Chapter 8
Flint
I’m starving by the time we make it out of the shower, and after pulling on a pair of the freshly laundered gray sweats I always leave here, I head into the kitchen to throw together a snack.
But Jaxon’s already there, making a turkey, cheese, and lettuce sandwich with the food he always keeps stocked in the fridge for me.
He’s dressed in a pair of fancy black pajama pants—probably Gucci, like just about everything else in his wardrobe—and seeing him like this kind of makes me want to mess him up all over again.
But he shoots me a back-off glare as soon as I get too close—we may not have figured out all the moving parts of our relationship yet, but he definitely knows me well enough to guess what I’m thinking.
When I ignore the look and reach for him anyway, he stops spreading mayo on the sourdough baguette he orders because he knows I love it and turns just enough to slap a hand right in the center of my chest.
“You think I can’t see the way your hands are trembling?” he growls as he turns back to the sandwich. “You need to eat. I took too much blood from you.”
“I’m not complaining,” I answer as I wrap my arms around his bare waist. “In fact, if you want to take a little more—”
“Not going to happen.” He piles a bunch of lettuce on the sandwich—too much for my taste, but I’m not about to correct him when he’s going out of his way to make me food—before shoving the plate at me.
Because the alternative is letting it drop, I let him go long enough to grab the plate. But as soon as Jaxon starts to walk away, I take hold of his hand and pull him back against my hip. What can I say? He feels good there.
I give him the look that usually has him backing me up against the nearest wall in under thirty seconds, but this time he just rolls his eyes. “You need to eat.”
“I need a lot of things,” I shoot back as I lean forward and nip at his lower lip. “And food is the least of them.”
He narrows his eyes at me, then graduates to baring his fangs when I keep standing here grinning. “Eat the damn sandwich.”
I take a bite to appease him—Jaxon’s bossy as shit at the best of times, let alone when he’s in full protective mode. Right now, he’s acting like sucking my blood is the worst thing he could have done to me, when it sure as hell didn’t feel that way.
Besides, I knew what I was getting into when I started dating a vampire. And Grace was right. The biting is absolutely one of the perks.
“I don’t know what you’re so grumpy about,” I complain as I follow him to the black leather couch that dominates the living area. “A shot of dragon blood and your cuts are almost gone. Even your wound looks significantly better.”
“I think we both know I took more than a shot’s worth.” He kicks his feet up on the table with a snarl.
“Is that what you’re so worked up about?” It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Believe me, I didn’t mind.”
“Yeah, well, I do.” His jaw works as he shifts his gaze so that he’s staring straight ahead instead of at me.
The warm haze that’s enveloped me since our shower starts to fade as reality—courtesy of Jaxon Vega, total buzzkill that he is—cuts through all the warm and fuzzy I’m currently feeling.
“What is this bizarre obsession you have about not feeding from me?” I ask as I drop my plate on the table and reach for him.
He resists for a few seconds, his body stiff as I try to pull him back into my arms. Eventually, though, he yields, his head dropping onto my shoulder as I run a soothing hand up and down his back.
“It’s not an obsession,” he growls.
“Well, it’s definitely something.” I pull him closer, then ask softly, “You want to tell me what’s really going on here?”
For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he sits back up, shoves a hand through his still-damp hair, even fiddles with the TV remote. Just when I’m about to give up hope of us having any kind of real conversation tonight, he whispers, “Do you ever wonder what we’re doing here?”
“You mean like in the universe?” My brows shoot up. “Are we talking existential-crisis ‘what are we doing here’?”
“I feel like we have enough problems without bringing the universe into it.” He shoots me an annoyed look. “It just seems like no matter what we do, no matter how hard we fight, nothing ever changes.”
I pause for a second, turn his words over in my head as I try to figure out what he’s really trying to say. Most of the time, Jaxon is incredibly straightforward. But sometimes he goes to some dark place in his head, and I have to drag him out, one fang-pulling revelation at a time.
“I don’t necessarily think that’s true. Just think about everything we managed to accomplish last summer. We ousted your father, freed the Bloodletter, restored the Gargoyle Court—”
“And killed how many people?” he asks. “Destroyed how many lives?”
I know he’s thinking about Mekhi, who is currently trapped in some kind of half-life. Suspended by the Bloodletter in the Descent, halfway between living and dead as we try to stem the spread of shadow poison through his body.
“We’re going to figure this thing with Mekhi out,” I tell him as I rest a comforting hand on his knee. “It’s just going to take some time.”
“It’s already taken too much time,” he replies. “But this isn’t just about him. It’s about everything. We fought so hard, sacrificed so many people, and now we’re right back where we started.”
“What do you mean?” I sound as confused as I feel. “Did you hear from Grace or—”
“Seriously? Not everything is about Grace, Flint.”
“I’m aware of that.” I can feel my cheeks growing hot. Part of me knows I’m being ridiculous, but another part of me can’t help but question if it’s really so wrong for me to wonder whether he’s aware of it, too. It really wasn’t that long ago that he was totally in love with her.
