35. Chapter 35 #2
Something opens my shoulder before I realize it’s a claw, not a hand. White flash, then a low burn under it, and my arm stops doing what I tell it. I use the other one. I get my mother down behind me, and I don’t let go.
He’s changing as he comes. Half man and half something with teeth moving at speed. A bench goes over. A table splits under somebody’s weight.
Two Cravens are coming, and they’re too far and boxed in by their own people. I have my mother’s whole weight against my back and blood running down my arm, so I put myself flatter over her, because it’s the only thing I can do.
Then Gideon is there.
I don’t see him move. It’s fast, and it’s quiet while the rest of the room isn’t. He doesn’t say one word—not to Sereth, not to the hall, not to me. That silence is more chilling than any dragon roar because it’s lethal.
He’s on Sereth’s half-shifted form before my cousin knows what hit him.
Clawed hands scrabble at Gideon’s chest, but it’s not enough to stop fangs from sinking into his scaled throat.
There’s a low snarl that I don’t recognize from the man I know.
I hear the crunch as his teeth close around Sereth’s windpipe, then the gurgled scream as he rips the front of Sereth’s throat out.
It’s over before most of the hall understands it started.
He drops him, and Sereth lies twitching on the hall floor as his life drains away.
People who liked him an hour ago are standing around what’s left of him, and nobody moves, because nobody knows what to do.
I fight down a sob.
I loved him my whole life. That’s still true. What’s also true is that the childhood friend I loved tried to kill me to take my place as clan ruler. I don’t try to make them fit tonight.
My mother is hurt. A graze along her side where she went down too fast. Nothing that won’t heal. She’s shaking, though, and I have never seen her do that.
“Kalli,” she chokes out.
“I’m here.”
Her hand finds mine, careless of the blood on both of them, and holds on. Neither of us says anything else.
Gideon stands a few feet away, his features settling into something more human. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand as if the blood disgusts him.
I let go of my mother’s hand, close the distance between us, and throw myself against his chest. His arms close around me. For a moment, I just breathe him, until he pulls back and looks down at me.
“You’re bleeding,” he says.
“I noticed.”
“Sit down before you don’t get a choice about it.”
“Is that concern, Gideon Crowe?”
“Call it whatever gets you sitting down faster.”
I don’t sit. “It’s over,” I say, “we got him.”
“I don’t think so,” he says. He’s looking down the hall at the far door behind the last bench. “When your mother stood up. Before any of it started. Somebody went out that door. Nobody was watching it, and I haven’t seen them come back.”
My arms go cold before I’ve finished working it through.
“He wasn’t working alone.”
“No.” Gideon shakes his head. “I suspected it on that mountain. A body doesn’t get onto the north face with one pair of hands, but I was hoping I was wrong.”
Whoever Sereth was working with was sitting in this hall tonight. They knew what was coming. And they walked out before anybody thought to look. This isn’t over.
Aldis has helped my mother to her feet, and she’s come up beside me.
“We need to speak,” she says, and I nod, because she’s right. “Privately,” she adds.
Hesper has emerged from the group and is standing nearby, hands twisting in front of her. “Aldrake, your wounds. We must attend—”
“Not now, Hesper.” My mother’s back is straight. “I will call for you when I’m done.” She glances at me. “My chambers.”
I nod, then follow as she leads the way. Gideon and Caleb linger nearby, but I reassure them with a small dip of my head.
We reach the rooms that form my mother’s living area, and she opens the door and walks in. I follow.
She turns to me immediately. “Will you stay?” she says. “Please?”
I don’t think my mother has ever said please to me before.
She reaches for my hand. “There is a lot between us that still needs to be resolved. But I want this to be where we start. I don’t want to lose you again, Kallista.”
I swallow hard. “Yes.” I nod, because I never wanted to leave. “Of course.”
She exhales so deeply that her shoulders sag. “Thank you.” She reaches out to stroke my cheek, and I feel my eyes well. “I handled it wrong,” she says. “All of it. The months you were gone. Your return… I should have listened when you came to me. That’s what a mother does.”
“You behaved as a leader would, Mother. You are that first and foremost.”
“And that’s wrong. You deserve to feel loved, Kallista. To be heard. I didn’t give you that. But it’s going to change. There’s no excuse for how I treated you. But perhaps when you are in my shoes you’ll understand.”
“I don’t want the seat, Mother. I gave it up, and I meant it.”
“But—”
“I still plan to stay. This is my home, and those are my people. It’s all I’ve ever known, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
She waits a moment, then says, “What about him? The vampire.”
“That isn’t decided.”
“It is. You’ve decided. You just haven’t asked him.” She lets that sit, then pulls in a breath and carries on, “You know what it means to choose him, don’t you?”
“I’m ready to face whatever it brings.”
“He can’t give you children, Kalli. Not one, not ever.”
“I know what he is. It doesn’t change my choice.”
“Then know what it costs.” Her throat works. “What ends is my line. My mother’s, and hers, and every woman back to the one who cut the first room out of this rock. It ends with you.” She looks at me. “That’s what your choice brings.”
The room is very quiet.
She isn’t wrong, and being angry won’t make her wrong. Nine hundred years of women in this rock, and it stops with me, and I’m the one stopping it.
“I know,” I say.
“Then tell me why you’re doing it anyway.”
“Because I love him, Mother.” It’s the first time I’ve ever said it out loud, and the words almost surprise me. “I sat in a cell for over a year, and when the door opened, it was because he opened it.”
“Gratitude isn’t the same as love. We spoke about this.”
“What I feel is so much more than that. My dragon knew that man before I ever even saw his face, Mother. She knew him, and she waited for him to open that door.”
“The dragon chose…” She exhales slowly.
“From the very beginning,” I say. “And she stopped caring about bloodlines when she made that choice.”
“Then it is done.” She straightens, as if settling on it. “But ask him properly, Kalli. Not as royalty but as a woman. He’s spent his whole life believing he has a place lower than others. I know because I said it myself. Treat him as your equal.”
I smile. “Gideon Crowe has always been more than equal to me.”
“Good.” She nods. “Then go and find him. Hesper is going to explode if I don’t let her come in and tend to this scratch.” She looks down at where blood has darkened her clothing.
“Thank you.” I do something I’ve never done before. I reach in and hug her. Then I spin away and leave the room, passing a startled Hesper as I dash past her.
I find him in the yard, standing against a wall with his collar turned up. There’s not much time before morning, but he’s waiting anyway.
“You should be inside.”
“Probably.” He’s frowning down at my shoulder, which is still bleeding through my shirt. He reaches for it. “We need to—”
“Not yet.” I need to do this before my courage runs out. “I’m going to ask you something, and I don’t want you to answer it.”
He frowns.
“I’m staying,” I say. “Not for the seat. But because this is my home…” My throat closes up, but I talk through it. “I want you here. On this mountain, in a place where people will probably need the next hundred years to get used to you, and nobody within two hundred miles who’s anything like you.”
He opens his mouth.
“Don’t.” I get a hand up against his chest before he can say anything.
“Take a week. Take two. Go and sleep somewhere that isn’t here and think about it where I’m not standing in front of you asking.
I’ve watched you say yes to hard things without blinking.
This is the hardest one of all, and I want you to take time with it because this one means giving up everything. Forever.”
He looks at me for a long time.
“All right,” he says.
That’s all. Then he goes inside to where the Cravens are waiting, and I’m left standing in the yard with my arm throbbing and my mother’s blood still under my fingernails, and I have no idea what he’s going to say.