Chapter Fifteen
Rilark
“What?” came the demanding tone of the girl with the hazel eyes. The brunette followed my gaze and whipped her body around to see my brother standing just feet from us. From the look on his face, it seemed he’d been able to catch most of our show. There was a look of resignation on his face that I had difficulty believing and I set my wings back to prepare myself.
She thought he was soft and gentle. I knew the real Galsthenn.
“Galsthenn,” she said in a flurry of shock and shame.
“I came back, as you asked,” he said quietly. He crossed his arms and stared down at the floor, unable to meet her eyes or her pleas. Then in an instant, his eyes flashed up to mine, and Rosalyn begged, “Let me explain.”
“I’ve heard enough,” he said with anger. His tail whipped back and forth in short, quick strokes, showing his agitation. He clenched his fists and made quick strides toward her, grabbing her by the shoulders with a furious grip.
“Then you heard enough to know she’s with child,” I said forcefully, grabbing his hand to pull him away from her.
He bucked against my hand and, without removing his grip from her shoulder, he pushed me backward into the console table, causing its contents to spill loudly over the floor.
“You’ve done enough!” he finally screamed, his eyes becoming animalist and lost as he stared me down. “I treated you like a brother, always, and this is how you repay my kindness?”
His grip left Rosalyn, and she backed away, looking to me with a calculated glance, as though she were waiting for him to rip me apart. I spread my wings further apart and felt my body buzzing with adrenaline as he jolted toward me with tears flooding his eyes.
“I have lived my whole life being told by my father that you shamed our family, that I should destroy you. But mother said you were special, that I should care for you as a brother and allow you to benefit from my good and privileged graces. And that is what I did,” he enunciated his words carefully through the emotion the cracked through his voice. “Because I loved you.”
His eyes grew wide as he became lost in his own words. I felt a pulse of emotion fill my throat, but I swallowed it down. “And?” I said coldly.
“And it turns out my father was right.”
Our eyes chased each other as he took one step closer and set his hand on my throat, gently, never squeezing. I raised my chin and met his stare; I took in everything he had to get off his chest.
He hurled out a great Weredragon's cry that shook the whole floor, glasses falling from the countertop and smashing wildly on the ground as he whipped his tail frantically.
He gripped my neck with an asphyxiating pressure and narrowed his glare before tossing me hard into the wall.
I lunged forward and drew my claws into his back before he jerked me to the floor with immeasurable force. I rolled my wings to steady myself with the wind before I hit the floor.
I took a battle stance and he drew his great wing and smashed it into my side, knocking the air out of me.
He was more powerful than I'd imagined. I was already winded, and he merely stood there watching to see what I would do next.
I rammed into his side and once again he batted me away with his wing and let out a ferocious cry, his eyes becoming lost to the dragon within.
I swung at him, and he grabbed my arm and flipped me over until I was on my back on the shining marble tile below me. He knelt and picked me up by my leathers, pounding his tightened fist onto my face over and over again until I could feel the blood and bones protruding from under my flesh. I groaned in pain and could feel hot liquid running down my face with a furious sting.
We could both hear Rosalyn's screams and cries but paid her no mind. She was, after all, the reason we were both here. He knew that as well as I.
Still secured in his grip, my brother widened his eyes toward me and said, "Had enough?"
I spat in his face and pushed him back, charging him and smashing him into his perfectly arranged couches and smashing my tail down on his stomach until he lay limp.
There was still fight in him, but he didn’t move.
I wiped the blood from my lips with the back of my hand and stared down at the man, my brother, with hatred. I hated him for his status, for the obnoxious apartment he’d created to look like a human’s castle, for having all the world given to him and then taking Rosalyn on top of everything else.
Galsthenn watched me for a moment to see if I would strike him back down. When I failed to react, he stood, rubbing his stomach gingerly with his palm.
“I wanted to be like you,” he said with a swallow. “I trusted you with the one thing that was my own, and you betrayed me.” He breathed a confused, frustrated laugh that didn’t quite make it out and he raised a curious brow. He gave a half smile, genuinely perplexed as he whispered, “Why?”
“You’ve taken everything from me,” I spat back.
“So you’d take her from me,” he reasoned, eerily calm. “And did you?”
