Page 212 of Ashborne: Defiance

He tore his gaze away and scanned the clearing behind me as if searching for a lifeline. The pit in my stomach widened to a chasm. “There are things in my past. Things you want no part of—believe me. And they… Grace, there’s some things you can’t unsee, or undo. Things that are better left in the dark, but you carry them. That’s not your fault,” he rasped. “It’s mine.”

I would have laughed. Actually laughed. But if I did, I worried I might lose my mind and never stop. Everything inside me screamed for him. Ached for him. Yearned. All that bubbling, unsated want, all the fearful thoughts. They were all because he refused me.

He’d even tried to escape me the night I passed the flying assessment. In the alley next to the tavern, he’d been about to run. He’d only stopped because I killed that man and—

My stomach heaved and I staggered back a step. Voski went still, staring like a hunted animal.

“That’s why you’re coming to hold me at night?” I said hoarsely, through sheets of tears. “That’s why you’re helping me? Not because you care, but because this bond requires it of you?”

He dropped his head and his hair fell between us. “No, it’s not that. I do care. I just…”

“You don’t want to care,” I breathed the words, a part of me slain by them. But they held the weight of conviction. Of truth. And when he grimaced, I was no longer confused. Instead, I was devastated. I turned my back on him, looking for Koa, for comfort. But she and Kham had stayed deeper in the forest to give us space to talk.

“Grace, please,” Voski said hoarsely.

I shook my head, though everything in me wanted to turn, to throw myself into his arms and beg him to reconsider. But I already knew how that ended. I couldn’t let him keep hurting me. I couldn’t keep giving him that chance. I may not have known about the bond, but he’d made himself abundantly clear.

Perhaps it was a mercy. Perhaps he’d been kind not to tell me when he didn’t want it?

That thought broke me. I would have been ecstatic to accept the bond—if I’d known it existed. But, I couldn’t keep living with this torment. This unsated yearning. Voski pulled at me. And he wouldn’t give in. I would be dangled out, like a dying fish on a line.

I couldn’t do it.

‘Koa?’

‘I am here.’

I choked on the next inhale, my body quivering with the turmoil of unrequited need. ‘He says he’s rejected the bond. He wants it to die. What happens if I reject it also?’

‘A rejected bond is sad. A sad, sad thing,’ Koa sent.

‘I know that,’ I had felt it. ‘But, what happens?’

I felt her agitation, but she never failed me. She only showed me the truth. In a mix of words and images, she showed me.

‘The bond is tender sapling that grows into guardian of the forest. But it must be watered. Love. Light. If two dragons are called, but reject the bond… it dies.’

The image in my head was of a sweet, small plant sprouted, but was deprived of sun and water, so died before its time.

Voski had been right? All it needed was me to reject it also?

“Grace, I’m sorry.” Voski’s voice was ragged. Tortured. He sounded like I felt.

“I don’t want your pity,” I mumbled. “I need freedom. I can’t live like this. I need light.”

“You are light, Grace.”

“Then why—?” I whirled to face him and cut off as our eyes met. His were bloodshot and wild. Terrified. Miserable. Just like me. But I wasn’t the one who ran. “You are a coward.”

He flinched, but held his ground. “You don’t understand—”

“You’re right, I don’t! But I was never given the chance to understand. Never.”

“It was wrong. I know I was wrong. I’ve been wrong. But there’s so much more—it has nothing to do with you—”

“Then, I don’t need to hear it.”

His face went blank. He stared at me through messy strands of hair that he’d raked with his hands too many times, so they fell like scattered grasses. His throat bobbed and he reached for me, but I backed away, shaking my head.