Chapter Thirty-Five Kion #5
“You do not need to hide your scars from us, Kion,” he says. “Not from us. Never from us. We would like to see you, scars and all.” His eyes shift to Taissa. “And that includes you.”
Kion feels Taissa stiffen next to him.
“I…” Taissa shrugs limply, and Kion knows her mind has gone to that bastard Frasier; what he forced her to do.
Kion looks curiously at óríon. How does Magnússon know that Taissa carries more than just her weight?
Sometimes he thinks that he can read minds.
But then he remembers how óríon always seemed to understand Kion, in an impossible way.
Maybe darkness recognizes darkness.
What a bloody depressing thought.
How long did it take for óríon to figure Taissa out? Maybe the others already suspect.
Because Taissa Cho is nothing like the tabloids paint her. No. She’s whip-smart and brave, loyal to a fucking fault, and loves the game more than life itself. There’s no hint of the tabloid’s cheating, conniving, airhead caricature inside of her.
“It’s not like that,” Taissa finally says unsteadily, and he can tell that part of her wants to come clean, to wipe out her rep as a cheater before whatever happens tomorrow. With each second that passes, the Wild Hunt looms closer. “It’s nothing, not in comparison to—”
“It’s not nothing,” growls Kion, unable to hold in his disbelief. “Anything that happens to you, sweetheart, is never nothing.”
Her eyes are gleaming in the firelight with unshed tears. Hells. Kion wishes he’d killed Frasier when he had the chance. They probably wouldn’t have been able to trace it back to him.
Probably.
“Taissa,” Isla says gently, her brows pinched in concern, “what happened?”
“We’re here for you,” Mahina signs, pointing at him, and Kion blinks in surprise when Taissa evidently understands her.
Merlin’s teeth. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself for how harshly he’d judged her when Taissa had asked to learn Mahina’s language.
Nothing Taissa does is ever performative.
Hells, not even their fake relationship had remained performative for long.
He watches as Taissa takes an unsteady breath.
When she speaks, it’s so quiet that he has to strain to hear her.
“I didn’t want to cheat,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to.
But he made me.” Her voice mingles with the crackling fire until Kion can’t tell where one ends and the other begins, his fear of the fire somehow abating as those pops and cracks intertwine with the sweet, Scottish brogue he’s come to love.
Mahina is the first to respond once Taissa has fallen silent. “I owe you an apology. I never thought…”
Bronte looks like she’s about to be sick. “He held you down?” she whispers.
“And he threatened to kill your wyvern!” Knox hisses, newly incensed. óríon has to drag him back down again as he tries to leap to his feet, fists again swinging. “That can’t be legal—”
“You should try again to go public,” Adriel says softly, brows furrowed. “You have pretty decent PR right now—maybe you could somehow use it to your advantage?”
“My cousin is a lawyer,” Isla pipes up. Her entire tiny face is red with rage.
Kion remembers the poster of Taissa that Isla threw out in betrayal after that bloody game, and watches as she blinks back angry tears.
Taissa, he knows, is the reason she started playing in the first place.
She’s Adaway’s idol, the girl who showed her it was possible to be the best of the best in a sport dominated by men.
She had a mantra, those first few years on the team: WWTCD.
What Would Taissa Cho Do? It had driven him bloody mad.
“Let us help you build a lawsuit. Let us help you take him down.”
“You’re not alone anymore,” adds óríon, words only slightly slurred. Later, Kion will wonder at how quickly Magnússon can metabolize alcohol. “All of us, we will stand beside you when the time comes. You are one of us. Stymphs protect their own. We are a flock.”
Taissa makes a small, muffled sound into the palm of her free hand, and too late, Kion realizes that she’s crying.
Isla seems to realize it at the same time, rushing around the table to wrap Taissa in a hug, squeezing the other girl tight.
It’s not long before Bronte has joined her, with óríon and Knox on her tail.
Mahina and Adriel are next, and as Kion folds his arms around Taissa’s trembling body, he is met with the deep certainty that Taissa Cho has found her home.
It’s only a minute or so later, when Knox gasps dramatically, that the group-hug breaks apart.
“Hold on one moment,” says Knox, in the tone of someone who has made an incredible discovery, “the papers said that Frasier was assaulted around the time we were in Banallan…” Tanaka’s eyes dart with gleeful suspicion toward his captain.
“That was me,” confesses Kion with grim satisfaction, and as Taissa—crying and laughing all at once—raises her glass to toast “Kion’s left hook,” he knows that this team can get through anything that Merlin and Morgana throw at them.
Even tomorrow.
Even the Wild Hunt.