My eyes consulted Rosalyn, and I could see the fear coursing through her body. Nothing in me was sure anymore. This was what I’d wanted. To hurt Galsthenn. To let him know that he couldn’t have everything. That I was the real man between us, but as I watched his face twist and fill with emotion, it seemed the farthest thing from the truth. Our fantasy had turned into a monster.
“No,” was my response.
“Well,” he quickly raised and lowered his brows while dusting off his suit. “I’m glad you’re not humoring me with excuses.”
What did he want to hear? That she ended it or that I forced myself on her? I set my jaw and felt blood reemerge from my wounds. No, I wouldn’t be humoring him. Not now or ever.
“Galsthenn,” came Rosalyn’s sudden, small voice. She had crouched in the corner during our fight to protect herself from the smashing furniture and glass shattered everywhere along the floor.
“The glass,” Galsthenn protested, raising a hand in her direction but never looking at her. “Stay there.”
“Galsthenn I’m so, so sorry,” she said as she racked her body, weeping and falling to the ground in a pile of ruffles and fabric. She cried into her hands, and her voice cracked through the tortured sobs. “It was a mistake.”
My heart wrenched at the statement, and I winced back, my throbbing mouth twisting with displeasure at her words.
“I gave you everything; I took you into my home, made you my wife, spoiled you, loved you, respected you,” he spat. “I welcomed you into my planet, and you want to talk to me about mistakes?”
“It just happened,” she blurted out as though there were no other excuse to give. “I just wanted…”
“What?!” my brother shouted and she looked up at him, startled.
“I just wanted… to be with a shifter who wasn’t ashamed.”
His face twisted and contorted somewhere between rage and incredulity. His jaw dropped, and he leaned down, incensed. “You think because I don’t stroll around with my wings constantly flared that I’m ashamed?!” Galsthenn screamed the words. “It never occurred to you I didn’t want to scare you? That I wanted you to see me as a person instead of some fantasy?”
She looked up at him with tears falling senselessly down her beautiful cheeks.
There was an intensity in his eyes that I knew she saw. With her one hand on her heart still, she used the other to begin fixing her hair behind her ear. At important or scary moments, she’d told me she often felt the need to look presentable, like if somebody was going to hurt her feelings, she wanted to look good when it happened.
I remembered thinking that was cute when she told me. Now the sight of it twisted my stomach around like a tornado.
The pair sat silent for a moment before she asked, “Galsthenn, can you ever forgive me?”
I watched as he stared at her with great intensity and felt conflicting emotions as she refused to look at me. We both knew he would say yes; we knew he loved her too much to let her go, especially now that she was with child.
If he were to say he couldn’t forgive her, that would mean his father was right and everything he so firmly believed in about life and love and human nature was wrong. That my mother was wrong and there was no love to cover sin.
“I think you’ve been a fool,” he confirmed, and she cried. But then he reached his hand down to hers and sighed as he relented, “You’re just lucky I’m fond of you.”
“I wish it never happened. I just wish he was gone and I would never have to see him again.”
Galsthenn swallowed and seemed stuck there for a moment, his hands settling and a sudden calm filling his mind. He paced the room for some time with his hands clasped together behind his back before looking over at me. Marching back to her he said, “I can’t make that happen.”
“I’ll do anything,” she breathed and brushed the white stands of hair out from his eyes.
“Galsthenn,” I began, but he cut me off, blinded by shock.
“You should go. Really t-this,” he stammered in frustration. “This doesn’t concern you anymore. It concerns me and Rosalyn.”
My eyes flicked back and forth from his, and I gave a slow nod, turning for the door before something stopped me in my tracks. “What of my fate?” I asked, my hand on the doorknob.
“That will be left solely up to you. You stay, and I tell my father; I watch him slay you and condemn you and break our mother’s heart… Or you go. Go be with your rebels or flee to Earth. Whatever you do, I want it done tonight.”
I looked at Rosalyn, but I knew her decision was already made. After all, what could I give her? Galsthenn also knew he’d won, though the sadness in his eyes reminded me he was hardly the victor.
He stared me down and then relented to his kind eyes and weakly dismissed, “Goodnight, brother.”
I looked over at Rosalyn, her hazel eyes staring back at me with intensity, and somehow I knew that was the last moment I would ever see her.
“Goodnight, brother,” I repeated.