Chapter Thirty-One

Emma

I sat on the couch long after Rhyse was gone.

I was still there when the link between our minds faded into vague nothingness. Rhyse had gone somewhere far away. Somewhere I couldn't follow.

That bothered me because things made so much more sense now. All I needed to do now was talk to him, explain things to him, and it would all be okay. I understood .

The key to unraveling it all had been sensing the undercurrent of pain and fear in him when he'd shifted and showed me his dragon. If only I'd been able to do that at the time! It would've saved him so much hurt.

I cursed myself for locking up with fear. The sudden appearance of his dragon thrusting its snout into my face had overwhelmed me. Combined with the anger, it had been too much, dragging me down into the vague "memories" of whatever had happened to me in the past.

Rhyse had thought I was doing it because of his wing, but … I wasn't.

Every now and then, I tried to send an emotional plea of please come back through our link in an attempt to get him to come back, so I could just explain and make him not mad at me.

Either he was ignoring me, or I still couldn't really control the bond between us, because it didn't work. Rhyse remained no more than a distant presence, a sign of life, but nothing more.

Determined to not wallow around until he returned, I went about setting up a plan to make it right. I showered and even put on the glani, which I'd washed and hung to dry that morning while waiting for Rhyse to come out of his room.

Should you really be doing all this for him? He's the one who didn't listen to you.

I pushed that thought aside. That might have been true, but it was clear to me now what had happened. Rhyse had shown himself to me, and I'd effectively rejected him. Only after he'd left, after I'd regained control of myself, did I really get it.

The other dragons judged him for it. Killian called him a freak. He had no friends. By his own words, Rhyse had moved across the isles to live here. Alone. Away from everyone.

Because he was tired of being hurt, of being made fun of. Someone as gentle and sweet as him should not be single. But he was. Because none of the dragons wanted him.

I'd had an opportunity to show him it didn't matter to me, and my subconscious had bumbled it. Badly. While I knew I wasn't guilty, since my reaction wasn't based on that at all, until I could show that to Rhyse, he had a lifetime of bad experiences to prove he was right.

It was complicated. Like most relationships. But I knew he still cared, deep down, no matter what he might say at first.

After all, if he didn't care, then he wouldn't have been hurt by it. That was what it boiled down to in the end. That was what I would make him see. I didn't give a shit that he had a bum wing. Why would I? That didn't change the type of person he was. Not deep down.

I shook my hair out of the towel wrap I'd put it in, and I was gathering it up in a high ponytail when I heard a knock at the door.

Rhyse!

"Coming!" I called, finishing my hair. There was a definite bounce in my step as I went to get it.

He'd come back. We could talk and sort things out, and everything would be okay.

I undid the bolt on the door and pulled it open. "I'm so glad you're back, I really want to—"

"Missed me, did you?" Killian sneered as he put a hand on the door and pushed, easily countering my attempt to shut it upon seeing his face on the other side.

The force flung the door open, sending me reeling back into the house.

"What the hell do you want?" I asked, recovering my balance.

I should've known it wasn't Rhyse. His presence was still far away. The telltale sensation was right there in my mind, but I'd been so eager to explain everything to him that I hadn't thought about it.

"Shut up," Killian spat, pointing a finger at me as one of his lackeys marched in, breezing right past me. "Humans are nothing. You don't belong here. The only reason I don't burn you where you stand is because I don't want the attention from the sovereign. But if you piss me off enough, I just might be willing to take that on. Got it?"

I glared.

The other dragon, Calan, came back, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me outside. The skies were gray, and way to the north, deep dark clouds assaulted the sea. The roar of the surf against the bluffs was louder than usual. The day was just another echo of what was happening to me.

"Stay," Calan said sharply, pointing at the ground.

"I'm not a fucking dog," I spat back.

"One bitch or another, it makes no difference to me," he said. "Move, and I'll burn your hair off."

I seethed impotently as he walked back inside. A moment later, there was a thunderous crash. More sounds followed as the house was trashed. They moved from side to side. I could hear glass shattered and wood splintering. All while I stood there unmoving.

Against two dragons, there wasn't a thing I could do besides try to get the stupid link between my mind and Rhyse's to work. Maybe he would be able to sense my distress and come back.

"Hey!" I shouted as Killian came outside with the necklace Rhyse had given me around his neck. "That's not yours!"

Killian tilted his head back and laughed. "Your dragon boyfriend only got it because he was too much of a coward to come fight with the rest of us. By rights, this is our treasure. Not his. He had no right to give it to you. I'm just taking it back, that's all."

I opened my mouth to protest more, but at that moment, Killian flicked a finger in my direction. A tiny ball of flame found the hem of the beautiful glani Rhyse had surprised me with and began to eat away at the fabric.

Killian roared with laughter as I frantically tried to put the fire out, slapping at the burning patches before dropping to the ground and, for the first time in my life, using the "stop, drop, and roll" technique I'd learned in school but never had occasion to use until then.

"Last warning. Shut up, or the next one will do that to your skin," he said, dumping his load of valuables onto a sheet Calan had spread out.

Over the next hour, I sat in place and watched them haul all sorts of pieces of gold, silver, and precious jewelry from the depths of Rhyse's house. I hadn't seen but a fraction of it, but apparently, Rhyse had quite the collection.

"You know he's going to kill you for this," I growled at Calan as he began to tie up the blankets in preparation to leave. "Rhyse will not just sit around and let you get away with this. He's a much better man than you are, but this will test his limits."

Killian's laugh from the doorway turned my head.

"You know," he said, wagging a finger at me as he walked my way. "You shouldn't be so quick to defend him like that. Such misplaced vociferous defense."

I lifted my eyebrows. "Misplaced? You don't think he'll come for you?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will," Killian said. "And if he pushes too hard, we'll kill him. Such is the way of things. But that's not what I was talking about."

Killian's eyes danced with laughter under his brow as he gloated. Something about it pricked me with fear.

"What do you mean?" I asked, growing nervous.

"Your support of him is so very unnecessary," Killian said, reaching into a pocket and withdrawing a folded piece of sky-blue paper.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

The ominous chuckle did nothing to settle my stomach.

"It means," he said with a wicked smile, slowly handing over the paper, "that he doesn't feel anywhere near as strongly as you do. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"You're lying."

Killian shrugged. "It's not my handwriting. Go ahead. Read it."

I glared at him. "You're just fucking with me."

He waggled the piece of paper. The grin on his face was too self-sure. Too confident. This was no joke.

Slowly, fingers trembling, I reached out for the paper.