Chapter 13 Cling to Me
SOUNDTRACK: Darkest Hour by Tommee Profitt
~ brEN ~
When Donavyn finally returned to the apartment, I was already there, waiting, curled up on the couch in the living room. I’d had to borrow one of his long, thickly knitted sweaters and a pair of his wool socks because I felt cold. I shouldn’t feel cold.
My heart beat too quickly even before he got there, but it leaped in my chest when the door opened.
I instinctively looked up. Donavyn didn’t see me on the couch and started across the floor towards the bedroom door.
During those few steps, his face was lined, haggard, and his lips turned down in a frown.
But his shoulders were broad in his jacket, and he had that vital, graceful control of his body that never ceased to draw me and spark fire in my belly.
So, why did I feel myself flinching from it tonight?
Because he lied to me.
Then he saw me from the corner of his eye and drew up short.
“Oh, you’re… why aren’t you in bed? You have training tomorrow.”
“I can’t sleep.” My voice was hoarse, but I didn’t bother clearing my throat. I knew it would still rasp. I’d cried for an hour, and shudders kept crawling up and down my spine every time my mind turned to the memory of that man’s face—
I closed my eyes and turned my head to look out the window into the night sky over the Keep. I was so damn mad that I was thinking about those bastards at all.
Donavyn hesitated, then started towards me.
I should look at him. I should let him hold me. I should—
“Bren, I know the timing is for shit, but I have to tell you something.”
That little fire, trying desperately to burn behind my navel, snuffed out as I snapped my head up to look at him, fear crackling through me because it was obvious he had bad news.
“What is it?”
Donavyn cleared his throat. “I’m telling you this as your mate, not as your Commander. It’s not appropriate for me to share, but under the circumstances… Just, please, give me your word you won’t discuss this with anyone. Not even your brothers.”
I didn’t hesitate, though everything felt very surreal. “You have my word. You know I wouldn’t.”
Donavyn nodded. “Thank you. After meeting with the king and queen, and given today’s events and the conclusions they draw from that… The king is beginning the process to move us to Fyrehold. Your first mission.”
I took a breath. “That’s not bad news. I want to serve—”
“We’ll be flying in days, Bren. I can’t possibly equip you fully in such a short time. But I will be with you. I’ll keep you safe. I vow it. And we will fill every hour of the coming days with everything that could ready you.”
I nodded, “I know you will. I trust y—” I caught the words about to trip so naturally off my tongue, because something in the back of my head screamed.
Donavyn visibly flinched.
His eyes widened and locked on mine, desperation flitting across his features.
He took the last few steps to stand over where I’d curled up on the couch, my knees drawn under me.
For a moment I thought he’d reach for me, but something flashed in his eyes, and instead he eased himself into the seat next to me, turning so he faced me, one ankle resting on his other knee. He stared at me grimly.
“Bren, I’m sorry. Truly. I had no intention to make you feel—”
“I know.”
“You can trust me. No one wants better for you than me.”
“I know that, too.” So why couldn’t I move across the couch? Crawl into his lap? Throw myself into his arms? It’s precisely what I had done every other night when we were reunited. What I’d done before he was called away to speak to the king.
I knew he hadn’t lied to hurt me.
I knew he loved me. I could feel it.
Yet, I still couldn’t move.
I sat there, staring at him, drinking in the sight of him, if I was honest. Noticing every little line and tic in his face, the tiny smear of grime at his temple where he’d probably pushed his hair back with a dirty hand from dealing with the dragons.
There was no one on earth—barring Akhane—that I trusted more than Donavyn.
I needed to tell him that. But the words stuck in my throat.
“Bren,” he breathed. “Please. Forgive me.”
“I already have.”
“Then what’s wrong? Why did you stop yourself saying that you trust me?”
“Because it felt like a lie.”
His eyes closed and he rubbed his face with one, strong hand. “Bren, I never intended—”
“The thing I can’t stop asking myself is, what else will you hide if you convince yourself it’s for my own good?” I swallowed hard. “It seems to be a… a pattern with men. You tell yourselves that you’re doing something for us, when actually you do it for yourself.”
Donavyn went still, his eyes still locked on mine, and pinched with stress.
“I am not men. I’m your mate.” His voice was clipped.
The words bitten off. In anger, or fear?
