Chapter Twenty-eight
DOMINIC
Ben’s hand was warm and strong on mine, and it felt like that was my only anchor.
I knew Rhodri. Had he not started to trust me, this would just have been another very black mark against my name. As it was, in his eyes, this was betrayal.
And that could only have one ending. I couldn‘t be trusted with the headship of this family. Which meant he’d need to formally recognise the next in line as heir, and they couldn’t have the original heir hanging around when that happened.
He certainly couldn’t risk me still being part of this family once he was dead, in case I mounted a coup.
I felt cold and small, and not quite in my body.
Ben moved beside me. “If he does send you away, how long for this time, d’you think? Maybe it’ll just be a short, sharp shock kind of thing?”
I closed my eyes briefly. My steady, kind Ben, who couldn’t even imagine what Rhodri was capable of when he was truly angry. When there was no one to stop him.
“This one won’t be temporary, and it won’t just mean leaving Dragon’s Ending.” My voice didn’t sound like me. “This is permanent exile.”
Ben went very still. His eyes, fixed on mine, filled with horror. “That’s barbaric.” Colour drained from his face. “You’d be cut off from dragons…” He petered out. We both knew dragons weren’t made to be alone. “He wouldn’t really do that, would he?”
“Oh, he would.” I couldn’t bring myself to say “And he will,” because part of me was still hoping somehow that he’d…
I didn’t think my father was familiar with mercy, but this was an irrevocable decision.
Maybe he’d give me more time to make things right.
To be a better Bedwyr, a better dragon. The fact he hadn’t immediately announced my exile wasn’t much of a hope, but it was all I had.
Time passed, and I slowly became aware of my body once more. My arse was getting cold on the uncomfortable stones, and I was still breathing, without conscious decision.
“If he does,” Ben’s voice was low and fierce, and he was gripping my hand so tightly I thought he might break some bones, “if that happens, then you’re coming home with me.”
“To spend the rest of my days studying dusty old books?” I asked, because if I didn’t make light of his offer, I’d cry.
Ben’s head of family would never take me in. It couldn’t happen, but I loved him all the more for believing it could.
I pulled him into a hug so he couldn’t see my face, and held him tight.
Eventually, even holding Ben wasn’t enough to stop me noticing that the wind up here was bloody freezing. I drew a long breath and let go of him. “Guess we’d better get back.”
Avoidance wasn’t going to change anything. And I was growing sick of being driven out of the house by my own emotions. Let me at least wait for Rhodri to do it for real.
Ben was quiet as we picked our way back down the hillside, but I could see that little crease between his eyes, and I knew he was thinking about something.
Eventually, I cracked. “What?” I asked him.
“What d’you mean, what?” he asked.
“You’re thinking, historian. I want to know what about.”
“Oh, nothing really.” He paused, and I waited patiently—well, fairly patiently—for him to spill.
“Just that I should pack up my stuff in case your father kicks me out, after the way I spoke to him. And then, if he doesn’t do that straight away, I was working out which of your records were the most important to digitise so at least I’ll have something when I leave. ”
“You’re not leaving,” I said immediately. Even the idea of it felt wrong.
“No, but if,” he said.
“No. Not happening.”
“But—”
“Oh, he’s going to want to throw you out. But he can’t. Not when you’re here because Abimelech Mortimer wants it. He might treat you like a disrespectful wyrm and never speak to you again—count your blessings on that one, by the way—but you’re not going anywhere.”
He nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that.” And then he shot me a sideways glance.
“What?” I demanded when he said nothing.
“Maybe you should put some stuff together too, just in case?” I don’t know what he saw on my face, because he swiftly added, “You know that if you do have to leave, I’m coming with you.”
I kept my eyes on the horizon because they were burning, and I didn’t want him to see that.
“But then, I don’t think Rhodri would do that without giving you time to pack,” he mused. “He’s cruel, but he’s not petty.”
The words hit strangely enough that I stumbled. I’d never heard anyone talk about my father like that, and I didn’t know what the hell to make of the assertion he was cruel. So I decided to ignore it.
“You want to grab something to eat from the kitchen?” I asked. He’d been starving earlier.
He shook his head. “Think I’ve lost my appetite.”
Yeah, me too.
BEN
There was no sign of Rhodri as we made our way through the kitchen, along the narrow passageway and into the hall.
We’d taken to using the back staircase as our own, but I guessed Dominic didn’t want to look as if he were hiding.
And I didn’t think either of us wanted to drag this out any longer if Rhodri was going to banish him.
