Chapter 20
Kira sat in cold, numb silence as the meeting broke up. She hadn’t meant to tell him about Markus—at least, not like that.
Not in front of other people. Not without the chance to explain.
Flynn was cool and businesslike as the others got up to leave. He listened while she promised to look through Markus’s papers. He made sure Ashley’s hands were okay, that she had no lasting damage from the magic.
He exchanged promises with Israel and Harrison to let each other know if they got any more information. He was polite, said all the right things, even walked them to their truck.
And underneath, she could feel the rage simmering, barely controlled.
He was out in front of the cabin now. Israel was helping Ashley into the truck, handling her like she was fine porcelain. She smiled and touched his cheek affectionately before he closed the passenger door and went around to get in the driver’s side.
Harrison had pulled Flynn aside, and was talking to him earnestly.
Flynn just stood there, arms crossed, biceps bulging, that look on his face.
The one she’d already come to know—the one that said he wasn’t listening, wasn’t moving, wasn’t having any of whatever the other person was saying.
The one that meant that underneath, he was hurting. And he didn’t want anyone to know.
He couldn’t afford to let anyone know. Because there had never been anyone there to back him up, no one who he could trust enough let down his guard.
And now the last of the props had been kicked out from underneath the foundations of his life. The man he’d loved and idolized and grieved over hadn’t died.
He’d simply abandoned him.
She wanted to put her arms around Flynn, pull his head down to rest on hers, hold him until he could feel her love seeping into him.
But he wouldn’t. He might let her hold him, but his walls were up. The love she had to give would never make it through them. He’d be holding her, but he’d still be alone.
Harrison shook his head, and Kira could see the frustration in his body. He hadn’t gotten through. Whatever he’d tried to tell Flynn, it wasn’t making him feel better.
How could it? He’d just learned that Markus had been here all along, in this world. He could have found Flynn, could have taken him in. Could have raised him alongside Kira, and could have kept him from so much pain and suffering.
Now he’d try to carry that pain all alone, just like he’d carried the pain of losing everyone he’d known and cared about.
The truck drove away, and for a moment Flynn stayed in the middle of the yard, looking after it. Then he turned and walked off down the path to Xander’s and Sloan’s trailers, without even a glance toward her.
Kira hesitated, then went down the steps and headed after him. After a moment, she could hear the thwak, thwak of knives being thrown into a target. It was coming from the far side of Xander’s trailer, where he had his targets set up.
She approached cautiously, not wanting to get in the line of fire. He wasn’t just angry at Markus. He was angry at her, for keeping the identity of her guardian from him.
She didn’t really think he’d throw a knife at her. But when a man with weapons was that pissed off…best to keep your distance.
She stood at the corner of Xander’s trailer, watching him. His body moved in perfect synch, the muscles of his arms and shoulders rippling under his shirt as he drew back and threw, drew back and threw.
Thwak. Thwak. Thwak. The knives thudded into the target, all near the center, points buried deeply.
He walked over and pulled them viciously out, and then walked back to the starting line and threw them again. Thwak. Thwak. Thwak.
His technique was perfect. Markus had taught him that.
“He’d be proud of you,” she said quietly.
He didn’t answer. Thwak. Thwak. Thwak. He walked forward. Yanked the knives out.
“He talked about you all the time,” she said. “How strong you were, how brave, how loyal. Smart. Skilled. A good soldier.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
Flynn turned on her, the knives clutched in his hands. “A good soldier? That fucking says it all. He didn’t give a shit about me. None of them did. All they cared about was how they could use me. Use me, and make me fucking proud to be used!”
He threw a knife viciously, and it cracked the target.
“He loved you,” she said.
Flynn took a step forward, pointing one of the knives at her for emphasis. “Don’t you fucking talk to me about love. Markus didn’t know the first thing about love. None of your precious Al-Maddeiri dragons knew the first thing about it. You don’t use people you love. You don’t brainwash them into taking a magical oath that they’ll never be free of, just to serve the purposes of a dying breed of dragons. Who fucking died anyway. They died anyway!”
He threw the knife sidearm, not even looking, and it still hit the middle of the target, the handle vibrating with the force of the impact.
“Flynn—” He was clutching the remaining knife by the blade, and it cut into his palm. Blood dripped down, but he didn’t seem to feel it.
Or maybe he needed the pain.
“I was twelve years old,” he said. “The world I knew was collapsing in hell and fire. Markus sent me with a message, up to the summer palace. To try to warn you. All the magical avenues of warning were cut off. Everything was in chaos.”
He looked off into the distance, as if seeing it once more. “He told me to go by a secret route. He told me to go lion, to run as fast as I could and not look back. He told me not to think about anything else, that everything depended on me going as fast as I could.”
He shook his head. “And so I ran. I ran for my life, ran myself into exhaustion. I almost fucking died. And I didn’t get there in time.”
He focused his gaze on her. “Do you understand? I didn’t make it. By the time I got there, the summer palace was in ruins. All the dragons were dead. You were dead. The princess I was pledged to protect. The princess I was magically bonded to.”
“I wasn’t,” she said.
“I felt it,” he said. “Did you know that? Did fucking Markus know that? I felt it in my bones, like something being ripped out of me that I could never get back. Like I’d be walking around, half a person, maimed for the rest of my life.”
She shook her head, confused. “How could you? I wasn’t dead—”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it was when Markus hid you, when he bound your dragon. Do you think that makes it better? That you didn’t die, but he let me think you did? I was twelve years old, and alone, and crippled inside. I’d failed Markus, failed you. Everyone I cared about was dead. He could have found me, let me know it wasn’t true. But he didn’t. He fucking let me live with it.”
He watched the blood dripping down his hand.
“None of the clans would take me in. I had to find my way to this world, learn to take care of myself. And I did. And now I find out that he was here all along. Living in a mansion, taking care of the princess.” His eyes burned into hers. “But not me.”
“It wasn’t like that—”
“Don’t you fucking tell me what it was like!”
The fury in his voice made her take a step back.
“And don’t you make excuses for him. You’re just as bad as he was.”
“I was five years old!”
“Yeah? And what about when you were eighteen? Or twenty-one? You didn’t bother to look for me because you didn’t need me. Now you do, and here you come running, using your magic to reel me in, to make me feel things—”
He stopped. “Neither of you ever cared about me at all.”
He clenched his bloody hand, willing power from the bracelets until the bleeding stopped and the cut healed over.
He threw the last knife at the target and it quivered there, still stained with his blood.
Then he turned and walked away into the forest. A moment later, she heard the furious roar of a lion.