin lay before him. Her mind was an open book waiting for him to explore. He nearly dove into her memories, eager to see, to learn, to know.
She had no defenses, had no need to ever build them. He could go and do as he pleased.
Yet he lingered on the fringes of her mind, held back by a sense of…
Was it honor?
He shook himself. He could have her mind if he wanted it. He knew she wouldn’t stop him, wouldn’t know how to, probably wouldn’t even know what he was doing.
But he would know.
“I’m sorry, Meat Pasty,” he whispered, brushing past her presence again as he swirled around and around just inside the door of her thoughts. “I should have asked.”
Asked if you could hear my thoughts?
Foolish girl. “No, I should have asked if I could enter your thoughts.”
Are…are you in my head?
Vaguely, he noticed their hands skimming through Ava’s hair, marveling at the silken threads that brushed over their callused fingers. In that moment, he hated Jerrid for being in the way. He was the intruder…or was Dragon the one intruding?
This mingling of minds was as intimate as the mingling of mouths, was it not?
But who was Ava kissing—Jerrid…or him?
“I need to know,” he whispered, coiling around her and flitting away. “Is it him…or me?”
What do you mean?
“You have feelings. I can sense them. But are they for him or me?”
Her thoughts went rigid, and a wall sprang up for the first time. Clever girl. So she did know how to block him…or at least, instinctively, she was learning. She was so clever, his meat pasty. So much cleverer than Jerrid.
I don’t know.
It was a lie. He could taste the uncertainty in her thoughts. Or maybe she herself didn’t yet understand her own heart. He could work with that. He could win her over, steal her from Jerrid…
He knocked on her wall, smirking when she squeaked in response. The echo of his hammering faded into the quiet places of her thoughts.
I like you both, the stubborn lass whispered. You’re supposed to be one person, not two. I don’t like him or you… I like the you that you are when you’re working together.
“A cowardly answer,” Dragon murmured, but it made him want to laugh because she really was so very clever.
It’s the truth.
This time, he almost believed her. How he wanted to delve into her thoughts, skimming over her feeble wall so that he could explore the true depth of her emotions, but he held himself back.
He didn’t dare linger long, unsure what would happen if he stretched his tether for an extended length of time.
It already strained, creaking against his determined hold.
“I need to go,” he said, “but I want you to stay. Whatever Jerrid says or tries to do, I want you to stay. Remember that, Meat Pasty. Remember that…Ava.”
He tasted her shock on his tongue as he slipped away, stealing back to himself, to his prison, to his battle…
Jerrid realized something was wrong when Ava went rigid in his arms, unmoving. He pulled back, shocked at his own lack of self-control. What the shades had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.
He’d been looking at her beautiful face and her stubborn, flashing eyes, and he’d only reacted to what his feelings screamed at him. Trying to hold himself back, to appear aloof and indifferent… The lie was too hard to maintain.
That’s why he had kissed her.
But now she kneeled before him, eyes glazed and unfocused.
“Ava?”
He cupped his palms around her shoulders and gave her a shake, gentle at first, and then harder, as he urgently called her name. Around them, the forest was deathly quiet, Brynja having stolen back to the camp during their argument and…
Well, everything that came after.
“Ava!” He patted her cheek until her eyelashes fluttered.
Blinking furiously, she recoiled from him, expression dazed and confused. “Where… What…”
He said nothing as she pulled herself together, but when the awkwardness lingered too long, he cleared his throat. “That was strange. Where were you?”
Her gaze flashed to his, anger darkening her cheeks. “Where was I? Where were you! I mean, where was he!”
“What are you talking about?” Jerrid furrowed his brow, wondering if his kiss had somehow broken something inside her or driven her to partial insensibility.
“Dragon! What was he doing?” she hissed, baring her little white teeth.
For the first time, he noticed that her left incisor had a tiny chip. How had he never noticed that before?
You’re an idiot, Dragon said with a snicker. I noticed.