I wasn’t sure. He didn’t move or react. But when I didn’t respond he took a deep breath.
“Listen to me. I made a choice that was intended for your good. You were so deeply afraid of what I might do if I knew, you were shaking, Bren. Do you realize that? That day, you were so on the edge. It was right and good that I protect you—”
“You asked me to tell you their names, and I said no. Because I didn’t want you going after them. I didn’t want you hurt or punished for something he did.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I asked because, I wanted you to tell me. To trust me with that. And you didn’t.”
“Because I was right about how you’d respond,” I said tightly.
He gave a single nod. “And that’s why I apologized, and ask you to forgive me.
Because I did hide that from you, and let you believe I didn’t know.
But it wasn’t to betray you, Bren. Quite the opposite.
” He leaned forward, gripping my knee in one hand, the other on the back of the couch.
“I wanted to remove any threat to you. Avenge you. They were monsters. And they deserved to die for it. In fact, that’s the only relief in these events, that they appear to have gotten what they deserve. I just wish it was at my hand.”
I shuddered. “There is nothing good for me in losing you because you get thrown in the dungeon for murder. Nothing good for this kingdom if the dragons punish you for taking personal revenge. It’s against our laws, Donavyn, and theirs. You told me that.”
“And I—”
“I need you,” I blurted, cursing the blur that immediately appeared in my eyes.
“And I’m here,” he breathed.
Frustrated, I wiped my eyes with the back of his sweater sleeve and shook my head. “You won’t be. Not if you go after Ruin and those other bastards.”
“I will only ever protect you, Bren. You have my vow before God—”
I leaned closer to him and shook my head.
“I want your vow before God that you’ll stay safe.
Stay with me. Not lie to me about what your plans are.
How can I trust you if I know you’ve hidden this from me?
” The words came quickly now, tumbling over each other.
“No matter why you did it, no matter who you were protecting, you still told me something untrue, and I never thought you were capable of it. I thought of everyone, I could trust you.”
“You can. I was determined to handle this myself precisely to save you from the burden of it—and because I didn’t trust our King to give it the attention it deserves.
I’m sorry I lied. I won’t do it again. But please…
don’t let those questions in your mind fester.
You know me. You can sense me.” He placed a soft hand right at the center of my chest, and my skin prickled, even under the sweater, because I adored his touch.
But the moment he’d flattened his palm between my breasts, his eyes grew darker.
“You can feel me, Bren. Can’t you? Can’t you feel how I love you? ”
Where he touched me, my skin heated in a flare, and the bond came alive. Blooming.
I swallowed back the pinch of more tears and nodded. “I do. And I love you too.”
“I know. I can feel it. Let’s not lose sight of that. There is so much happening right now. So many things that could harm us. I’m sorry I’m the reason you fear. But… Bren, I’m begging you: Don’t pull away. Let me protect you. I give you my word, I won’t lie again.”
I didn’t break his gaze, or pull away from his touch. “Tell me what you were going to do.”
His jaw tightened. “I planned to find a way to cast questions over the work they were doing. Those men were trusted with our deepest secrets. They should not have been, but none of us knew that. Once I knew your story, I couldn’t tell the king what they’d done to you.
So, I was looking for a way to—” He broke off, grimacing and his fingers curled into my chest, his nails beginning to scrape, even through the sweater.
“I wanted them dead. Each of them. Slowly, painfully, and preferably by my hand,” he muttered darkly, his eyes pained, but unflinching.
“I wanted to see them afraid. Vulnerable. Let them feel even a taste of what you did. Especially Ruin.”
My heart flinched at that name, yet he didn’t hesitate.
“One of the benefits of my position is that those men each know I am a power in their life. Someone who requires their submission. I would have… I would have used that.”
I stared at him, simultaneously touched, because he bristled with protective anger, and despairing, because he would have done it.
I could see it in him, feel it in the bond.
He would have killed Ruin, and as many of those men as he could get his hands on.
And the dragons would have executed him for it. I know it.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please don’t ever—”
“I won’t.” He took a deep breath. “Call it God’s mercy, if you will, but it looks like they’re all dead, Bren.”
I sucked in. I wasn’t sure I believed that. Or was it that I didn’t want to let myself believe it? Life would be simpler if every man who’d touched me that day no longer walked the earth. But it seemed too easy. Too simple.