Chapter 12
“You’re human! At least, halfway human.” Kate burst into Vilka’s chambers with the accusation. She found him sitting naked on the bed and stopped dead a few feet into the room before turning and pushing the doors closed.
“Is it true? Are you part human? Is your mother a fighter pilot from the first war?”
“Yes,” Vilka admitted. “That is true. My mother is a human. She’s lived here for the last thirty or so years with my father after she was arrested for treason in the first war for helping the dragons.”
“And you never figured that might be worth mentioning?” Kate put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at Vilka in a sassy fashion.
She couldn’t believe he had kept so much to himself.
It wasn’t as though she’d felt that she knew everything about him, but she’d at least assumed she knew what species he was.
“We have not precisely had a great deal of time for self-revelation,” Vilka pointed out. “You have created chaos from the moment we met. It is not strange that I did not mention my parentage. You have not mentioned yours.”
“That’s because I don’t have any,” Kate said.
“You were spawned without parents?” It was Vilka’s turn to give a look of disbelief.
“I lost my parents when I was really young,” she said. “So that was that. I wasn’t hiding anything from you. Not like you, hiding the fact that you’re human!”
“You didn’t have parents?” Vilka seemed genuinely concerned by the revelation.
“No, well, I mean, there were people who looked after me for a few years at a time, but not in the way most people do. It doesn’t matter. I turned out fine.”
“You turned out on another planet,” Vilka said. “So much makes sense now… you poor little thing.”
“Don’t you dare pity me,” she growled. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Maybe you don’t need my pity, but you definitely need my palm meeting your butt,” he growled right back at her. “Lack of discipline has been your problem from the beginning.”
“I’m self-disciplined.”
“That’s only half of it,” Vilka informed her. “You need to be externally disciplined as well. It can’t be all one or the other.”
“Says the crown thief.”
“I was punished for that, and I accepted my fate. You never accept yours.”
“Damn right I don’t! To hell with fate! And to hell with you and your perfect parents.
Your amazing mom and your dragon dad. You don’t know a damn thing about me,” Kate snapped defensively.
Meeting Vilka’s parents had made her feel a strange sort of very uncomfortable jealousy.
Both of them were obviously amazing, outstanding people, and they both supported him unconditionally in spite of everything that had happened.
“I may not know the particulars,” Vilka said. “But I know you. I know how lonely you are at your core. I know how far you came to find something that might fill the hole inside—and I also know you’ve found it. You’d know that too if you could stop fighting me for five seconds.”
“Shut up, Vilka,” she said unhappily. “You lied to me.”
“How did I lie to you?”
“By omission. You could have told me any time that you’re half human. But you didn’t want me to know you, so don’t bullshit me and tell me I could fill some hole inside myself if I would just trust you. You haven’t exactly given me much to trust, have you?”
“You’re upset,” he said, stating the obvious. “Was it so important?”
“Yes! Yes, it damn well was! You never told me anything, Vilka! You never told me about the massive dragon underneath the mountain. You never told me who you really were. You never told me anything that actually mattered.”
“If you had obeyed, I might have had the chance to…”
“Oh, no.” Kate shook her head. “Don’t try to act like this is my fault.
You’re half human and you hate it because the other dragons are cruel to you.
But to hell with them! Who cares what they think?
And hey, to hell with this place! You don’t have to stay here on this rock at the end of nowhere!
You could have come to Earth and fit right in.
You don’t have scaling on your body, your eyes aren’t slitted.
You’d pass for human easily. Aren’t you even curious about what’s on the other side of that portal? ”
“Of course I am,” he said. “And that curiosity will be sated soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I intend to go through the portal and lure him back here by acting as bait,” Vilka said. “Then I will do battle with him and defeat him.”
Kate stared at Vilka. “You’ll do battle with a dragon a thousand times your size? Do you want to die? That thing could swallow a small village. It could inhale you, Vilka!”
“There are ways of battling Avastias which do not end in death,” Vilka said.
“It is difficult, but it is not entirely impossible—and it must be done. It has always been this way. When the world eater wakes, it must either feed or be defeated. I am the lord of this fortress. It falls to me to do battle with the beast.”
“No,” Kate said, shaking her head emphatically. “I won’t let you.”
He was an overbearing dominating meathead who broke things with rocks, but she cared about him and she definitely didn’t want him to die. They were bonded now, for better or worse and she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have a choice anymore. The moment Avastias woke, this was my fate.”
“I won’t let you!”
Vilka reached for the obsidian black collar and leash. “You won’t have a choice, Kate. You will be chained here until the outcome is settled one way or another.”
“The hell I will!” Kate struggled as he reached for her and clapped the collar about her neck. There was nothing she could really do to stop him, but she wanted him to know just how furious she was. “I will break out of here, Vilka! I always do.”
He shook his head. “Not this time you won’t,” he said. “Not until I have done what I have to do.”
“Vilka!” She shouted his name as he turned and walked out of the room. “Vilka, don’t you damn well leave me here!”
The doors of his chambers closed, and Kate was left alone once more, swearing furiously to herself.