“You,” Jerrid snapped, but when Ava flinched back, he raised calming palms toward her. “No, no, not you. Dragon. What have you been up to, you old goat?”
So rude… But other than a long, lingering snigger, the dragon had nothing else to say for himself.
Jerrid looked to Ava for answers. “What was he doing? What happened?”
Ava looked away, wrapping her arms around herself and clasping her elbows in both palms. “He was in my head. That’s what he was doing.”
“What? He can’t do that.”
Her gaze flew back to his, heated and angry. “Don’t tell me what he can’t do because he did it! He somehow got out of you and into me.”
“Dragon!” he bellowed, so loudly Ava leaned away from him.
The truth hit him in sickening waves, slowly at first, but escalating like the tide coming in. All the time he’d been kissing her, she’d been stuck in her head talking to Dragon? None of it had been real. None of it had been anything but him being exactly what Dragon accused him of.
An idiot.
“Enough,” he ground out between his teeth as he shoved himself to his feet and backed away. “That’s the last time, I swear…”
He began to throw up walls in his mind as he stalked in circles around the clearing, one hand pressed against the side of his head as he battled to ignore the frightened bellows from his dragon. No more escaping. No more threatening to eat people. No more interrupting kisses.
Dragon was never getting out again.
What are you doing, you stupid, stupid, stupid—
“What I should have done a long time ago! I’m locking you up for good!”
“Don’t,” Ava called out at the exact time Dragon roared a panicky, Please stop!
No, he wasn’t going to stop, because this—whatever this was the three of them were doing—had to stop. It had to be over. Because if Dragon had his way, Ava was going to get killed.
That’s not what—
“We are going to get her killed!” he snarled.
Silence answered him as he threw up another wall, and another.
A box. That’s what he needed to do. He needed to create a box with four sides and a top and a bottom.
And then he needed to put Dragon into that box, and he needed to throw away the key.
No, he wouldn’t even make a key. This would be a box without a key or a door or an escape.
A prison even they couldn’t escape from.
“You,” Jerrid muttered, holding his head in both hands. “A prison even you can’t escape from.”
He was doing this for Ava.
Doing it…for yourself—
But Dragon’s whispered words broke off as Jerrid slammed the lid down on his box. He imagined sealing it on all sides, the way a blacksmith soldered metal together. Heating the seams until they disappeared. Until the box was secure.
And his thoughts went silent.
His head was so quiet.
Jerrid lifted his head, squaring his shoulders.
Ava stood across the clearing in a ray of moonlight, her mouth rounded and eyes huge.
He didn’t care. It didn’t matter what she thought of him.
He was doing this to protect her. From himself, from Dragon, for all the complications that they had brought into her life. He was going to get her home, somehow.
Even if it meant gutting his own soul in the process.
And he did indeed feel gutted.
“We should go back to the camp,” he said, barely recognizing his own voice as he walked toward her.
She shrank away from him when he offered her his hand. He let his fingers fall and rest against his thigh. He didn’t blame her. Not really. It was better this way. Better he keep his distance. That was how he would protect her. How he must protect her.
Being alone wasn’t such a bad thing. It was actually really nice, the silence.
But his heart shriveled a little as Ava sidled past him and headed back toward the camp at just shy of a run.
It was better this way, but…it hurt. It hurt a lot.
If Dragon were still able to hear him, he’d be sniggering right now for sure.
Jerrid strained his ears, half hoping to catch a hint of him in the background, enjoying himself.
But no, only the silence remained.
Jerrid’s feet felt like heavy stones on the bottom of his legs as he followed Ava back into the encampment. Even here, it seemed unusually quiet. Too quiet.
Dangerously quiet.
“Ava…” he began, but his warning came too late.
There, across from the bonfire, a familiar figure stood in the circle of firelight. He held a woman in his arms—Roar’s mother, if Jerrid remembered correctly. Dark-gray arms trapped her, a dagger pinned tightly against her throat.
Jerrid’s heartbeat escalated as Ava froze a couple of yards ahead of him, between him and the danger. Between him and…
Talos.