Chapter 17 #2
She couldn’t even turn into a dragon herself, but they seemed to think she had some kind of magical powers of intuition that she didn’t have.
It didn’t make sense to expect her to fix all of this.
But everyone looked at her with expectation in their eyes, acting like she alone should know exactly what to do.
“Listen, you all seem to think I should be able to help you, but I’m not sure why.
You give me half-truths, no real information, and then throw out just enough to seem intriguing.
But, and I say this with as much respect as I can, what exactly do you expect me to fucking do when you’re leading me around like a marionette?
” Ashley glared between the three who, yet again, couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Nobody has anything to say now? You’re just going to stand there and not answer me?
This is bullshit,” Ashley was sick to death of this shit.
Everyone hated her brother, for reasons she understood, and expected her to save them all, for reasons she didn’t understand.
“What’s the fucking point of asking me to save you all if you won’t tell me what I’m supposed to be saving you from?
What the hell are you so afraid of revealing? ”
“It’s not that we don’t want to tell you,” Jack piped up to answer her, but he still wouldn’t look at her. “It’s that we don’t know if you’re just going to run back to Valys and tell him our plans.”
“Oh, so you don’t trust me? And why should I trust any of you?
For all I know, you’ve involved me in this plot to use me, and you plan to kill me later.
Because I know this much about coups…you don’t let anyone live that can claw back power if you want that coup to be successful.
” Ashley glared back at Jack, daring him to lie or to give her another half-answer.
He wouldn’t look at her and that chilled her to the bone.
“Fuck off, all of you,” she said, letting her anger out on them.
But these people could kill her out here, for any number of reasons so she really needed to chill out. Ashley swallowed hard and tried to act normal, like everything was going according to plan, and she had nothing to worry about. Even though she most definitely did.
Her brother had made clear that she had little to no powers, which meant that she was at the mercy of the people surrounding her.
And that, also, meant that she needed to play as nicely as possible and keep a stiff upper lip.
But those were things that she was least capable of when everything was so fucking frustrating.
Still, she willed herself to be the best actress she could be and softened her features.
“Okay, fine, I give up. You won’t tell me what you don’t want me to know. Why do you think someone wants to interfere with the Dragon Games?” Ashley said through stiff lips, trying her best to sound natural, even though she was pretty sure she had never sounded more strained and upset.
The fact that she was slowly backing away from the whole group as she realized exactly what was going on probably didn’t help.
But Ashley tried again to smile big and bright, acting like everything was normal.
She must not have managed it because Jack decided to step towards her, furrowing his brow as he looked at her.
“I know you’re freaking out,” Jack said, as if trying to soothe a jittery colt.
Ashley wanted to, tried to laugh but she couldn’t. Jack was right, she was freaking out. She was pretty sure that she was having a mini-fucking-heart attack.
“Listen, none of this is going to impact you. We just need you to do us a favor and try to avoid some people the day of the Dragon Games,” Jack said, sounding very authoritative for a man who was supposed to be a servant and not a king anymore.
Someone who was supposed to be under her brother’s thumb, not dictating orders to her.
“We have reason to believe that one of the royal families will want to change your mating bond and take away the Diamond King’s bond to you to ensure they advance in the private circles.
All we need you to do is just avoid them. Stay away from anyone you don’t know—”
“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea, considering I don’t really know anyone. Including you three.” Ashley scoffed but then bit at her lip.
“There are better people for you to be mated to, people who would do better with the power that you can offer,” Jack said, acting like she somehow happened to be in possession of a magic, world-changing pussy—which she was pretty sure that she didn’t, because few men had ever bothered to show interest in her, and she wasn’t exactly a supermodel.
She was pretty sure that, if she did have sex soon, there would be cobwebs and dust coming out of her lady parts. “There’s a prophecy. About you.”
“A prophecy? About me?” Ashley couldn’t exactly believe that. She wanted to snort but controlled the urge. “Sure, there’s a prophecy about me. A nobody from Tennessee. Right…”
“Oh, but there is…” Jack said, stepping a little closer.
Ashley did her best to back away from Jack, trying to maintain her sanity.
She had to play this chill, had to let them think she was falling for all this, if only because she knew that the whole believing that there was a prophecy thing was probably the only thing keeping these people from fucking killing her.
She was highly aware that she had made a few mistakes in her life.
The fact that she had decided to go to the woods with them was the biggest mistake of them all.
Ashley looked from Jack to Elliot to Emma, sizing each of them up and trying to figure out if they were backstabbers or not. Not one of them moved a muscle, which suited Ashley just fine because she decided to do the one thing she was pretty sure she should do in that situation.
Which was to fucking haul ass.
“Ashley—” Jack’s voice came from behind her, but there was no way that he could stop her, not when she had taken off at full force through the woods, deciding that she was going the fuck home. Even if home was a rather unfamiliar castle.