“Save me?” I repeated as Dirk limped back into the clearing wide-eyed and confused. “I wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t marked me.”
The words were cold and sharp, but I kept my voice controlled. Dirk Dvorak wasnotgoing to get the better of me again.
“Ella …”
“This is all your fault, Dirk,” I continued, pushing right past his protest, everything now bubbling to the surface. “I didn’t ask for any of it.”
“I know,” he said gently. “I know. Trust me, I …”
I scoffed. That was rich. “Trust you? Why should I? You haven’t given me a single reason to. You’ve taken from me, stolen my freedom by putting these stupid marks on me, and now what? You have regrets? You’ve decided this isn’t for you, that I’m not for you, and that you’re going to just push me away and leave?”
Dirk stared back at me, impassive and unemotional. I had hit home. I must have. He must have sensed how broken I was, and now he was rejecting me, casting me aside.
Just like any other Elite when they were done with my kind.
“You don’t get to control me,” I told him, my anger at the entire situation spilling out like an avalanche of quiet cold. “Am I clear?”
“Ella. I don’twantto control you.”
“Then how do you explainthese?” I hissed, grabbing at my side without lifting my shirt. No way was I going to give him the satisfaction of seeing his mate marks on me at that moment. “They look very much like you doing what you wanted to me. And now you’re realizing you don’t actually want the toy, so you’re trying to put it back. Typical Elite behavior. You do what you want, take what you want from those weaker, and when you’re done, you just cast it aside. You don’t care at all about the effects of your actions.”
I cast the words at him, laced with my own insecurities, my own fears that he didn’t want me, not because he was bored but because he knew the truth. That I was broken, unworthy of being the Ice Prince’s mate. To Dirk, the Ice Princess likely had to be someone whole. Someonepure.
Something ugly and dark flickered through Dirk’s eyes as he stared at me, waiting for my icy tirade to die down.
Probably him wishing he’d never come running when I cried out.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Despite the constant reminder you decided to inflict on me, I don’t plan on forcing you to keep me around. You don’t have to worry about that.”
I didn’t want to keep him around, but for once, I wanted it to bemychoice. Not his.
“Ella.”
“No,” I said, chopping at the air with my hand. “Just no. You and your dragon can leave, like you were trying to do all along. It seems to be the theme for dragons lately anyway.”
Dirk frowned at me, but he didn’t leave. Why wouldn’t he just go and spare us both? Did I have to be even meaner to him?
“What’s that supposed to mean? Who else left you?”
I looked away, cursing silently. The last thing I had any desire to do was tell Dirk the most recent development of mine. I had enough failures to deal with.
He cleared his throat when I declined to answer. “Ella, I’m sorry about what my dragon did,” he said, speaking slowly while choosing his words carefully. “But you have to know that the marks wouldn’t appear unless your dragon felt the same.”
Eyes and cheeks burning for completely opposite reasons, I glared at him. “Well, you took her from me too, so I can’t yell at her for that. You get the top prize instead.”
In an instant, everything about Dirk changed. His posture relaxed, and his eyes dimmed slightly in the darkness.
“I took your dragon from you?” he asked softly with enough emotion to almost convince me he was concerned. Perhaps that he even cared.
That couldn’t be, though. Elites like him didn’t care about Clippys like me. Decades of being stalked by Hunters and multiple horrific experiences at the hands of the Elite could not be undone by a few weeks of him and his brother being nice. The world just didn’t work that way, no matter what they pretended. Right?
Anna seemed convinced they weren’t pretending. That Caz wasn’t, at least. Could the same be said about Dirk? I pushed that thought aside.
“Are you referring to the fact you haven’t been able to shift again?” Dirk asked. “I didn’t do anything to take your dragon away. I don’t think that’s possible.”
He seemed thoroughly worried about me and my claim. Almost like he did care. Or perhaps he was a very good actor.
But why would he bother with acting? He could just leave if that’s what he truly wanted to do, yet he’s still here.