Banish, exile—I wasn’t sure of the difference in the words that I’d thought applied to a different century. All I knew was that Dominic would never be able to go home again. Maybe this place had hurt him more than it had sheltered him, but it was still his home.
I was torn between helpless fury and sickness when I thought of Rhodri’s threat.
He’d had a point that I hadn’t known Dominic that long, and from what I had seen, I had no problem believing he’d been…
a handful, when he was younger. But for God’s sake, couldn’t his own father see why?
Couldn’t he see the man behind all the swagger and recklessness?
The one who loved without reservation and felt everything too deeply.
There was no sign of Rhodri in the hall. The dining room was open and empty, the door to Rhodri’s study firmly closed. With a shrug, Dominic picked up the conkers from the fireplace and headed upstairs.
In his room, he put the conkers next to the pine cone on the windowsill, and I wondered how long they’d get to stay there. Perhaps every trace of Dominic would be expunged from the house as ruthlessly as he would be.
I shook out of my depressing thoughts when Dominic handed me those three small conkers. A faint echo of his usual mischief showed in his eyes. “You promised Teddy,” he reminded me.
God help me, I had. His big grey eyes, his earnestness, had suckered me. Seemed as if I had a weakness for Bedwyr boys.
“Oh, shit,” I said as I realised. “I’d better warn Evelyn that I managed to upset my host.”
She was going to be furious. I’d done exactly what she’d warned me not to do, and in doing so, might well have lost us access to these records. But there was still no possible universe in which she would ever threaten to exile me, let alone do it.
“Call her here, if you want,” Dominic said, already moving towards the door. “No one’ll disturb you. I’ll get started on the records.”
It wasn’t right, how small and quiet he was.
“Thanks,” I said helplessly, because I didn’t know how else to reach him.
The call with Evelyn was mercifully short. She went very quiet after I explained that Rhodri and Dominic had argued and that I might possibly have involved myself.
“You involved yourself,” she repeated.
“In my defence, he was being awful.”
There was a long pause.
“Ben,” she said at last, in a tone that suggested my impending destruction, “please tell me you did not openly challenge the head of another dragon family on his own territory.”
“I mean, that would depend on how you define openly. And challenge,” I said.
I could practically hear the disappointment in her silence.
And when she finally sighed and told me to do whatever I could to smooth things over and to keep her informed if the situation deteriorated further, I had the unnerving suspicion that she knew far more than I thought I’d revealed.
Maybe she’d been able to sense the little part of me that, despite the fear and the worry, still glowed with one simple truth. Dominic loved me.
By the time I returned to the records room, Dominic had already started work. He was going through the earliest records we’d found so far, page by page, phone moving steadily as he photographed them. He looked up as I entered.
“Well? Are you going to be flamed at dawn?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.” His attention dropped back to the papers almost immediately as if there were no time to waste.
Suddenly the panic hit me. If I lost access now—No. Don’t think about it. Work.
We worked together in silence except for the sound of paper as we turned over pages.
My gut squirmed with nerves. Each photo was something, but I wanted, I needed, so much more.
I wanted to absorb every single record in this room to study again in years to come.
I’d been so stupid, getting distracted, laughing and joking, and reading things that looked interesting rather than working with the single-minded, structured focus I was known for.
Hours seemed to blur strangely after that until, at some point, I became aware that Dominic had stopped moving.
I looked up to see his phone held loosely in his hand while he stared at nothing, his expression drawn tight in what looked like exhaustion.
He was stroking the emerald ring on his finger in a way that made my breath catch.
I’d seen dragons admire their treasure before. I’d never seen one cling to it.
The sight hit me with sudden, awful clarity. Jesus Christ. What the hell was I doing?
Dominic had been threatened with permanent exile. And I was sitting here feeding pages into my phone like the fate of civilisation depended on medieval tenancy records.
Because I was frightened for him. And somehow that fear had seemed easier to handle if I concentrated on the smaller fear of being cut off from this records hoard.
Slowly, I lowered the phone in my hand, and I realised that, for the first time since arriving at Dragon’s Ending, the records room didn’t feel like a refuge.
Instead, it felt crowded with missing context and dead voices pretending at objectivity.
History, I thought, was far less trustworthy than people liked to believe.
Dominic finally noticed me looking at him and frowned slightly. “What?”
I stood up abruptly enough to make him blink. “Come flying with me tonight.”
He stared. Then his gaze flicked towards the stacks of records surrounding us. “But—”
“Fuck history,” I said.
To my immense satisfaction, Dominic looked genuinely shocked for perhaps the first time since I’d met him.
Then, very slowly, his expression softened into a smile.