Page 11 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

HOLD ON

“ K at!” a whisper splits through my sleep. “Kat!”

I drag my eyelids open and stare up at the shadows stretching across the expansive ceiling. A hand is wrapped around my shoulder and shaking me gently. I turn to the voice, and my vision swims from grogginess.

“What?” I murmur, partly confused and dazed.

Cole is kneeling at my bedside, his eyes round with worry. He stops shaking me, but his hand is still tight around my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

I blink and rub my eyelid with the heel of my hand. “What? Yes. Why?”

He watches me cautiously. “You…you kept crying ‘hold on.’ ”

I fling up off my back and whip my head toward Marge’s bed, the one next to mine. She still snores peacefully, and the rest of the beds are occupied with snoozing squad members.

“I…I did?” I whisper, dragging my gaze back to him.

It has to mean something. After dreaming of flames for so long, now all I can think or dream of is my brother? Perhaps Marge is right. Perhaps there’s an underlying meaning.

Cole nods. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

I swallow, looking down at my hands. Anyone else I might be hesitant to share, but before all else, Cole was my friend first. My confidant. Admitting such a personal thing to him almost feels like second nature. “I umm…I keep dreaming about my brother. All our memories and the day he died.”

“I get it. I still dream about—” He glances around the room to check and make sure no one else is awake. A heavy breath sags his shoulders before he continues, “My mother. Sometimes it’s nice to see them again. But still painful, all the same.”

Nodding, I look back down at my hands again, to his ring around my finger.

I’ve been removing the gloves at night, since Marge suggested I only need to wear them outside in public.

I pinch the metal ring and spin it around my finger, working up the nerve to remove it and hand it back to him.

It just feels so…natural on my finger. Like it belongs there.

You’re just heartbroken that you can’t live in the reality of marrying him.

Clinging to the familiar. Give it back ? —

He rests a gentle hand atop mine, stilling my fidgeting. My heart skips a beat, and I twist my neck to look down at him, where he still kneels.

His eyes are a perfect, soft amber, his whisper like a summer breeze, “And I used to dream of you a lot, too. I…I still do.”

Before I can respond, he removes his hand from mine and pats the bed thoughtfully.

Avoiding my eyes as if he’s embarrassed by the admission, he pushes up to his feet.

Before I can stop it, the memory of the months I spent haunted by dreams of fire, my mother, and the family back in Hornwood I failed to save, flood me.

The only time I can recall not dreaming was when Cole was next to me.

As if his mere presence chased away all the fear and nightmares.

A lifeline. I’m desperate for sleep and unwillingly longing for his steadfast comfort.

“Wait,” I blurt, before I can stop myself. “Can you…can you stay with me?”

He scans the room, squinting through the dim starlight spilling in from the sets of windows, his jaw tense. As far as anyone knows, we’re siblings. And though we’re no longer in Arterias, no longer in the military outpost, it still feels necessary to keep up the front. He was…or is engaged?

Part of me wonders if pretending we’re so platonic will protect the both of us from getting involved further.

It’s a clear line in the sand we should not be crossing.

And besides, I’m not quite ready to admit the truth to the others.

We’ve spent months lying to them about my true identity…

and we already have enough tension between our groups.

A new confession may break what thin ice we’re currently standing on.

My fear outweighs everything else. And there’s still a part of me drawn to Cole that I can’t deny. “Until I fall asleep. Please…” I whisper. “It doesn’t have to be anything other than what we make it.”

Flinching when he recognizes the pain in my voice, he turns his hazel eyes to me. “You’re sure?”

I nod and open the sheets with eyes that tip toward a silent plea. Please…don’t make me ask again.

His body is rigid, holding onto his breath as he slides into bed next to me.

The mattress sinks under his brawny frame.

But rather than curling his muscled body around me and holding me in his arms as he always did, he keeps a courteous distance between us.

We both lie on our sides, facing each other.

He slides one hand beneath the pillow to brace his head, and the other lies in front of his chest on the mattress.

The moonlight washes his features in a softness, his expression a touch heavier than peace.

As his eyes lock with mine, I swallow down the thickness collecting in the back of my throat.

The tip of his nose is only six inches from mine.

It’s the closest we’ve been in a while. With nowhere to look but each other, my gaze flicks down to the soft set of his lips.

