Page 21 of Flameborne: Fury (Emberquell Academy #2)
“You’re doing it again,” he said darkly, leaning over me, his expression grim.
“Doing what?”
“Thinking. Thinking things that make you feel small. I know this has something to do with a man, Bren. I’ve seen your fear, and I loathe it for what it means must have happened.
You’re safe. Tell me. Get it off your chest. Let me share the burden.
I’m your mate. You’ll never be safer with anyone than me. ”
He’d startled me, moving like that, pinning me down.
But my heart raced with thrill as much as fear.
His eyes looked dark in this moment, his pupils black.
The deep gravel of his voice promised hellfire on any man who’d hurt me.
But he didn’t know the man was a Furyknight.
He didn’t know what I knew. He couldn’t.
He was too good. I’d seen him live, watched him carry himself for months.
But now, I was in his heart.
With a deep breath to settle my nerves, I reached one hand up to place it right at the center of his chest. Felt the boom boom boom of that huge, fearless heart under my palm. And I asked myself a question.
Was he strong enough to hear this?
My soul cried, yes. But my mind…
I swallowed hard. “How are you so good?” I whispered.
He frowned. It wasn’t the response he’d expected. “Bren, I’m not. I’m often wrong. You’ve seen me lose my temper—”
“But you’re good at your core. You’re so good.
You do what’s right even when it isn’t easy, and you teach others to do the same.
You choose good for others, even when they don’t choose it for you.
You live with honor, Donavyn. I knew that—I’ve seen it.
But now I can feel it.” I let my fingers curl into his warm skin, let him feel the rush of warmth and safety and need he inspired in me.
He grunted, then sat back on his heels like I’d shaken him.
“I’m glad that’s what you see. What you feel,” he said softly. “Hopefully, it will make you come to trust me.”
“I do!”
His lips thinned, but he nodded. “To a point,” he said grimly. “That’s true. But I want you to trust me with everything , Bren. How can you heal from a wound if you can’t even speak of it?”
I wanted to shrink from his gaze, those gorgeous eyes, so intent they seemed to strip my skin from my bones and reveal my insides. And in the same breath, something deep within me pushed me forward.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to see him take it. I wanted to see him solve it. I wanted to see him still want me in the wake of that.
Was it even possible?
I closed my eyes and let myself feel his big, beating heart and swallowed hard.
I wanted to believe it was. “Do you really want to know? Or—”
“I want to know, Bren. Let me carry some of the weight you bear.”
My eyes stung and my throat wanted to close. I took a deep breath and stroked his chest. “Okay,” I whispered. His eyes widened and his lips parted, but he didn’t speak. I swallowed hard. “Can we walk, though? I think it would be easier to say if I’m… moving.”
Because suddenly, that weight in the pit of my stomach had returned. The dread. But I wanted to give it away. I wanted to give it to him.
He nodded. “I understand. Let’s walk.”
He rolled off me. I was about to get to my feet to get our clothes, but he rolled all the way up to his feet and immediately walked over to where he’d built a fire earlier that was low coals now, our clothing spread out on the stone and dirt around it.
I was stunned to see him walk the circle of the flames picking up clothing and shaking it off, checking the seams to see how wet they were, grimacing, but moving on.
And he didn’t gather only his own clothing, he picked up and shook out mine.
I stood, gaping at him, until he returned to my toes, my leathers and shirt thrown over one arm. As he extended that arm to me his eyes were soft and searching, his forehead lined in worry. Yet calm care and something stronger washed through the bond to me.
I stared at that arm for a moment, seeing it for the gift it was.
“What is it?” he asked, confused. “I know they’re not fully dry, but they’ll be better than nothing.”
I looked back up at him. “I’m not used to a man serving me,” I said carefully.
His brows pinched. “It’s hardly service. I picked up your clothes, Bren. I’m sure I’ll do it a million times over the course of our lives together.”
