Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rhyse

A fter leaving Emma's room, I tried to sleep, but it didn't come.

So, I went to the roof, where I lay down and stared at the stars for hours on end, watching them wheel across the clear sky.

Eventually, I returned to my own bed, getting a couple of hours of fitful rest until the sun came up. It streamed into the room, and I knew it was beyond time to get the day started. But I was still there, looking up at the ceiling.

Movement from the hallway indicated Emma had risen and come out.

Minutes passed, then there came knocking at my door. I ignored it.

She didn't stop.

I still ignored her.

"Rhyse, I know you're in there," she called.

I didn't respond. Maybe it was petty, but I just didn't want to deal with it. Not now. Things had been going so well . Why did she have to bring that up? Couldn't she just leave well enough alone?

No, she had to pry into every aspect of my life, know every little detail! I just wanted privacy. Was that too much to ask? Apparently so.

"Rhyse." Her tone was sterner. More demanding. "Open the damn door and talk to me. I didn't do anything wrong."

Not yet, I told myself. It wasn't what she'd done that had sent me to my room. It was what I knew would come next. What I didn't want to go through. Again.

I'd been through it enough. The last person I wanted to look at me that way was Emma.

I didn't want to feel that hurt again. That rejection.

One singular explosive knock on the door preceded her calling my name again. "Open the damn door, Rhyse. Talk to me instead of sulking like a child."

I wasn't sulking. I was avoiding her. It was different.

When I didn't respond, she sighed loud enough I would've heard it without my dragon hearing.

"You're unbelievable. I didn't insult you. I asked a simple question, Rhyse. And now, you're running away from it. Like a coward."

I was at my door in a heartbeat, flinging it open so fast Emma backpedaled across the hall.

"Fine," I snarled, storming out of the room. "You want to know what it's all about? You want to see what the issue is since you can't seem to keep your questions to yourself, can't give me the space I'd prefer?"

"Rhyse?" Emma asked, not immediately following.

"Let's go!" I snarled, kicking open the door to outside. "You wanted to know. Now you're going to find out. Don't back out now. That's the coward's way out."

Her eyes widened angrily, but Emma held back any retort as she stepped outside.

"Okay, what now? Are you finally going to show me?"

I didn't answer her. I walked toward the bluffs and closed my eyes.

"Rhyse?"

The change came over me as I released my dragon. Although it happened in the blink of an eye on the outside, each change felt like it took both a lifetime and no time at all.

Power flowed through my limbs as the magic of my other half filled me, stretching the skin, my limbs and body enlarging at a rapid pace. Fingers lengthened into claws, each the size of my human arm. My skin was pulled taut even as it rippled and changed shape, becoming scales that swiftly turned a brilliant azure blue in the bright sunlight as they caught it and bounced the light wildly.

A tail sprouted from my rear, a second before the wonder of the change became wrong . Everything just ground to a halt. Darkness replaced light, and I fought back a snarl as the wings that should have exploded from my back in a glorious spreading of their membrane, instead just sort of flopped over on the one side, hanging limply on the ground.

My right wing stood proud and wide for a moment before I flexed the muscle to bring it along my side. By the time I was done, my neck had stretched way out from my body, my nose sticking forward until it became a snout filled with sharp teeth and a long tongue.

"Here!" I roared, leaning down and toward Emma in one swift movement. "Is this what you wanted to see?"

I was shouting as I shoved my broken wing at her, the weak, ugly thing sluggishly responding to my commands.

"Are you happy now?" I spat. "Slept with the freak, so he'll open up to you? Well, go ahead. You can laugh now. It doesn't matter. I've heard it all before from everyone else. You can't do anything to me that hasn't' already been done."

Emma had backed up against the side of the house now, and she was shaking, trembling, staring at me, unable to move.

I waited for her to respond. Despite my best efforts, a tiny part of me held out hope she would surprise me.

It was in vain. Her eyes darted all around from my broken wing to the ground. Everywhere but at me.

She wouldn't even meet my eye now that she'd seen the real me.

Without saying another word, I turned and leaped from the edge of the bluffs, tucking my wings into my side as I plummeted to the waters below. I hit the waves and disappeared underneath them.

Perhaps I was running away. But I didn't care.

Anything was better that than seeing the look of disgust that was sure to come on the face of the one woman I wished most in the world would see me in a different light.

And to think I'd hoped she was different from the rest.