Chapter 13

Graham was pissed.

I tried to apologize, or at least say something. Clarify that I hadn't realized. That we were in two entirely different headspaces, and that I didn't mean to lash out––that what I'd done wasn't fair.

But each time I tried to speak with him, he walked away. He kept close to Jake's side. They spoke quietly and unceasingly to each other, even ignoring Amara and Laila when they mounted the same dragon.

I tried to listen to what they were saying. We had all discussed boundaries; we had access to one another's thoughts, but we were only to access them out of necessity. At a time like this, to me, reading Graham's mind was a necessity.

But he had a lifetime of experience with telepathy. The second I dipped into his thoughts, he thrusted up a wall that I couldn't get through if my life depended on it. Then he shot me a dirty look for extra measure.

I didn't blame him.

Like Jeremy had said, the battle had only just ended. He and I were still finishing off the last of our enemies when Graham finally sat down.

It wasn't what I thought it was. I was wrong. It was never easy for me to admit that, but I was wrong. Graham was right. The problem was, Graham was quick to trust and not so quick to forgive.

If I was upset about something, I addressed it. I didn't let things fester. Graham? I expected the cold shoulder for quite some time.

Jeremy elbowed me in the ribs.

Shooting him a look, I yanked my soiled hair into a ponytail. Although I was growing to enjoy these dragon-back flights, I wasn't fond of the wind. "What was that for?"

"Stop staring at him." Jeremy kept his gaze ahead, gingerly holding the leather reins that wrapped around the beast's neck. "You look like a stalker."

I glared.

He was probably right. Ezra always said that my stare was colder than a Russian winter.

"He'll calm down," Jeremy said. "Then you guys can kiss and make up. But with all that, you implied that he doesn't give a shit about the love of his life. He's pissed. Give him time."

"You don't know Graham. There are few things he holds closer than a grudge."

"He's Fae. They all do." He nodded to Laila. "But that's not what's important right now. Instead of trying to change how he feels, maybe you should be thinking about how to keep this from happening again."

"How to keep a misunderstanding from happening again?" No matter how hard I tried to remain respectful, my voice came out condescending. "Sometimes, wires get crossed, and?—"

"Your wires got crossed." He finally met my gaze, and my stomach ached at the look he gave me. His brows were raised, eyes soft; the corners of his mouth quirked down in disappointment. "He had no idea what was going on, Warren. You lashed out at him. You put your hands on him. Don't minimize that."

My jaw tightened.

"You're different," Jeremy continued, voice softening. "On a fundamental, cellular level, you and Graham are different. You're gonna handle this shit differently."

"I get it." I also hated that my voice came out like an annoyed teenager's. "Graham's been on this world before. He's been in these situations, and I haven't, so he knows how to handle himself better."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"He's Fae. You're a Guardian. You're made different." Squinting ahead, he pulled back slightly on the reins. Gradually, the dragon dipped closer to the Earth. "Fae are part of the world they live on. We sit on top of it, and they're embedded inside it. They're highly communal, and Guardians are more independent. They fight for survival, and we just fight. It's what we're bred for. They're bred to tend the Earth."

"I don't know that we were bred for anything," I said under my breath.

"Oh, we were." He glanced my way, giving a half smile. "I was there. Guardians were bred, just like we breed dogs."

I furrowed my brows. "No shit?"

"No shit," he said. "And one of the traits that was very important to us was aggression. We created you to fight. So when we're in that zone, when we're fighting for our lives, for the lives of the people around us, for our people, we're volatile. I can't tell you how many times I have bashed someone's brains to mush. Then didn't remember a second of it."

Gesturing to Laila on the dragon ahead of us, he continued. "Not her. She can shut it off and turn it back on in a second. But me, when that rage comes out, anyone who I perceive as a threat, or who pisses me off, it's over for them.

"It took me a long time to learn to control myself. Even now, I'm not perfect. It still takes me longer to calm down after a fight than it does for Laila. But when I was young, when I first started doing this shit, it was hard for me to turn it off too. You have to learn, though. If you don't, all you'll do is hurt the people who matter most to you."

Now there was a knot in my throat. Because, like Graham, he was right. He was right, and I was wrong.

Those words felt like pouring peroxide into an open wound. Supposed in an entirely new territory, I'd be saying them a lot.

I just didn't know how. I didn't know how I turned it on to begin with. How could I flip a switch when I was in the dark and couldn't even feel around for it?

Because when they vanished, when I joined the others in the battle, so many emotions rained down on me at once. Terror, and anger, and fear, and somehow, I spun them around into actions. Before I knew it, I was ripping a man's throat out with my teeth. A moment later, I thrusted my open palm into another's chest, tore through his ribs, and ripped his heart out.

When the others implied that I was na?ve, sheltered, I took offense. Quietly, but I did. All my adult life, I had killed for a living. I knew how to separate my emotions from the job.

But this was different. When I killed for the Chambers, it was calculated. Cold. A routine, a job. By the nature of it, I was detached.

Here, everyone I loved was in danger.

Of course, it wasn't the first time I had fought in self-defense. Not even the first time I had killed in self-defense. In the fifties, at the party I'd hosted at Copperfield House, the one that'd turned into a bloodbath, I'd killed.