Our lives together. He accepted this future, this life so calmly? The words made me shiver. But that was another stunning truth. He meant it. “But you’re the Commander.”
His head jerked back. “If you ever call me that when I’m naked again, I’ll paddle your ass,” he said gruffly, then he blinked and his eyes widened like he regretted the words.
He looked so disconcerted, I forgot my fears and snorted. “Paddle me?”
“Bren, I was being flippant. I didn’t mean—”
I snorted. “Please rest assured I’d never want to displease you… Commander.”
Donavyn spluttered and I laughed. Then he muttered something under his breath and tossed my clothes at my chest. I giggled as I caught them.
“Get that ass covered before I pink it,” he growled as he turned away.
I laughed again, and then he winked at me over his shoulder. My heart thumped in my chest, warming me, making me wish we weren’t about to talk about the darkest events of my life. But as I shook out my leathers to pull them on, I shook my head.
Commander. I grinned. I wouldn’t forget the way he’d spluttered at that. Or the warm thrill in his chest that he didn’t realize I’d felt.
I’d dropped my jacket to the ground as I put on the shirt. Donavyn had his leathers on and his shirt over his arms, but still open when I picked up my jacket.
I cleared my throat and kept my eyes on my hands as I pulled the damp leather over my arm. “My story, Donavyn. It’s not virtuous.”
“I don’t expect it to be, and I half expect I know what it entails. Which is why I get upset when you’re frightened,” he muttered, but his tone was suddenly distracted as he leaned down to pick something up from the ground.
He went still, looking at it, then his head snapped up, eyes on mine. “Bren, what is this?” he asked suddenly, offering me the item in his hand.
I frowned and took it, opening the crinkled fibers to find the symbols I’d drawn with the charcoal when I found the camp. The parchment was rippled from absorbed water and the charcoal smudged, but it was still legible.
I looked at him with a cautious smile. “It’s the symbols I saw at the camp. I found it and did everything you said. I gathered the numbers and weapons and—“
“What camp?”
I frowned. “The camp you sent me to find. For my third trial. It was impressive. No wonder so many of the Officers and servants were gone. That was very clever making it sound like it was for the King’s banquet—”
“Bren—” he snatched the parchment from my hand and scanned it again, his brows rising. “Bren, where was this camp?”
I swallowed. “You know. It was an hour or two north. I think? I tried to keep a straight line from the Keep towards the Dueling Peaks, but we might have been blown west. Will I still pass? Or do I need to be able to find it on a map? I can give directions, I’m only unsure because of the storm—”
Donavyn swore and shoved the paper into his pocket, eyes squeezed shut and more curses breaking on his tongue.
“Bren, the orders you received weren’t from me,” he said bluntly, hurriedly buttoning his shirt and tucking into his leathers. “They weren’t your trial.”
“What?!”
“I don’t know if whoever sent you knew that camp was there, or if God simply used it to our benefit, but where did you see those symbols?”
He’d become all business, shrugging on his jacket and buttoning it without thought, the efficient, sharp movements of a capable man who’d done it a thousand times.
And there, with the jacket on, his high collar standing tall, his hair twisted back off his face and that stern expression, he was no longer Donavyn, my mate, but once again the General. And I felt myself shrink.
“Bren?”
He’d asked me a question and I hadn’t answered.
I swallowed. “I, uh, the symbol was on a flag at the-the side of a tent. And I saw it on a guard’s jacket, I think?”
“Shit! Dress quickly. We have to find the dragons.”
“What?!”
“The dragons. We have to interrupt them, convince them to fly.”
“But—”
“Bren, you found an enemy camp, less than a day’s flight from our border. For all we know they could have been using the storm for cover. They could already have transported… fuck!”
He stormed over to the bedroll and began rolling it up. The trill in my stomach when I saw those thick, calloused hands gripping the roll tightly and was reminded of him gripping me died quickly when he looked at me.
“There’s no time to waste, Bren. We have to get back. We have to inform the King. Now.”