But then I remember her dishonesty.
That’s why I’ve been so curt with her lately. I’m afraid that if I allow myself even a second of reprieve—if I allow her back into my heart—the damn floodgates keeping the last remnant of my sanity at bay will shatter unequivocally when she inevitably lies to me again.
“Imiryion to Killian. Did you hear what I just said? Dragons are real!”
My attention snaps back to Aimee, her brows furrowed as she awaits my reaction.
“I heard you, umbra, and I’m not surprised. Myths have a tendency to be real in this realm. I’ve heard rumors during my long existence, but I assumed they had perished long ago.”
“I can assure you K’haram is very much alive,” the human butts in.
“And he’s willing to meet with us?” I ask the pressing question. If we can secure an alliance not only with the humans, but with the dragon that protects them, it would give us the edge we need to win this war.
Vampires are weak in the face of Morweena’s sinister influence. Humans can be slaughtered, or worse, turned and thus mind-controlled. But a dragon is immutable. A sacrosanct magical being that not even Morweena can control.
“That is what Celine and Kahlya are negotiating with K’haram right now. That is why they couldn’t greet you or take part in this dinner. But I am sure they’ll explain everything in great detail tomorrow, once the effects of the trance ritual are gone.”
“Oh, Mael, you have to explain what this trance ritual entails, especially if we’ll have to undergo it too,” Aimee quips animatedly, her eyes shining with childish curiosity.
Sometimes I forget how young she really is. That under her carefully constructed facade of stoicism and badassery, there still hides a young girlwho was deprived of a happy childhood, a warm and loving home, or a nurturing family.
Maybe that was my mistake.
I wanted so badly to give her the world, to be the one that helps her heal her wounds, that I did not stop to think for one second if she could give me the same in return. I just assumed that because I loved her with an all-consuming intensity, she felt the same. That because I was honest with her about my past and my shortcomings, she’d be just as transparent with me.
But maybe some wounds are so deep and festering, it takes much more than love to heal them.
“It involves taking a mind-clearing desert flower called Cistanchea. We grind it into a powder and consume it blended with mahia,” the human answers.
“So it’s a drug?” Aimee questions further.
“No, no, no,” the human laughs, leaning closer to her chair again. “A drug alters the mind, producing hallucinations. Cistanchea opens unused pathways that allow us to communicate with K’haram in a language we can understand. It’s like having a waking dream, somehow.”
“Fascinating,” Aimee whispers. “But how did your ancestors communicate the first time? How did they know to use this plant for such a purpose?”
I can see her mental wheels spinning behind those striking amber eyes of hers, and my shadows hunger to have her gaze upon us, for her to look at us with open curiosity and fascination, like she once did.
“I can tell you all about it later, if you wish. We can go somewhere more private after dinner. Let’s not bore your companion with our conversations,” he says, lifting his hand and twirling a single lock of her hair between his fingers.
I see fucking red.
“Get your unworthy hands off her, you bastard,” I seethe, my shadows exploding from my skin with a hiss. Before I think better of it, I blink into nonexistence and materialize in a fury of crimson, pushing the human away from the table and pinning him against the wall, one hand wrapped in a vice around his easily breakable throat.
“I am not her companion, you vapid ass,” I spit through clenched teeth. “She. Is.Mine.”
“Killian!”
Aimee jumps from her seat, pulling on my arms frantically, but I don’t budge. The human shit is wheezing as I clench my fingers around his neck.
“Don’t you ever dare to touch her again, do you hear me? Or I swear on Akaori, I’ll eviscerate your guts where you stand, and I don’t care what retaliation comes my way. I will let this entire motherfucking realm burn to the ground, without even an ounce of remorse. Nod if you understand, motherfucker.”
The human barely nods, his face turning purplish-blue before I release him and he falls in a heap to the ground.
“Killian, you brute,” Aimee wails from next to me, and I turn to see tears marring her beautiful skin.
“You can’t do that,” she says between hiccups, and her whole body trembles. It’s agony to see her this way, panic filling her golden eyes, and I take one step toward her, but she immediately retreats.
“Umbra,” I say, regret filling me as the distance between us increases. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
