Sagan
“You ditching someone or do I need to get ready to fight?” a deep voice asked from my left, scaring the shit out of me.
I swallowed a yelp and glanced over to see pear eyes and not much else hidden in the darkness. Then what he said hit me. “I just needed some air.”
He snorted. “You need a fucking vacation and maybe a cleansing of this castle to help you survive this madness.” He sat up and into the light more as he offered me a glass. “You like cognac?”
I raised my eyebrow at Ayao Hamdan, Alpha Dray’s nephew. He’d made me a shit offer of mating in name and living our own separate lives… Basically letting him have quiet affairs but the alliance for his family.
I went to say something snarky, but the glossy look in his pretty eyes and red cheeks said a lot. “How did you get cognac?”
He chuckled. “They didn’t tell you? That’s cool of Benson. I’m the one who saw fuckhead and told them where he got the drugs. I was in the same shady area to get my bootlegged booze.”
“Quite the risk for cognac,” I hedged and moved closer. “I do like it. I like certain wines even if most wouldn’t consider cognac a wine. It’s made from grapes, so really it is.”
He held up his glass again. “It was my birth mother’s favorite. Her mother wasn’t a dragon and she used to smuggle it in from her home country.” He gave me a sad smile when I accepted. “I drink to her every year on the day of her death.”
“I’m sorry.” I raised the glass. “May she enjoy her peace by the gods.”
“You’re so much nicer than people give you credit for,” he mumbled as I finished his drink. “Really makes me feel bad for you.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I really knew better than to ask when he was clearly drunk. “How did she die?” I thought back to his file and realized it didn’t say anything about his birth mother… Or his mother now being his stepmother.
He took the glass back with an ugly chuckle and refilled it. “I killed her.” He toasted me with it. “According to my father, I killed her. She was only half dragon and giving birth to a larger dragon baby killed her. My fault.”
“Your father’s an idiot,” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re the first to say it so bluntly,” he admitted. “Thank you.”
Then what he’d also just admitted hit me. “Happy Birthday.”
“Thank you.” He took a slow sip and kept my gaze as he did. “No matter how bad your life gets—and I’m not debating your life is shit—just know that you’re the only person who has said that to me today.” He nodded when I raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t even fucking like me.”
Ayao snickered and took another sip.
“I don’t know you well enough to not like you,” I offered. “We got off on the wrong foot, but I do appreciate your honesty.”
He lowered his drink and studied me. “I want to apologize for that, but I won’t ever apologize for being real and honest with people. There’s too many fucking lies and games and you rightfully called me out on starting the meal that way.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. “It wasn’t your honesty that upset me. It was that you kept talking after when you realized I wasn’t open to your deal.”
“I’m not perfect and definitely can be too harsh, but I don’t lash out and try to hurt people.
” He snorted. “I’m not like fucking Kole or these other dipshits.
” Something like regret filled his eyes.
“I’m sorry it came off as a jab. I don’t even remember what I said really.
It’s all just a mess of…” He gestured around.
Fair enough. I was about to say goodnight and leave, but he pulled out his phone and tossed it to me, telling me the passcode.
He snickered when I simply raised an eyebrow again.
“I’ve had too much to drink to navigate much right now.
I recorded part of the meeting after you left and it will heal you a bit.
I tried to get it to you, but—the people around you are loyal.
Fuck, take that to heart. Most would sell me out and—you’re loved, Sagan. You are.”
That did help but was also confusing. “They blocked you from me?” I nodded when he did. “What am I looking for?” I found what he wanted me to listen to and pressed play, feeling a bit better after I listened but not sure it healed me.
He sighed, not the annoyed kind, but more frustrated with himself like he couldn’t get his point across so I wasn’t upset.
“Look, Lori wore a good mask, but I knew he was a dipshit. But drugging you? Even I about fainted and I grew up with him. He’s our generation’s fucking golden boy to the media and—the one we’re all compared to for not doing more.
“And he’s a passive shit. Fine, he was put up to it by an elder or whatever, but he had to do it.
I would—there are like five other people I would have guessed first before him.
At least. If you told me to give you a list ranking who would be most likely to drug you, he wouldn’t have made the top eight at least. So the shock from just us in that room was unreal. ”
I reached for his drink and had some as I mulled that over.
