Page 34 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

“Rebels. Could be both. Though…if you haven’t taken off those gloves, I imagine it’s me they’re after.

” He points over to the bar top where the tenders are missing.

Beyond it is a wooden door. “Go through there, and it’ll take you out to the alleyway.

A’nala and Daeja will meet us there. I’ll watch your back. ”

“But what about?—”

“Go!” He shoves me. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Crouching, I slink against the wall to the bar top and slip behind it to find a woman lying dead in a pool of blood, a dagger sunk hilt-deep into her throat. Her blank eyes stare up at the ceiling. Guilt swarms me, drying out my mouth. If the masked person followed us here, this is all my fault.

Shoving my fear and sadness aside, I tiptoe over her body.

Blood wets my boots, and I creak open the door before sliding through it.

Clenching my hand around the hilt of my dagger at my side, I make my way through a dusty, dimly-lit storage room until I find another door.

Tossing a glance over my shoulder, Sethan nods from behind me.

I unbolt the latch, and we spill out into the cobblestone street, sunlight flashing over us.

Daeja’s shadow looms overhead, blocking out the sun, and she lowers her muzzle to sniff the side of my head.

“I’m fine. Unharmed,” I assure her, wiping off her blood-smattered maw. I turn and ask Sethan, “Where are the others? Has anyone been able to get the civilians out?”

A’nala lifts her massive red head and freezes. Sethan looks up and follows her gaze to something in the distance, before he swings his brown gaze back to me. “They’re working on it, don’t worry. We need to…hey! Where do you think you’re going?” He snatches my forearm.

I swallow against the tension in my throat. “I have to go back. I have to help. The reason they’re here is because of me.”

“You don’t know that. More than likely, they were feeling daring with some ale, saw an opportunity to kill me while I was unsuspecting, and took it.”

“No…because the one Daeja pulled out of the window was the same one who tried to shoot us back in the forest after you and A’nala left.”

He drops my forearm. “What?”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to admit I was wrong, and you were right.”

“What happened to not telling them?” Daeja grumbles.

“If I told them, perhaps we could have avoided this. Perhaps no one had to die. Not being honest was a mistake.”

Sethan sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. And I swear A’nala has the same exact expression.

As I retrieve the sword sheath on Daeja’s saddle and withdraw my blade, I mutter, “I made a mistake. But let me correct it, let me go back and save those people.”

“I can’t. If you die, those people die in vain. And the rest of the realm will suffer a similar fate.”

“And I can’t just stand by waiting!”

“You can, and you will!” he roars.

I lurch forward. “When are you going to understand I am not yours to command!”

“When you take your head out of your ass and realize this is much bigger than you!”

Clenching my teeth to silence my rage, my breath comes out of my nose in loud puffs. I stare him down, tightening my grip on my sword and about ready to brush past him.

He continues, a touch softer, “As a leader, you’ll make mistakes.

Mistakes that will hurt the people around you, and you’ll have to live with that burden the rest of your life.

But that is the vow we make when we step into a role like this.

You have to look outside of yourself and what you want.

Do you think I ever wanted to leave Melaina and her mother?

Do you know how many nights I spent breaking over the fact I had to leave them in Arterias?

How sometimes I felt like I needed to tie myself down from running back to rescue them? ”

My breathing slows, and I tear my gaze away to look down toward the side of the building. Where the snapping of dragon jaws, shouts, and blade against blade rings out.

“It is not easy…” His voice lowers. “And it’s not fair. This isn’t a role I wish on anyone. But if you don’t, then no one will.”

I look up at him as he places a hand on my shoulder.

“This was my mistake, too. Gods be damned, I shouldn’t have given into your stubbornness and left you out alone. And I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard on our first riding lesson,” he says.

“Is that an apology?”

His head snaps back toward the building, mirroring A’nala. When he sweeps his attention back to me, he says, “It sounds like they’ve captured the last rebels.”

“How many casualties?” I say as we stride around the tavern toward the entrance, Daeja and A’nala hot on our tails.

