Page 73 of Connor and the Dragons

The frost shot out from under his feet in a white star, all at once, the way it did when he stopped holding it, and it crossed the stone and stopped at the toes of Connor’s boots.

“Kess, he wasn’t on the west facade. I knew where he was. I felt him.”

“And I should just believe that?”

I didn’t know how to explain it, not really, so I just shrugged.

Connor cleared his throat. “I yelled. Maybe he heard me?”

That wasn’t it, but it sounded more believable than what had really happened, so I nodded. “Keen dragon hearing.”

“So you knew where he was. You’re not a reckless, out of control idiot who barely has control of the monster inside him?”

“Yes,” I said, blinking back tears. “You know me, Kess. I care too much about both of you to take that kind of risk.”

Kessrin paced away with a low growl.

“I was frightened,” I said. “Harrowgate is powerful, and I did not want him to harm you. You’re precious and you need to be protected, especially in this state—”

“Oallian.”

“You went white, and the room went cold, and you were making frost and Connor was not in the room to stop any of it. And what would he have thought if he saw your frost? Frost is not elf magic—”

“Stop.”

“You asked me what I was thinking, and I am telling you what I was—”

“I said stop.”

Connor had gone very still.

“What’s he talking about?” Connor said. “What did Harrowgate do?”

“Nothing,” Kessrin said. “Harrowgate did nothing. It was all implications and flirtations, and that was too much for this callous ass.”

“Kess, I’m sorry,” Connor said. “I offered you to him like you were mine to lend, and then I left you alone in that room with him. I should never have put you in that position.”

“It was the mission. I agreed to it in the carriage, and I would do it again.” Kessrin’s eyes cut back to me. “If only he could recognize the danger of flirtation when you do it.”

Connor blinked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Nothing. I’m not talking about a single thing,” Kessrin snapped, narrowing his eyes at Connor.

Kessrin turned around, and in an instant, he was a dragon again, faster than I’d ever seen him transform. In the next blink, he was in the sky, his basket held firmly in his claws as he winged away towards home.

Vyranthos climbed my spine then, all at once, because something was wrong and his answer to something being wrong was to take what was his. The pull was for the cave, and for both of them inside it, and for the mouth of it packed shut with stone. I shoved him down, because that was not how we got them to love us.

Connor stood there for a long moment, watching him go, then he turned back to me, reached out, and brushed a tear from the corner of my eye with his thumb. “He did not mean it, about you being a monster.”

“But he did mean it about being angry.”

“Yes.”

“I did not intend to make it worse. I intended to make it stop. I couldn’t… the way Harrowgate was talking to him, it was too much. And you know how Kess looks when he is frightened.”

Connor lifted a hand to my cheek. “We’ll talk to him when we get home. It’ll be okay.”

“I messed up, didn’t I?”