Page 29 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Rorsyd

I feel…great.

What am I missing?

It’s early. The window in the bedroom has the curtains peeled apart in the center. Dawn sneaks in a dab of weak light. The rattle outside in the streets is the cart merchants rolling to their sites.

Every part of me zings with pent-up energy—something I’ve not felt for a long while. Maybe since the last time I shifted. My thoughts have been submerged in a vast gray sea of misery this past week, or was it two weeks?

I crank myself onto my elbow, slowly, afraid this change will vanish beneath a grind of aches, remorse, and misery.

Nothing bad happens. It’s a start.

My palm, splayed on the floor, looks more real than it has, my claws arch out, shining with health. That dull green tinge my claws have never exhibited before? Gone. On the bed to my right, the sheets have been tossed back.

The bed is empty. Wyntre’s sleeping place. This is when my mind decides to remind me of my pitiful showing ever since we came here.

I’ve been drinking even more than before I met her.

I’ve ignored her, slept here on the floor, drank myself into a foggy oblivion. Anything to avoid what has become painful. My failure. A soulmate should not be a pathetic reflection of himself.

I run my hand through my stiff hair and the quilt over my legs slips to reveal a pooled darkness at the bottom, past my feet.

What. Is. That?

The creature lies curled up, nose to tail. It has small ears. It might be the cat I saw at the lake?

A pair of blue eyes springs open, and it blinks lazily at me, smiles what I can only call a sheepish grin with a set of supremely white fangs. Then it runs into my clothes closet.

A whole week of past conversations with Wyntre trundles through my head while I stare at the closet. We said nothing about this? Maybe?

Have we adopted a stray animal while I was being a fool?

Maybe you should stop drinking?

I thought collecting meant you didn’t use it?

Rorsyd? Are you coming to bed or drinking more wine?

“Oh fuck.” That was me. All of that.

I did some bad, bad things. In feeling sorry for myself, I ignored and neglected her.

Can I ever say sorry enough? What if this happens again?

Is she even still here?

Panicking, I prowl into the dining room to find her seated, the chair reversed, her arms lined along the back while she stares at the dawn though the small window.

A soft breeze brings the scents of bacon and coffee. My stomach grumbles.

Wyntre turns and sees me. “Oh. You’re up.” The stillness of her gaze scares me. Her entire face is quiet, really, as if she isn’t certain how to react.

I nod. My heartbeat calms a few notches. She hasn’t left me.

What can I do, say? She must know how stupid I’ve been?

*She does, you deserve a kick up the rear .*

ID?

*Who else would be in your filthy, wine-sodden head at this hour?*

Who else indeed.

Prepared to be cut down with some dismissive, angry remark, I go to her and slowly wrap her in my arms. I breathe into her hair. This. This is what I used to do. I remember doing this, and it’s still as wonderful.

My eyes are wet. I brush away the damn stupid sadness.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’ve been a hideous mess.”

“Yes. You have.” Then she bumps her head backward into my chest. “Oh, Rorsyd.” Her sigh is a shudder. “Are you truly back now? The fae I love?”

“I am. If I ever do that again, please do something painful to me, even if you have to walk away from me. I hate that I hurt you.”

“Well that’s a tremendous start. Already I’m liking you.” Turning in my arms, she stops and taps my forearm like a teacher with a lesson. Her smile wobbles. “Let’s get some food for breakfast at the café and take it to the lake so we can talk.”

“Sure. Should I be worried?”

“I don’t know?” The look she gives me is steady, measured.

Considering what I’ve done, I cannot expect a hug to fix this. I may soon wish I’d opted to go wrestle a sea monster instead.

I haven’t asked her about the visitor I found curled up on my feet. It’s not in the closet anymore.

Later.

I make sure to hold her hand on the walk.

Next to the café, a pack of teenage wolfshifters has attracted enforcers—one of the shifters sits on the sidewalk with his head buried in his arms, furred ears lowered as if he’s just shifted back. Blood drips from his face. The fuss is too close for us, so we buy pastries as unobtrusively as we can and move onward.

We can get mugs of tea or coffee from the library food court.

If she wants me to, I’ll drag a pot out to the lake, build a campfire, and brew the tea or coffee out there. The longer I have to wait for this talk, the more excruciating it becomes, and the more I dread it.

I sip the milky liquid, grimace, and raise the blue ceramic mug.

“The tea is still warm-ish.” It’s taken a great amount of care to get any tea out here without spilling most.

“Yes.” Wyntre hunches forward over her mug, sipping, eyeing Kyvin where he emerges from the trees. “He’s missing his weeds. Looks like he stayed out of the lake last night?”

“Yes.” I’m copying her, being calm on the outside, frantic on the inside. “Are we both avoiding talking about my fall from grace? Or…is there more to this? I don’t know why I said that, but?—”

“Soulmates?” She fakes a smile, adjusts the mug. “I think we’re seeing things in each other no one else can. Just a guess.”

“Could be.” What is she seeing in me? I shift myself closer until I’m against her and nudge her thigh with mine. “Thank you for not leaving. I can barely recall what I did. It’s a blur.”

“Hmmm.” She places the mug at her feet then laces her hands about my elbow. “There is something more here than just you getting bonkers drunk. So drunk you slept outside the door one night then threw up in your unicorn wastepaper basket and I had to clean it up.”