They had been my friends and acquaintances, though. I had always anticipated what would happen if they realized what I was. Like they had that night. No, I hadn't wanted to kill them, but in a sense, I always knew I might have had to.

On that day, I was prepared. Perhaps I was as cold and detached from those killings as I was with the ones I did for the Chambers.

That was the odd thing. I arrived here knowing I would have to do what I had. It should have been as cold and calculated, as detached, as every other life I had ended in the past. Why wasn't it?

"You've never had an enemy that scared you," Jeremy said. "Not until today."

A shiver worked its way up my spine. "I wasn't afraid for myself."

"You should be," he said. "That fear's fuel. Use it. But you gotta learn how to put your foot on the brake, too."

"I'll get right on that."

"I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it's a fact, because it is one. You have to learn." Pulling back on the reins, he lowered our altitude some more. "But it's gonna be the hardest thing you ever do."

"Seems to be your catchphrase."

He chuckled.

"How did you do it?"

"You really want to know?" He smirked at me over his shoulder. "Because I don't think you're gonna like it."

"I take it back. That's your catchphrase."

"You want my advice or not?"

"Well, I don't want to get into another fistfight with Graham," I grunted, "so yes. Bestow your wisdom upon me."

"It makes you very uncomfortable that you're my grandpa and I'm eons older than you, doesn't it?"

"It makes me very uncomfortable that I am a grandpa."

"Touché."

This back and forth drove me insane with both Jeremy and Laila. They danced around the points they were trying to make in almost every conversation. It was like they enjoyed the wordplay more than actually telling you something.

"No, we're great conversationalists. You're just boring and don't like to banter."

"I'm not boring. We're having a legitimate conversation, and you take any opportunity to joke when we should be handling something serious."

"Because I like actually conversing, I'm not being serious?" Before I could respond, he waved me off. "Meditation. Mindfulness. Breathing exercises."

Narrowing my gaze, I snorted. "I'm supposed to meditate in the midst of a battle."

"See? I knew you weren't gonna like it."

"You've got to realize how ridiculous that sounds."

"Do you even know what mindfulness is?" I was prepared for a dirty look, but the expression he gave me––his aforementioned grandfather––held the overwhelming smugness of someone who knew they understood the universe better. Which may've been true, and no, I didn't like it. "It's not about clearing your mind. It's not about ignoring your thoughts. It's not about letting yourself go on autopilot.

"It's about witnessing something, registering it, acknowledging it, and not letting it affect you. Acceptance. Which is probably what Graham does in a battle that you don't. He sees what's in front of him, and he acts on it. You panicked. Where's Rain? Where's Ezra? Are they okay? Are they hurt? Am I ever going to see them again?

"And, sure. All of those thoughts are reasonable. And all those emotions can fuel you, yes. But when it comes time to slow down, when the fight is weaning off, instead of panicking because they were gone, you could've reframed those thoughts. I don't know where they are, but I would feel if they were hurt. They must be okay, at least until I can get to them. And if you had done that, you would've remembered that Laila had access to them at all times. Maybe you would've even realized that Graham wasn't aware of what was going on. Maybe you also wouldn't have screamed at the King of Hell."

Another grunt.

I hated not knowing what the fuck I was doing.

"No one expects you to understand all of this on day one. And it is day one, by the way." Again, he tugged on the reins, and we dropped closer to the ground. This time, my stomach flipped at the change in elevation. "Just swallow your pride and course correct when you do fuck up."

A modest man, I was not. But an honest one, I was. I had no problem admitting that my pride was too large to swallow.

"And I appreciate that," I said. "But honestly, you talk like an oracle ninety-nine percent of the time. I have no idea what advice you're trying to give me."

"What don't you understand?"

"Your contradictions. One second, you say my aggression's a benefit. Use it to my advantage. Then you say that I need to stop it."

"Not stop it." Over his shoulder, his face screwed up. "Control it. Two things can be true at once, Warren. Your biggest advantage can also be your biggest fault."

I wished desperately that my brain worked the way his did, but that still sounded like a contradiction to me.

A cloud of steam billowed before his lips with a sigh. "A gun can save a life. It can also take a life. That's why you learn to use it before you carry it around on your hip. That rage inside you isn't innately bad. It'll protect you and the people you love. But if you don't control it, you're gonna shoot yourself and those you're trying to protect."

"Hm." Yeah, guessed that did make sense. "How do you do it? The meditation thing."

"We'll work on it. Just remember, when shit hits the fan, breathe before you lose your shit on an ally." He nodded to the ground. "And might wanna rehearse what you're gonna say to the two of them once we land."

With a skip of my heart, I felt it. A sudden rush of safe, familiar energy. Their energy.

After scurrying onto my knees, I rushed to the edge of the dragon's back. I gripped the edge of the saddle, careful to avoid its sharp scales, and peered over the edge.

Hundreds of feet below, four arms waved in an open field. A quick glance into the twilight realm revealed their hues of rose pink and shimmering gold.

Rain and Ezra.

I couldn't wait the ten or twenty minutes it'd take the dragon to land.

I grabbed the edge of the saddle, lifted my leg over the side, and leaped.