Chapter 34

Thirty-Four

I may never want to see Drake Brayden's face again, but I still find myself loitering outside his business office the next day, pacing back and forth trying to make myself go inside the building and confront him. I wish I didn't have to see him face-to-face, but I don't have his number and wasn't about to ask Talon for it, so stalking him at his place of work was the only way I could think to have a conversation.

I was up most of the night before, tossing and turning, knowing what needed to be done but not wanting to admit it to myself. When the sun finally rose this morning I came to terms with what I have to do, but that doesn't mean it's easy to make myself do it.

I've been pacing for over a half hour when Drake shoves through the door and heads to his car. I force myself to hurry over to him before he can get in and drive off.

"I'll do it," I say, and Drake turns to face me. If he's surprised to see me, he doesn't show it.

"Do what?" he asks with a mild expression.

What a jerk . He's going to make me spell it out.

"I'll make a clean break from Becks and promise to never have a romantic relationship with him. And in exchange you will get the council to back off about this life-mate stuff. And when the time comes he'll be able to choose who he wants to be with without council interference."

He lifts his eyebrows. "You really think I'm going to agree to that."

I nod. "I don't just think, I know. Do you want to know how I know?"

He tilts his head as he regards me. "Enlighten me."

"I know that you're going to agree to this because you all are so scared of Becks picking someone magicless to mate with that you'll go to extremes to stop him. And I also know you're going to take this deal because it's the only way to keep me out of his life for good."

Drake's gaze turns calculating. "I'm comfortable with the current situation. Once he's mated in the fall, that will solve the issue."

"Do you really want to find out what happens if Becks is forced to choose between me and his duties as the dragon heir? Because chances are he'll choose to life-mate like you want him to—we both know how duty bound he is—but there's always a small chance he won't. And it's that small chance that has you scared."

I'm not bluffing. I can tell by how aggressively Drake has come at me that he's worried Becks will go against them. But I'm not willing to give up Becks forever for anything less than his guaranteed freedom of choice. He deserves to choose his own life-mate, even if that's never going to be me.

I stand my ground, waiting to see what Drake will do.

"Okay," he finally says. "I agree to those terms."

I nod, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief, but also a deep, aching pain in my chest.

"But you need to understand that you can't just tell him you don't want to be with him. That's not good enough. You have to do something to convince him there will never be a chance between you." Drake takes a step closer to me, crowding me to hit home his point. "You have to crush him."

I suck in a quick breath of air and my stomach roils. There's only one thing I can think of that will convince Becks I don't want to be with him anymore, but there'll be no coming back from this. Becks will never know why I've done this and might hate me forever for it. If I go through with this, it will truly be the end of us. And not just us as a couple, but our friendship as well. He'll see it as a betrayal and will probably never trust me again.

My heart screams at me, but I shove it in a box and bury it deep. I've committed to this path and now it's time to see it through.

"Got it. If you come through on your end, Becks and I will be through, forever."

"I need a favor."

Talon looks over at me as I keep pace with him in the hall at school the next day. I've received three text messages from Becks that he needs to talk to me. Each message sounds more urgent than the one before. I've ignored them all and gone to great lengths to avoid him at school this morning. There was a council meeting last night, so I already know what he's going to tell me. The council has had a change of heart and decided they won't require him to find a life-mate by graduation, nor choose or approve his future life-mate. He thinks this fixes everything between us. He has no idea I have to crush his heart before he can have a chance to give me the news.

"No," Talon says, and keeps walking.

"What do you mean no ?" I ask, taken aback.

He arches a brow at me. "I'm pretty sure you're aware what that word means."

I put a hand on his arm, stopping him, and he looks down at me impatiently.

"You owe me."

He barks out a laugh. "How do you figure?"

I start ticking off reasons on my fingers. "You wouldn't have made it through the last trial without me. I agreed to stay out of the way during the final trial. I'm going to do whatever I can to help you win Chaos. Should I go on?"

He sighs. "What do you want this time? Let me guess: you need help getting back together with your princeling?"

"The opposite. I need you to pretend to be dating me, so he knows we are over."

Shock registers on Talon's face but is wiped away quickly. "Giving up on him so soon?"

If he only knew.

"You can look at it that way."

Talon's gaze turns assessing. "No, that's not it. You're being forced to do this. Or feel like you have to."

My heart jumps into my throat. Is he a frickin' mind reader?

"It doesn't matter the reason. I just need to make it clear to Becks that we're over, and the only way he's going to believe me is if he thinks I've moved on."

Talon crosses his arms over his chest. "And you want to use me to make that point."

"He's already insecure about our friendship, so if I show him we're together, he'll believe it."

Taking my arm gently, Talon guides me to the side, out of any hallway traffic. "Freckles, you don't want to do this."

"You're right, I don't. But I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for him."

His eyebrows rise in question, but I refuse to tell him anything else.

"Are you going to help me or not?" I ask.

"I should say no."

I really didn't think this was going to be that hard of a sell. "I don't understand why you're not jumping at the idea. You always seemed to find great pleasure in sticking it to Becks or rubbing things in his face."

"This is different."

"How so?"

Talon takes a step forward, crowding me. My breath catches when his eyes roam over my face, and he raises a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. The pad of his finger rings the shell of my ear before he drops his hand, sending a shiver down my spine.

"Fine. I'll do it," he says rather than answer my question.

"Good," I say, swallowing to wet my throat and taking a step away from him. "We'll do it at lunch."

