Chapter 20 #3
“I’ll be your friend,” he said, squeezing in beside her. She buried her face against his shoulder.
“What if they find us?” Millicent whispered.
“They won’t.” Roderick hugged her tight. “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Roderick murmured, pressing his face into Yomira’s warm scales.
I’m here, Roderick. I’m here, she rumbled.
The wyvern glided just above the crystal waters.
She didn’t trust him with any more height.
And that was wise. He couldn’t trust himself anymore either.
If someone had asked him, the loyal knight of months past, if he’d even dream of yelling at a woman, the Princess no less, he would’ve been appalled.
Only a monster would do that.
“I shouted at her,” he said, voice cracking. “I shouted at Anya.”
Why? Yomira asked.
“She thinks I don’t care.” His breath hitched.
“Divine, Yomira. I wish I didn’t care. I wish I didn’t care about Millicent.
Balcott. Petorus. My family. My people. The crew.
This mission. The wolf-masked woman who still nips at my heart.
That infuriating, pompous wolf of a princess.
If I didn’t care, my life would be a whole lot easier. ”
Would it be a life at all? What if no one cared about anything?
“It’s too much, everything I feel. I thought Anya was someone she wasn’t. That should’ve been the end of it. But when she came up to me with those harvest moon eyes, I was reminded of her. I just lost it, knowing she wasn’t her. That I’ll never have her. Never see her again.”
He exhaled a shaky breath. “Why did she run from me, Yomira?”
Roderick stared down at the seas as they passed below. The glassy surface broke up as rippling rings dotted the surface.
Raindrops pattered onto his hair and face, ebbing away at the haunting memory of his granddad’s death.
“I had a mask on, but I kept nothing from her. She thought nothing of my species. She never asked about my station. We had no obligation to each other. And yet, she danced with me. She laughed. She smiled. She inspired me to kick off my shoes and feel the clover beneath my feet. She said there was more to a man than the deeds he does. For the first time in my Divine-forsaken life, I felt untethered. Unchained.” He sighed.
So what happened?
“I got swept up in the passion. For a moment, nothing defined me. I was just a man. No one was relying on me. No one needed me. But she wanted me. She wanted to breathe me in and whisper in my ear. She tasted of wine and berries, and smelled like the first spring breeze. I was ready to lose myself with her. But doing anything more without her name felt…it felt wrong. I didn’t want her to be just another—” He abandoned the words.
It was too shameful to say aloud, even if Yomira already saw it in his mind.
He cleared his throat. “She deserved better. So I told her my name, and she ran.”
He rested his forehead on the wyvern’s neck. “So much for being more than my deeds, huh?”
Yomira rumbled beneath him. It seemed to be her way of consoling him when she had no words. It helped. Only a little, but it helped. His emotions kept spilling out.
“What had she heard about me? What could possibly make her tread on broken glass than spend another moment with me? I will never know, and it tortures me, Yomira.”
He released a shuddering breath. “I’ve tried to forget, but every look from Anya takes me right back to that moment.”
My sister thinks nothing but good things of you.
“You don’t have to lie to console me.”
Yomira huffed through her nares, indignant.
It isn’t a lie. Millie credits the life she has to you, Roderick.
You agreed to let her join the Hounds. And that led her to Ellis.
You saw the light in her eyes when she was with him.
Instead of snuffing it out and dragging her back to Petorus, you set her free.
And after all that, you still risked everything to save her, and she saved me.
You didn’t have to do any of that. So why did you?
“Because I care about her.” It was that simple, and at the end of the day, guilt was not a factor in those decisions.
And look how far your care has taken her. Your people. You. She flapped her wings silently, sending up a spray of mist.
He couldn’t say love. Not in a romantic way. And the more he saw this vast world, the more he realized that he’d been as caged as Millicent had.
Now he wanted what she had found.
“I just…want to be what someone is missing. The cold spot in a bed. The empty chair at breakfast. The absent shoes by the door. The one who hears, ‘There you are. We’ve been waiting for you’ and ‘it wouldn’t be the same without you.
’ And when my mind pulls me down, I want someone who clings to me, holds me tighter.
‘I can’t lose you,’ they would say, and ‘don’t let go. ’”
Tears dripped onto the wyvern’s scales, trailing between the grooves before falling into the sea below.
“I want to let go,” he sobbed. “I’m tired, Yomira. I’m so tired.”
I won’t let you go.