Thisis something else.
“Tove, Ogdan, pull up the feeds and see what happened between the landing pad and the Warren,” Aeson orders.
“On it,” a husky, feminine voice replies from in front of us.
I turn my head to try to see the female I recall from my ride in the lirocar.
“Ooh, Tove, let me rub your head for good luck before you go,” I call out.
Several chuckles sound off around me, but when I try to track them, the movement sends a spike through my temple, and I’m forced to close my eyes to stave off the tunneling my vision starts to do.
Fuck, I’m tired.
“No naps just yet, Claws. I want your eyes on me,” Aeson barks.
“That’s not my name, you bossy fuck,” I snap and then titter when it comes out more like a drunken mumble.
“You tell him, Frills,” Chastain encourages.
“That’s not my name either,” I whine, and it takes all of my focus to get my lips and tongue to form the words correctly. “What did you do to me?” I demand, suddenly confused.
“Ever, did you grow up near a Source?” Lorn asks out of nowhere.
I wave a finger at him and tsk. “Nice try, Heir, but you’re not gonna trick me. Ooh, my mouth works again!” I declare excitedly when it doesn’t feel like I’m talking around a pound of sand in my mouth.
“I’m not trying to trick you. Source magic is a vital need for our kind. If you’re depleted, being near a Source can have…an effect,” Lorn explains, but I’m having a hard time focusing on his words and not the bright spots of light now dancing around his head.
How did lightning bugs get in here?
“I think you’re Source drunk, Princess,” Lorn tells me, flecks of amusement now dancing with the halo of lightning bugs.
I know what he just told me is of vital importance. It’s setting off warning bells in my mind, and I should really care about that. But there’s something else that’s really bugging me, and the need to know is shoving everything else out of the way.
My eyes leave Lorn and jump back to Aeson. “Why won’t you kill me?” I ask the commander, perplexed, but it comes out petulant.
Fiery blue eyes snap down to mine, shock and confusion blanketing his features. “Why would I do that?” he counters as though that’s an answer.
It’s not.
I hate when someone answers a question with a question. It’s a dodge, a way to exercise control or reclaim it. It’s another game, and I’m already so over playing them.
I don’t know what Enslee was thinking. It’s only been a couple of hours with The Horde, and I’m already fucking things up. Maybe the person I was before the blood brokers could have pulled this off, but I’m not her anymore. She was confident and capable, driven and focused. She would have had all these bastards eating out of her hand already.
I don’t even know what I am now. Judging by how battered and broken I feel, whatever it is, it’s not enough. Not anymore.
I huff out a sigh and rest my head against Aeson’s chest, too tired to continue to fight to hold it up. “Why?” I parrot, shaking my head. “Because you killed my dad. Not you specifically,” I correct with an amused snort as I nuzzle against him. “You would have been too young, your dragon too small. It was a bigger dragon that killed him.”
We stop moving.
“What did you just say?” Aeson demands, his voice slightly strangled and a little too loud in the now quiet corridor.
I bark out a laugh.
He asked that exact same question when I told him who I was.
I try to sit up in his arms, but my body screams a refusal. Aeson must see what I want and lifts me, bending his head so my mouth is closer to his ear.
“You think he was killed by wyverns,” I whisper, captivated by the goose bumps that abruptly rise on his dragon-marked neck. “But he wasn’t. I was there. I saw it. It wasdragons. But don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.”