“One bartender, and several of the rebels. Quite foolish of them to think they could take us down, considering our entire thunder is here.”

“Thunder…?”

“A group of dragons,” he answers.

We meet the rest of the dragon riders near the front entrance of the tavern and find them exchanging three masked rebels with soldiers dressed in their metals.

Sethan commands the Driftmond guards to escort the rebels to the northeastern most part of the continent to a city called Millton, where they’ll be interrogated before deciding their fates.

Depending on the vote of the council there, they’ll either be executed by dragonfire or thrown into the prison there to live out the rest of their lives as traitors.

Once the remaining rebels are whisked away by the Driftmond guards, Sethan orders the other dragon riders to dispose of the bodies.

Daeja with her round pleading eyes begs me wordlessly to participate with the rest of the fire dragons in burning the bodies.

I swear her tail quivers when she almost bounces off after them behind the tavern.

Sethan and I work on cleaning up the shattered glass from the inside of the tavern with brooms from the storage room.

He encourages the rest of the remaining patrons to leave, despite their willingness to help clean the place up.

To me, it feels like a small way of apologizing for being the catalyst of an attack.

I can’t help but glance over at the bar top, where the bartender’s body was.

How those she knows and loves will have to mourn her death—all because I was too proud to warn Sethan about the rebels Daeja and I saw in the forest.

“Her family will be sent an allowance,” Sethan mumbles, not looking up from plucking a shard of glass from the floor.

“Whenever someone is wrongfully killed, part of our taxes pay the family so they don’t have to worry about finances.

It was a policy I installed knowing I might have put strain on Melaina and her mother when they thought I died. ”

I pull my attention off the bar and continue sweeping the glass.

“If you’re going to feel guilty, use it as power. Don’t let it eat at you,” he says.

I stop from sweeping a pile of glass to look at him. “You could use more practice, if that’s your attempt at making me feel better about it.”

He shrugs and says something, but all I hear is Daeja warning, “Incoming in three…two…”

As I swing my attention to one of the busted windows where she is outside, the tavern door swings open and slams against the wall.

“What kind of shit were you trying to pull?” Cole roars, gunning straight for Sethan. “You could have fucking killed her!”

Before he can close the space between him and Sethan, I drop my broom and slide in front of him, blocking his path. “Stop. It wasn’t his fault the tavern was attacked?—”

“I’m not talking about the tavern,” he growls, eyes still burning into the man standing behind me. “I’m talking about him knocking you out of the sky.”

“How did you possibly see that?” I hiss half under my breath and shove him back. I can’t imagine his terror if he watched me free-falling from the sky. But now is not the time.

Sethan calls cooly, “But I didn’t kill her now, did I?”

That sends Cole into a frenzy, another crack splitting through his uncontrolled anger.

I slam my palms against his chest and push him back step by step. “Knock it off!”

His molten hot glare tugs off Sethan for a moment to meet mine. That unfiltered, raw rage burns inside his irises like fire. I flinch under the intensity, as if caught in a wild inferno that might consume me if I don’t douse it. His eyes float back up to Sethan, hooking into him.

I seize his collar in a fist and growl, “Get out. Now.”

He has to physically tug his chin away to tear his gaze off Sethan. Leading him by the shirt, I yank him out and away from the tavern, out of the town, and closer to the trees.

Once we are completely alone, I let go of him and turn to face him head on. “You need to get a grip on yourself, Cole. You can’t keep having outbursts like that. Not when we are already walking on eggshells with our own squad trying to keep them here in the Dragon Lands!”

“He put your life in danger.”

I rub a hand over my face, exhaustion wearing on me. “It’s not your place to defend me like that all the time.”

“I will defend you until my last breath, Kat. Stop faulting me for it!”

“I am not some simple, fragile little girl anymore!” My blood rushes in my ears, nearly drowning out any voices of reason in my head. “When are you going to learn I don’t need your protection?”

“When I feel like you’re able to defend yourself!”

