Page 66 of Ashborne: Defiance

‘Are you trying to be an asshole?’

‘No. It’s just how the Creator made me.’

I snorted, but my humor was short-lived. ‘Kham, I’m trying really hard to be a good man here.’

‘Have you asked her?’

‘Asked her what?’

‘What she believes would be good? In regards to you? Whether she might want the bond?’

‘I am not putting my future in the hands of a rich little princess who thinks she’s on an adventure! That’s the whole reason I’m rejecting—’

‘No. It’s not.’

If I’d been speaking out loud, I would have snapped my mouth closed.

Kham, my dragon, was compassionate, thoughtful, and wise. Very difficult to fluster. Steady as a rock. But if he was angered, he was fierce, and fearless. And his will was pure steel.

It had been years since he’d dominated me, but with those three, short words, I felt his stern, unwavering conviction press me to my bones. As if I had lied to him.

‘Kham, I’m not—’

‘I have always encouraged you to speak your mind boldly with me. Including the ways in which we disagree. But do not ask me to affirm the lies you tell yourself.’

My head snapped back like he’d slapped me.

Strange, tangled emotions roiled in my chest—too complicated and twisted for me to even understand what they were.

Kham remained in the link. He didn’t remove himself from me. He never had. But it felt as if I stood under a disapproving gaze. He wouldn’t let up.

‘I’ll find her,’ I muttered through the link and started after Grace again. But even though I found sign of her more than once, there was never enough of a trail to follow.

After half an hour of creeping around without locating her, I gave up and turned back to the campsite. In truth, after that exchange with Kham, I’d struggled to focus. I told myself that was how she evaded me. I didn’t want to examine the dark weight in my chest. Didn’t want to dig any deeper into why my dragon, who’d always been so patient and tender when I struggled, now expressed such disapproval.

But then, the dragons had always labored to understand what they described as our erratic natures. To a dragon, most things were either unimportant, or eternal. Kham was often baffled by the details that we humans gave such emphasis to.

Clothing.

Sex.

Food.

He always emphasized that the Creator would bring whatever was needed, and in its proper time. To waste energy worrying about it would only wear me out.

During those conversations, I just shook my head and tried not to let him see when I rolled my eyes.

Like other animals, the dragons seemed to accept wherever they were placed, and make the best of any situation they found themselves in, rather than looking back with regret, or self-recrimination. Or judgment.

I couldn’t live that way, with an unguarded back.

Though, I loved that Kham didn’t judge me. Which made it all the more unsettling when he was displeased.

I thought about the conversation on the way back to the campsite. But something in my chest tightened whenever I asked myself why he’d accused me of lying to myself. I didn’t have the energy to dig into that.

Maybe when we got back to Vosgaarde?

If there was a Vosgaarde to return to, as a Furyknight.