“Yes. It’s not as bad as it seems. You’ll see.”
We climbed the stairs into the small plane we were using, and there were just two sets of seats on either side of the tiny aisle.
“Why aren’t we taking the portal?” I whispered.
“Because I want a nap,” Bel said. “You led us on a chase nearly eighteen hundred miles long with probably as many bodies.” He shook his head. “When you snap, you really snap.”
“Cram it, Bel.” Dorian growled at him and sat in the seats across from us.
His stare was melting me. And not in a good sense. I really felt like he was going to kill me the way he had killed Elex.
I hoped he’d at least let me come before he snapped my neck.
“Dorian…”
“No. Nothing from you, Kimber. Nothing.”
“I—”
“No.” He held his hand up. “Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
Blinking back tears, I curled into Aiko. He leaned into my ear. “It’s okay to cry, dearheart. Go ahead.”
I wept most of the way back.
Somehow, someway, I screwed up. I screwed everything up. And now, I hadn’t only lost Roran and Rilen, I was losing Dorian too. Was there a way to fix this?
They were his mates first. He had to be hurting, but did he blame me for this? I tried to get back. I wanted to save them. And when I couldn’t, I needed to avenge them.
The plane landed hours and thousands of tears later. Aiko had held me close the whole time, and I was glad for his warmth.
We descended the steps out of the plane and walked across the field to where more cars were waiting.
“Aiko?”
“Yes, Kimber?”
“Do you hate me for this?”
“No, but…” he paused, “you did kind of screw up. I’m not saying that their deaths are your fault in any way, but from what Lord Cato was telling us, you put yourself in harm’s way more than once because you were bored. That’s unwise. We’re not sure what your job is here, and everyone wanted you safe until they figured that out. Darting away in the stronghold was one thing. This was a whole other ball game.”
A wave of confusion rolled through me. “Wait. They aren’t mad about all the destruction I left in my wake?”
He grinned. “No, Kimber. They aren’t mad about that. We’re at war. In that aspect, you did quite well. You took out two major players and a gross of minor ones. That’s something they're really not upset about.”
They weren’t mad about my killing spree.
They were upset that I had left the safety of the stronghold.
“I wasn’t on the balcony without permission.”
“Lord Cato already explained it,” Aiko said.
“That man is infuriating,” I grumbled.
“Tell me about,” Gwen said from behind me. “But he was a king once, and there is usually a reason behind his madness.”
“Aren’t most of your other previous rulers dead?” I climbed into the car ahead of her and settled in the back row of the vehicle next to Dorian.
