Damn them all for their cruelty.
Ryper started to pour more ale, then tossed the goblet away and drank from the pitcher instead. “Why are you here when you have Tanis upstairs waiting for you?”
That was an easy question to answer. “Because I’m an idiot.”
“Well, at least you know it.”
Dash tossed a small loaf of bread at his brother. “Why don’t you go to bed and sleep it off?”
“Eventually. Not drunk enough yet.”
Dash would be concerned, except he knew that Ryper wouldn’t get too drunk.
Neither of them dared. Their past didn’t let them. They couldn’t trust enough in others to be that out of control of their mental facilities.
Or their sword arms.
Especially not Dash. Even without a bounty on his head, he’d always had to guard against assassins and betrayers. Those who would love to see him dead for no other reason than he wore a crown.
And he couldn’t stay here all night. They had a long march ahead of them and probably a battle. While they could use an elfin portal to take them from here to the ruins where he’d found Renata’s body, it was still going to be a long way to get to his palace.
Where he had an enemy waiting for him.
Along with a spy they had yet to find.
There was more than a good chance they’d be fighting again tomorrow.
Rising, he clapped Ryper on the back. “Get to bed soon.”
“I will. Night, brother.”
Dash ruffled his hair. It was rare for either of them to use that word for each other. They would use it for others, but rarely between themselves for fear of someone realizing what Tanis had.
Such knowledge could only endanger both their lives. It was the same reason why neither of them ever spoke a single word about their mother out loud.
Not even to each other.
That knowledge was lethal to both of them.
She wasn’t just royalty...
Makkuro Naomi was a man-eating she-demon who lived to prey on others. Only one person had ever survived going up against her.
Their father.
Cratus’s saving grace? Somehow, he’d managed to make her fall in love with him. That bizarre relationship baffled Dash to this day.
Well... perhaps not as much as it used to. Tanis was beginning to open his eyes to how his parents must have felt. To love someone even though you knew it was impossible to have them.
Maybe that was their real family curse. They could only love the ones they were destined to lose.
With a sigh, he headed back to bed where a beautiful dragon waited for him.
Along with all the fears that went with her. She was a part of him now. A vital part he didn’t want to lose the way his father had lost his mother.
But it wasn’t his place to ask her to stay.
What if she really is banished?