Not that I’m in any way ready to have that discussion with Jaxon right now. Especially since this time, I really was just trying to figure out if she or Hudson had called him about some new problem.
But when I tell him that, he looks at me like I’m completely out of touch. “I was talking about the problems we’ve been dealing with here. Or did you forget why I got shot tonight?”
“How could I forget about it?” I snap before I can stop myself. “My family’s the one at risk if the clans actually decide to stage an uprising.”
“That’s exactly my point.” He climbs off the couch, then goes to stand in front of the long window that gives a perfect view of the city lights just beyond our building.
“It was just a few months ago that we foiled an all-out war,” he continues. “And even then, we ended up in battles that killed so many innocent people.”
“What was the alternative? Let Cyrus take over?” I ask. “We did what we had to do.”
“I know we did. But now, don’t you wonder if any of it even mattered?
” He shoves a frustrated hand through his hair.
“We did everything we could to ensure Cyrus’s horrific agenda was shut down.
And we succeeded—that’s what really gets me.
We did what we set out to do. So why, less than six months later, are we back on the brink of war again? And for what? A title? A throne?”
I tell myself not to get defensive at the dismissive way he’s speaking of the Dragon Court.
Remind myself he’s just talking in generalities.
But it’s hard not to be offended when it’s my family’s throne—and my family’s lives—that he’s talking about.
“I think it’s a little more complicated than that. ”
Jaxon must hear the insult in my voice, because he finally turns away from the window to look at me. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Because I believe him, I take a deep breath and let it out in slow increments. And ask, “So what did you mean?”
“I’m just asking how many more people have to die to keep these fucking dragon clans from seizing control.
And once we’re done with them—if we win—then what’s next?
Do the wolves start up? The witches? Maybe the fae?
” He shakes his head in disgust. “It’s a never-ending cycle, one that’s destined to leave nothing but more victims.”
“You don’t know that—” I start.
“Everybody knows it,” he shoots back. “We’ve just been too naive to accept it before now.
But I’ve been trying to find an answer—a way out—for months now, and I’ve got nothing.
The sad fact is that power always wants more power.
And the people who wield it don’t give a shit who gets hurt as long as they get what they want. ”
I want to argue with him. I really do. The only problem is, Jaxon’s not wrong. If he was, my father wouldn’t have just ordered me to break up with him in an effort to appease people who want what we have—and don’t give a shit what they have to do to get it.
But I can’t do that. More, I won’t do that.
I’ve spent what feels like my whole life loving Jaxon. I’m not about to give him up just because some power-hungry, old-fashioned clans don’t like the idea of my mother giving her dragon heart to a vampire. And not just any vampire—the son of the man responsible for so many dragon deaths.
What they’re forgetting, though—or should I say, what they’re choosing to forget because it doesn’t serve their agenda—is just how many dragon lives Jaxon is responsible for saving. Including my own.
“I should just go.” His words are little more than a whisper, but they send ice slamming through every part of me.
“You can’t.”
“You’ve got to admit, it would solve the problem.” He gives a little shrug. “At least for now.”
“It wouldn’t solve any problem.” The words are wrenched from me, pure panic in vocal form.
I can tell he’s not listening, can see that his brain is taking the same mental path my father’s did earlier. I wouldn’t accept it from him then, and I’m sure as hell not going to accept it from Jaxon now.
But what I want doesn’t seem to matter, because now that Jaxon’s said it, I can tell he’s seriously thinking about it.
That knowledge is another blow in a night that’s already brought too many.
The fact that he’s even entertaining the idea terrifies and infuriates me all at the same time. After all we’ve been through, he wants to give up so easily? And for what? An extra few months of peace, if that?
“No.” My throat aches as I argue, “I’m not letting you go.”
“You may not have a choice—” He breaks off when I bound over the back of the couch, cross the room in one quick leap.
“Exactly how is you leaving going to change the fact that my mother doesn’t have her dragon?” I demand. “Because that’s what the clans are complaining about.”
He gives me a knowing look. “That may be the excuse they’re using, but we both know they don’t want their crown prince pairing up with Cyrus’s son. And they will eventually do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Fuck your father,” I growl as I grab his hands and hold them to my chest. “And fuck the heads of the dragon clans.”
Jaxon’s upper lip curls in disgust. “I’d rather not, thank you.”
“You know what I mean.” It comes out as a snarl, even though I’m using every ounce of control I have to keep the terror and the rage at bay. “I’ve already lost so much. I’m not going to lose you, too.”
“That’s the whole point,” he says as a fine tremor works its way through the room. “You’ve already lost more than anyone should have to. I don’t want to be the reason you lose even more.”
“Yeah, but what you don’t seem to get is that if I lose you, none of that other stuff matters.” I can tell he wants to disagree, but I pull him into my arms before he can say anything else.
I half expect him to fight me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he wraps his arms around my neck and presses his lips to mine in a series of soft kisses that break my heart because they feel like good-bye.
And no. Just no.
“I’ll figure it out,” I tell him as I pull him even more tightly against me. “Just give me some time.”
“That’s the problem,” he whispers as he holds me just as tightly. “Time is the one thing we don’t have.”