He snickered and topped me off and drank from the bottle.
“That actually does help, thank you. I forget sometimes how you all grew up with each other and like…” I sighed and leaned against the wall next to where he was sitting.
“Even if I don’t—didn’t like Velle, I wouldn’t have thought it of her. ”
“Exactly,” he confirmed but then cleared his throat. “And I can’t speak for everyone, but I know personally I didn’t worry about you because that type of drug is used at parties. Knowingly.”
“I know,” I admitted, already being read in on that. “Heat parties and—I know. I’m not as na?ve as people think me.”
“No, not na?ve, but you weren’t really raised as a dragon in a lot of ways.” He hurried on when I bristled at that. “I’m not saying that to hurt you, Sagan. Fuck, I’m not an asshole like that. I’m just—isn’t it better to acknowledge it when it’s just us and like…”
I took another sip. “You’re not wrong, but I don’t know you. Maybe wait until we know each other a bit better and I can trust you?” I finished the drink and handed back the glass and his phone.
He was on his feet faster than I would have thought someone as drunk as him could be, the bottle and glass off to the side as he boxed me in against the wall.
“If things were different and I was just a man and you were just a woman, I wouldn’t have been so offensive with what I offered. If it helps, that’s the truth.”
“Why bother telling me that?”
He searched my eyes a moment. “Because you’re my queen and you’ve suffered too much. You don’t need to suffer anymore when you shouldn’t.” He let out a slow breath but then seemed to scent me, frowning. “You smell like victory.”
I snorted and moved my hand to his chest. “I always win, Ayao. Remember that. My normal scent is victory.”
He chuckled and a drunken smirk looked good on him, but then he got serious. “I don’t like to fight and avoid them, Sagan. Nobody wins really because even the winner has scars.”
“I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore,” I confessed.
“Whatever was going on with Thorn and Onyx looking like they were going to rip each other’s heads off after you went off with Joris—I won’t get involved in that. I can’t. It’s not in me.” He pushed off the wall and took a step back. “But I am sorry for how I said things that hurt you.”
“Thanks. I’ll try to give you another chance and at least work together while you’re here.”
“Not going to cut me?” he asked, more curious than anything. “I won’t change my mind.”
I sighed. “You always have to keep talking and ruin things.” I reached up and flicked him on the forehead, swallowing a chuckle when he rubbed it and looked like a little boy getting yelled at.
It was too cute on such a huge man. “I’m not trying to seduce any of you idiots.
I’m trying to survive this too, and I’m not dealing with the bullshit of cutting you so fast.”
He grabbed my arm when I went to leave, swallowing loudly as he clearly struggled with something. But then he dropped my arm and turned away.
“Stop him,” Iris said firmly in my mind, clearly getting something from him.
I slid in front of him. “What? Tell me. Trust me.”
He looked so conflicted and worried that I felt bad for pushing. “I want to dance on my birthday. Dance with me first?”
I could do that. If it got me the answer to whatever he wanted to tell me… I could dance. I loved to dance even.
I pulled out my phone and loaded a song I adored, slipping it in his breast pocket so we could hear it while we danced. He chuckled and pulled me close, resting his head on mine.
“This is nice,” he said after a few moments. “The song and the dance, but I’ve never heard this song before. Is it—it doesn’t sound old.”
“It’s a group in Milvid,” I told him. “They’re not popular and they get a lot of flak for being political.”
“Oh?”
“This song is a commentary that our ancestors making one common language for all species to speak globally didn’t bring us closer together but made the connection shallow,” I explained.
“That we didn’t find common ground, but just agreed to be neighbors basically.
Never understanding each other because we don’t care enough and language was never the barrier. ”
“Powerful message,” he muttered. “And you agree?” He chuckled when I didn’t answer. “I’ve never really thought about it. Something to think about for sure.”
He kissed my hair when the song was over and moved away, bowing to me formally. It was actually impressive given how much he’d drunk. “Reel him back in. I know the look of greed in his eyes. He likes the power you’ve given him too much and that’s a problem for you.”
Dray. He was warning me about his uncle without saying his name and betraying him.
I studied him and thought about what he said—really how to frame what I wanted to ask and give him an out.