“Oh gods.” I fill my lungs ready to apologize when movement registers at the corner of my eye.

The white zeetball barrels past my feet, from left to right, and yet Kyvin is neither to left or right. He’s near the edge of this clearing, in front of us.

Is it from a student? I’m dearly praying our undead guy has not been seen.

Nope.

A black loping thing with little ears races after the ball, a few feet away, its tail streaming out behind like a kite flying. I recognize it.

This is not a cat. I have an inkling and open my mouth to say something alarming, accusatory.

Wyntre’s eyes are closed. She hasn’t seen, but connecting the dots is simple because I’ve seen similar before. That is a darkthing creature. The rendering of it into this more pleasing shape does not excuse its origins. This is what killed Orish.

This is the reason behind Wyntre’s strange reaction. Her secret, my drunkenness and woeful behavior…and there is also my secret. I killed her parents.

Does all this cancel out?

Kyvin lumbers to the ball and kicks it, emphasizing the normality of this scene and the insanity. I frown as the thing sprints past, no longer kitelike. It reminds me of a skittering ferret, one that’s been filled with air like a balloon. A ferret crossed with a balloon crossed with a kite.

“I’m sorry, Rorsyd,” Wyntre whispers, lifting her head.

She’s looking into my eyes and still hasn’t noticed the…what do I call this?

I stab my finger at the darkthing where it is now weaving and climbing up the undead man to perch on his shoulder. Unblinking, it stares at me, as if challenging me to truly see it.

“What is that?”

“Oh. Fuck.” Her hands are nigh on strangling my arm.

I keep watching the thing. “Darkthing? Yes?”

“Yes.” Her voice is so quiet.

“Your secret. I see now why you’ve been odd. It’s not just me drinking half my wine cellar. It’s that.”

“That is Anathema. He is Anathema.”

It has a name. The darkthing has a fucking name. This is what killed Orish.

And I… I can go in circles. I can yell. I can leave. I can try to kill it. Flames bubble in my chest, potential flames ready to burst forth. Merely contemplating the act of shifting makes my cells creak to life. They’re ready to crack and flare, ready to go full dragon to immolate the darkthing at a few thousand degrees. I roll my shoulders, suppress that urge.

Would it even be successful?

None of those appeal.

But…I can shift again.

* Exactly. We’re not wondering how or why? *

Shush. The ID is back.

“Is it dangerous, Wyntre?” I tip up her head, freshly slain by her beauty, by the cushioned redness of her mouth, but not by the way she looks at me, as if she fears what I will do.

“Yes.” Her throat moves in a nervous swallow. “It…can be. I killed the bloodhawk using the end of Anathema’s tail wrapped about the bullet.”

“Wow. It was curled up on my feet this morning. I didn’t know what it was. And now I do. Secrets within secrets. I know how I should be feeling, but none of this seems real. I don’t want to be angry at you. A moment ago, I figured I should be begging for forgiveness, from you.”

She’s searching my face for clues. “I know. Neither of us has been honest though, have we?”

“I guess not.” She’s not meaning my drinking?

* No, she is not .*

My twenty-year path of revenge. The darkthings eating Orish. And my flames consuming her parents. Even if she doesn’t know this, I need to say it. Which of us bests the other when it comes to doing nastiness? I find myself empty of rage and vengeance and hate.

I have no anger left inside me.

“Your parents.” I swallow on a dry throat. I’m even more sure she has found out. “How did you find out?” I’m swinging from horror and guilt to what the fuck should I do and what will she do?

Her mouth twitches up, and she slides off the bench and kneels before me, looking contrite. “I read it in a diary from the war.” She rests her hand over mine where it lies on my knee, cupping the back. “I wasn’t sure how to say it. When to say it. Rorsyd, I forgive you, even if Anathema is a step too far for you to forgive.”

“You forgive me, yet I killed your parents.”

“I do.”

Anathema is playing with Kyvin—if playing is the right word. I’m half expecting Kyvin’s leg to fall off. I’m aware of the scampering of the creature in the background. I’m more concerned with Wyntre watching me and waiting with her hand on mine.

“That is a weapon. A terrible one, Wyntre. The weapon is not the problem, though, is it? It’s not evil. It’s how you use it. Just don’t give the secret to the Aos Sin.” I smile weakly. As if she could. This is not something they could build and give to their soldiers. “We are a pair of fools.”

“Maybe.” She clasps my hand a bit tighter, or as much as she can with those small fingers.

I fill my lungs with air, trying to unmuddle my mind and think this through. I end up addressing the forest and myself more than her with my next words. “Forgiveness is a lot easier when it’s you, someone I trust completely.”

“That is a good beginning.” She’s peering up at me, with that worried crease on her brow. “And the drinking?”

“The need is gone.”

I wish I knew why, but I am sure I can shift into dragon form again, and the lack of that goes with the compulsion, the dark moods. I need to figure out how everything is fitting together and why, but not now.

Wyntre springs to her feet. “Andacc.”

Is she remembering the killer drop? At the sound of grass rasping underfoot, I realize he is here.

When he pushes through, ducking under the last of the low branches into our space, the darkthing and Kyvin, our friendly undead, are prancing about in full view. The creature might get dismissed as just a cat but Kyvin…in sunlight he looks like a lovely walking corpse.