“It matters to me.”I could hear the emotion in Nyx’s voice. I felt for him. He had lost his brother once, and it was easy to tellhe was terrified that he hadn’t truly gotten him back. But even from the outside, I could see he was stifling Kol with his need to keep him close.
Love was suffocating. Not that I had ever suffered from the malady, nor ever would.
“You can’t magically turn me back into the fae you want me to be.”Kol’s tone didn’t leave room for argument. He probably wanted to be here less than I did.
“You’re still him.”
“No, you want me to still be him.”Kol’s lips pulled back, and in that moment, he looked more dragon than fae.
Nyx remained shockingly calm. “You’re still my brother.”
“And I’m different now. Still your brother, but not the same fae you knew. Can you just accept that?” Kol snapped.
“So what does that mean?”
Kol’s expression turned from anger to sorrow, and there was a long pause before he spoke. “I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
Before I realized the conversation was over, the cabin door was wrenched open, and Kol strode from the room into the hallway. His eyes met mine a few feet away and held them. I knew I was caught eavesdropping and I couldn’t cover it up, but I wasn’t sure what the dragon would do about it. He held my stare for a long moment, then turned and walked the other way.
The sun was just consideringit’s appearance and most of the crew would be asleep for another hour at least.I was walking the deck, ensuring the rigging was tight and the course was correct. I enjoyed these moments in the early dawn. It would be the perfect time to fly, but that luxury was not available to me. Iloved that there was even less crew than usual, though, and I had the deck to myself.
Well, almost.
“What are you doing up?” I asked the figure sulking around in the shadows.
Kol revealed himself, stepping into the lamplight. He looked much better than he had when he boarded the ship a week ago, but he was still ghostly pale and half-dead looking. “Restless,” he grunted, like speech was hard for him, and maybe it was.
“Don’t like ships?” I asked, treating him like I would any other passenger.
“Ships are fine.” His nostrils flared. He knew what I was, but did he know I was the dragon who hauled him out of that hell? “Living is hard wherever I am.”
I studied him. He looked a wreck. Like I imagined one of those undead creatures they talk all about looks. I’ve been lucky enough not to have actually seen one myself, but I could be convinced I was in the presence of one, the way he was alive and yet somehow, not. I wasn’t as sure as the rest of them that Kol hadn’t been turned, but it wasn’t my call, so I'd left it alone.
“Then what has you restless?” I asked. “If I looked as bad as you do, I’d stay in bed for a month.”
Kol shrugged. “I’ve been laid up at least that long, with my brother babying me to boot. I’m sick of it.”
“Is pacing around the deck better?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Who the fuck knows? Half the time I want to peel my skin off, at least when I’m not in bed, I can distract myself from it for a minute or two.”
“I’d offer to help you, but I’m fresh out of peelers. I might have an ice pick. I could offer you a lobotomy.”
Kol laughed, and it was the first time I’d seen him make anything but that tormented, distant expression. “I’d accept, butI think my brother would kill you, and I can’t have that on my conscience. Not on top of everything else.”
“Bit heavy, is it?”
“Have you seen him?” Kol scoffed.
“Nyx?”
“Yeah,” Kol confirms. “He’s not himself.”
“So he’s not normally a stick in the mud?” My words earned another laugh.
“Well, no. Serious, yes, all of that—” He gestures in the general direction of their cabin. “But no. He used to be something beyond his grief.”
“It’s consumed him.” I didn’t know him any other way, but I could see the hold it had on him.