"Do it?" he says with a smirk, and I roll my eyes.

"I mean make it clear we're like a thing now, or whatever."

He leans a shoulder up against the wall, looking way too relaxed for the situation. "And how do you want us to do that?"

"We can meet up beforehand and walk into the courtyard holding hands or something."

He chuckles. "And you think that will convince your princeling you've moved on?"

I cross my arms over my chest, annoyed at his mocking tone. "Well, then, what do you suggest?"

He smirks. "The hand holding is a good start, but if you want this to work, if you want him to believe it, we have to go further than some innocent hand holding."

I swallow. "You want us to kiss in front of him?"

He shrugs. "It will certainly make a statement."

My stomach flips, and I'm not sure if it's because I know what it will do to Becks to see me kiss someone else or from the thought of kissing Talon.

No , I tell myself, it's just because I know what seeing Becks kiss someone else would do to me and I don't want to hurt Becks like that .

Kissing Talon is going to shred Becks' heart—along with mine—but as much as I hate to admit it, he's right. It's what needs to be done.

I straighten my resolve and my spine and look Talon dead in the eye. "Fine. We'll kiss."

Surprise flashes in his eyes. He didn't expect me to agree to that. But he recovers quickly. "With tongue?"

"Don't push it," I growl, and he chuckles.

"Okay, Freckles, you have yourself a deal." He holds his hand out for me to shake, and when he wraps his fingers around mine, a little zing of awareness shoots up my arm. "I'll see you at lunch," he says, and then takes off to class.

Numbness starts to set in, and I watch his retreating form with one thought in mind. What have I gotten myself into?

Talon and I never discussed exactly where we would meet, so I'm stuck hiding in the science room, looking through the narrow rectangular window to avoid Becks while I search for Talon. I haven't spotted either of them, but my biggest concern is running into Becks too soon.

Finally, finally , Talon swaggers past. I spring out of the room, almost barreling into him, but rather than looking off guard he just stares down at me.

"Change your mind yet?"

I shake my head. "No. Now take my hand so we can walk through that door like a couple."

"So bossy," he says, but slides his hand into mine, and then with a tug pulls me closer. When I give him a questioning look, he says, "Any girlfriend of mine wouldn't want to be so far away from me."

"Let me guess. Because you're so irresistible."

He smiles down at me. "You said it, not me."

I'm jittery as we push through the doors and walk into the courtyard, hand-in-hand. The first thing I do is scan for Becks, my head on a swivel.

Talon squeezes my hand and leans over. "Perhaps be a little less obvious," he says. "Our classmates are watching. Focus on me."

Sure enough, when I take a moment to notice, the majority of the students are staring at us. I know it was my idea for this to be so public, but I hate the attention. It makes me want to melt into the floor to escape their prying glances, but the point of all of this is to be seen.

"Locklyn," comes a surprised voice, halting me. When I look up, Shayla stands in front of us, a tray loaded with food in her hands.

"Hey," I say and give her an awkward little wave with my free hand.

"Shayla, right?" Talon says, and her wide-eyed gaze shifts to him and she nods. "Nice to meet you. I'm Talon."

"Oh, I know who you are," she says, and then looks back at me and blinks. "So like . . . this is . . . a thing?"

"Uhh, kinda?" I say.

Talon wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me to his side. "You betcha," he says and then plants a kiss on my head. How cheesy. I have to smother the urge to swat him away. "It took me a while to wear my little love muffin down, but she finally caved."

Love muffin?

Heat rises to my cheeks. I'm going to kill him for this later.

The look on Shayla's face would be hilarious if I weren't so embarrassed. "O-kay," she says, taking a step back and eyeing us with either confusion or revulsion. I can't tell which. "Are you guys eating with us today?" It looks like she's not sure if she wants us to or not.

"I think I'm just going to eat with Talon."

"Sure. I guess I'll see you later," she says, and then flees.

That was bad .

"Talon," I grit out. "That was too much."

"Was it?" he chuckles as his arm disappears from my waist and he turns to face me. "Isn't that how devoted boyfriends are supposed to act?"

"I'm going to make you pay for that later."

He lifts his hands up in surrender. "Hey, I'm just doing what you asked of me."

I shoot him a look, but he misses it because his gaze shifts to the side. The smirk melts off his face and he steps closer, bringing a hand to my hip. The light touch causes something in me to stir.

Brushing the hair off my shoulder, he curves his body forward to whisper in my ear. "He just showed up."

My heartbeat picks up and I look over and catch Becks walking toward our usual table in the corner. He hasn't seen us yet, but when he gets there he says something and then Shayla points in our direction.

I quickly avert my gaze and focus on Talon. "It's time."

Stepping into his space, I slide my hands up Talon's chest and then drape them around his neck. His arms loop around me, bringing me almost flush up against his body.

It's now or never.

I look up into his stormy eyes, terrified. I think I'm going to be sick.

"Freckles," Talon says with a frown. "I know I goaded you into it, but we don't have to do this. I didn't actually think you'd want to go through with it when I suggested it."

I lick my lips and his gaze flicks to my mouth before returning to my eyes.

"We do," I say. "You were right before. It won't be convincing otherwise."

His gaze searches mine. "You do this and it can't be undone," he says quietly, giving me another chance to change my mind. "Your princeling won't forgive this. There's no going back."

The box I shoved my heart into starts to rattle, so I slap a padlock on it so it doesn't burst open and ignore it the best I can.

"Kiss me," I command. "And make it convincing."