Chapter Thirty-Four

Levi

W ater sleeted across my face, waking me with a start.

"So, you're alive," a voice observed from nearby as I sputtered and worked to come to my senses. "For a while there, I wasn't sure you would come back to us."

Blinking the sheets of water from my face, I struggled to place the voice. Opening my eyes was too painful, so I screwed them shut again, using my other senses as best I could.

My hands rested on something cool and hard beneath the water. The air around me was damp with chill. No wind or noise other than water slowly dripping from me reached my ears.

"W-w-where am I?" I stammered woozily, pain lancing into my head with each other. "W-hat happe-n-ed?"

Getting the words out was a struggle. But I gritted my teeth and forced the pain away, gathering it under control. I recognized its presence, but one by one, I yanked its teeth free of me, freeing myself back from its grip.

Silence greeted my question.

"Levi," a different voice called to me. "Are you okay?"

I knew that voice. Recognized it.

"Sarah!"

"Yes, it's me." She sounded far more subdued than normal. And distant. Why wasn't she coming to me?

"It didn't have to come to this."

I frowned. "Malakai?"

"Yes, yes, it's me. I jumped on you, and you hit your head on the street and gave yourself a nasty boo-boo. Get over it already. You're a dragon. You shouldn't be showing your weakness like this. It's pathetic."

A hint of anger cleared some of the brain fog. "Screw you."

Malakai laughed. It wasn't a nice sound. The sarcasm dripped from it, enraging me further.

My eyes snapped open, fixating on the location. Malakai stood several feet in front of me … on the other side of several thick steel bars. I glanced around. I was in a cell of some sort. Sarah wasn't with me, but she must be close by. A second cell.

What about Jakub?

I bared my teeth at Malakai. If he had hurt my son …

"Ahh, the fire still burns in him. Well done." He sniffed. "You almost made it. A little quieter and you might have evaded my notice. As I told you on the roof, however, I plan for all situations. You should know that."

"I guess I don't make a habit of planning for betrayal by my best friend," I spat, trying to mask the genuine hurt his actions had wrought. In some ways, it was worse than the physical pain.

"Oh! The irony! It bites so deep." Malakai shook his head, stabbing a finger at me. " You started this, dear friend. You betrayed us first."

"How?" I snapped, climbing to my feet. A wave of nausea and dizziness swept over me, but I powered through it, my anger burning high and bright like a pillar of flame, banishing anything else. "I did no such thing!"

"You did, too!" Malakai shrieked, pointing to his left at something I couldn't see. "You betrayed everything we stood for when you brought her back here! Then you had the gall to go reproduce with the human? How do you let yourself go?"

I shook my head. "Malakai, Malakai. Our mission, our purpose, it never had anything to do with humans. It was about bringing down the sovereign."

"And I will do that!" he shouted angrily. "With or without my best friend, who seems to have found better things to do with his time."

"Listen to yourself," I whispered.

"I hear myself plain and clear. And everyone else will, too, once I have the throne."

"Once you have the throne?" I slammed my hands against the wars. "Once you have the throne? Our entire purpose was to abolish that, Malakai! To see it brought down so someone might be elected to lead the dragons. Someone who served the will of everyone. That was what we were fighting for!"

Malakai tossed his head, his pleated braid of hair flying wildly behind him. "You don't know shit. I'll show them what a real leader does and how they work for the betterment of all our people. And I'll start by removing all humans from among us."

I just stared at him, seeing the anger and desire for power twist his face into that of someone unrecognizable.

"How long have you been planning this?" I asked. "How long have you been lying to me, Malakai? Using me to help you achieve this end?"

Malakai laughed. It was harsh and grating and all the answer I needed.

I slowly retreated to the far side of the cell, my hands reaching out for the solid rock that formed the wall. The steady unyieldingness of the rock was sorely needed in that moment as everything crashed down painfully around me.

How long had I been blind to it all? How long had I ignored what was going on and let myself be used by Malakai? By Lydia? Had that truly been his goal from the start?

When had I lost my best friend?

Another question sank its blade even deeper. Had I ever really had one?

Everything between Lydia and me sprang to the forefront of my mind. She must have known from the start that Malakai was her mate and not me. Yet for several years, she'd strung me along. Making me think we had a chance. That she might pick me.

The pain in my head redoubled, and I sank to the floor once again as the reality of it all crashed in over me. My breath quickened. I was losing control.

From beyond the cell, Malakai exhaled through his nose loudly. "I have to go. We're taking the palace tonight. I've managed to arrange a special surprise for the sovereign, even without your help. No matter what, today will be her last day on that particular throne."

An evil smile spread across his face. I stared at it, trying to find the person I'd thought I'd known, buried somewhere deep within him, trapped.

But all I saw was darkness. Then he was gone, his footsteps echoing loudly on the stone floor.

"Levi?"

I hunched over my knees, lost in my own self.

"Levi?" A hand appeared from around the corner at the front of my cell. Fingers waggled. "Can you see my hand?"

"I see you," I said numbly, crawling across the damp floor and grabbing on to the only thing. "I feel you."

"Oh, Levi!"

"Sarah," I said. "I need you to tell me something."

"What?"

I took a breath. "Do you truly care about me? Or is that all an act, too?"

There was a pause. The fingers tightened around mine. "I do care about you," she said. "I do, Levi. I'm sorry about Malakai. I can only imagine how badly it must hurt."

I smiled weakly, though she couldn't see it. "Me abandoning you to be a single mother for five years couldn't have felt good either."

Silence.

"I'm sorry about that," I said. "More than you can ever imagine. I wish I'd been there to help you through it all. To show you the type of person I can be."

Understanding flooded through me as something else became clear. Yet another of my mistakes revealing itself.

"You are showing me, Levi. Showing us . Don't go all fatalistic on me now!"

I smiled, broader and toothier now. "I'm not," I promised her. "I'm just realizing how stupid I've been. The things I should've done the instant you showed up and revealed we had a son."

"Dad?"

A tiny voice spoke.

"Hey, little dude," I said, my fingers gripping Sarah's even tighter. I hadn't realized how badly I wanted to hear his voice.

"Are you okay, Daddy?"

"Yes," I assured my son. "I'm okay now. If anything, I'm better than okay."

"You are?"

"Mmm hmm." I took a cleansing breath. "I see clearly now what I should have done, my son. The things I did or didn't do and what I would do differently. It's all there. I just had to look for it."

I'd tried to stay the same person as before while also learning how to become a father. A dad. But that wasn't how it worked. I saw that now. If I wanted to become a good father, then I had to put my son first. Above everything. Keeping him safe was my biggest priority.

Which meant instigating a coup was off the table. Especially if it meant Malakai taking the place of the current sovereign. That could not be allowed to happen.

"What do we do?" Sarah asked. "I … I feel kind of helpless, Levi. I'm supposed to be the one with the training. But we're pretty trapped."

I snorted. "No, we aren't. Now who's getting fatalistic?"

Silence.

"Don't worry." I squeezed her hand, then kissed the back of it. "I've got lots of things figured out."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that I love you both and that we're getting out of here. Together."