Inches. Just inches away. I feel myself being pulled into him like a tide, reeling me in.

Marge’s snore hits its loud, ragged peak, and both of us flinch before melting into silent chuckles.

“Why is it always the ones who snore the loudest fall asleep first?” he whispers.

Biting my bottom lip to keep myself from laughing, I flick his hand.

The urge swimming in my chest to kiss him recedes.

For a moment. And I’m wearing his godsdamned fiancée’s bracelet Melaina gave me.

What kind of woman does that make me? Foolish?

Heartless…? Definitely jealous, even if I don’t want to admit it.

The humor in his face falls into something serious. “What? What is it?”

I shake my head. Not wanting to give my emotions words. Not right now.

He slides his hand across the mattress until the outside of his pinky finger touches mine. The most innocent way to touch me. But the way his eyes dig into my soul, they flay my heart like the butcher he is. “You can talk to me. You know that. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

But friends don’t steal glances across a crowded room.

And they don’t share a bed after midnight, staring into each other’s eyes with smiles that hint at how much they want to lean in and touch like they’re starved.

Every time he looks at me this way, it crushes me.

Because I know he shouldn’t. Just like I shouldn’t want him to.

“Friends?” I chuff out.

“It hurts me, too, you know,” his whisper cracks. “What else do I call you? What do you want me to call you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kat…” He threads his fingers into the backs of mine.

“Don’t…” I mutter and slide my hand out of his. “It’s not fair. Because if you keep touching me, I won’t want you to stop.”

A broken sigh. “I’m sorry I put us here…”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Okay…okay. Get some rest. I won’t leave until you’re asleep.”

“Thank you,” I murmur, lost in the honey pools of his irises until I drift off to sleep.

The rest of the night is dreamless. I wake the next morning to a tingling beneath my ribs, like fire ants have been set free underneath my skin.

Flinching forward, I yank my shirt up, catching only a glimpse of rippling skin as my wound heals completely.

The only remnant is a faint four-inch-long scar on my ribs.

I touch the skin, as if I’ll blink and it’ll have been a hallucination. But even the pain has faded to only a dull ache. Scanning the rest of the room, I find Cole gone and Archie’s concerned gaze.

“Are you alright?” Archie asks from a few beds down.

I nod. “I…I think so?”

“What was that?” Daeja grumbles, her voice rough with sleep.

“My wound is gone. It wasn’t your doing?”

“No. Or…at least, I don’t think so?”

I lean into my side, testing the muscles. Even though I’m partly relieved it doesn’t sting like it has been, the lack of it strikes a hot flash of alarm through me. Because if it wasn’t Daeja…who was it? Or what was it?

“You could feel it, too?”

“Yes, it woke me up.”

After I dress and grab the book under my bed, I slip out of the room to head for Sethan’s office.

After requesting a private audience, the guards at the entrance let me through.

Sethan sits at his massive wooden desk, its legs carved into clawed feet.

The rich mahogany gleams in the sunlight sparkling through the sets of diamond-patterned windows lining the walls.

A large rug, colorful and worn, spans the space around his desk, covering most of the gray stone tiles.

I glance toward the several bookshelves lining the wall, searching for the spot where Sethan pulled the dragon journal from originally.

“Yes?” Sethan asks, not bothering to pause or look up from the letter he’s writing.

I take the book and lift it for him to see. “I wanted to return this to you.”

“And?”

I stride across the room, stopping at the edge of his desk, and drop the book onto his desk a few inches from the letter he’s writing. The move isn’t enough to gather his attention, so I place my fingertips on the cover of the journal and stare at him.

I clear my throat. “So, Daeja is a moon dragon.”

Finally, he looks up. “Great. That’s all you’ve come to tell me? We’ve already had this conversation. As you can see, I’m quite busy right now.”

He’s still pissed about our last encounter.

But so am I. Except, I’m willing to push away my feelings to do what is right.

As I lean forward, readying myself for a bite of a response, a glimmer of light catches my attention in my peripheral vision.

Turning to the shine, a streak of sunlight glitters on a gold frame hanging on the wall.

The canvas its framing is shredded, with bits of colored scraps still hanging limply like ribbons.

I wince, unable to imagine what or who could have caused it.