I freeze, stunned at the confession. Though the truth of it has always lingered in the back of my mind that he doesn’t trust I can take care of myself.

His voice dips dangerously low. “The truth is, if I hadn’t protected you all those years ago, you might not have survived.”

I crinkle my nose. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means before you actually let me help you rebuild your fishing trap years ago, I was the one who snuck over to the river in the early mornings before the sun was up to put fish in the trap?—”

“What are you talking about? That was years before?—”

He flicks out an expressive hand gesture. “Exactly my point!”

“Why would you do something like that?”

“Because you’re incredibly stubborn. You don’t ask for help when you need it. And you especially don’t like to be seen as weak?—”

“Because I’m not weak!” I slap a hand to my chest.

“No…you’re not…” His eyes soften slightly, holding my gaze in a headlock. “But you have this twisted idea that you can’t ask for help when you need it, and that is what makes you weak.”

“ That ’s your excuse for practically tackling Sethan to the ground?”

“To him, you are a tool!” His fury spikes again.

“You are nothing but a means to an end to him, and it would be wise that you remember that. He doesn’t care about you—he only cares about what it’s going to take to save his people.

And he needs to be reminded you are a person.

People break. And if he pushes you too hard?—”

“No, you’re misguided. You’ve always been the one to take it too easy on me.”

“What is it you want from me, Kat? You want me to back off? You want me to step away and leave you alone? Then just come out and say it. Because I’m not going to stop until you do.”

The thought alone tears at my heart, an echo of pain rippling inside of my chest. As the pain recedes like a tide, it summons the betrayal from learning of his engagement with Celeste. “I want you to stop lying to me! Stop trying to protect me and tell me the fucking truth!”

“The truth?” He thunders closer, staring at me down his sharp nose. “You can’t handle honesty?—”

“Fucking try me!” I throw my hands out to the side, completely careless about who might hear us at this point.

“Alright. You know what? I had lied to you, you’re right.

I omitted the truth about Celeste. About being engaged.

I also lied to you all the times I was late meeting you at the river back in Padmoor.

It wasn’t because I was caught up playing tea parties with Arabella.

And I didn’t go days without seeing you at times because I had to help my father in the forge.

It was because my father beat the absolute,” he spits the next words out on the ground, “shit out of me when he found out I was using our coin to help you.”

My breath catches in my chest like a trapped bird, fluttering inside my ribcage begging to be freed. “What?”

He continues, “Vivian never hated you—she hated the idea of you. The effect you had on me. She hated that I loved you so much, I would give anything just for you to survive another day. I would put you above my own life. And when she walked in one day and found me unconscious, bleeding out at the hands of my father, she begged me to leave you. Cried for me to let you go.”

His anger subsides, his breath still heavy but his eyebrows pinch together as he shakes his head. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t… because you were and are everything to me.” His voice cracks. “My heart runs to you. Why can’t you see that?”

Rushing in like a current, flashes of memories flood me.

How I would sometimes wait hours by the river for him to come.

How mussed and flustered he looked when he finally did show.

I thought maybe he was only stressed from being late.

And the occasions where he would go days without meeting me had always angered me.

All this time, I thought he had other matters to attend to, and perhaps I wasn’t a priority for him.

But the dark rims around his eyes weren’t from lack of sleep in the times he did show up late.

They must have been bruises.

His chest heaves up and down, eyes burning into mine.

“So…forgive me for not telling you about the engagement. Forgive me that I love you. Forgive me that it shatters me to know I’m the one who fucked this all up, and I have no idea how to get back to you.

Forgive me that I fucking hate myself for pushing you so far away you fell into someone else’s arms?—”

“It was nothing…”

He blows out a heavy breath, eyes dragging away from me to take a break before they’re back. “I don’t believe you. You’re not that kind of person.”

“And you know what kind of person I am?”

“He will hurt you, Kat,” he croaks. “And I can’t stand the thought of seeing someone hurt you again. He will break. Your. Heart.”

“There’s not much more to break.” I push past him, avoiding his eye contact. “You made sure of that.”