Page 39 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

That’s not what Asher had said. It’s what her family had been told by Thanatos’s lackies who’d brought them her brother’s ashes.

Asher had told them nothing. Not a denial. Not a confirmation. Just…frustrating, immovable silence.

No matter what questions they’d asked.

At first, she hadn’t believed it. Couldn’t. The way Goran had died, and Asher’s involvement went so against who Asher was at his core. She’d all but begged him to tell her Goran’s death hadn’t been his fault, but he’d closed off so hard that she’d started to believe that maybe he’d been willing to do anything for his suffering people. He’d never hurt Goran on purpose, but maybe he’d let him die, if he felt he had no choice?

It had been the only thing that made sense at the time.

Still a betrayal of the worst kind.

At that point, she’d plunged so deeply into grief and shock, she hadn’t been able to see past the pain.

“Do you really want details, darling?” her mother had asked her long ago. “I’d much rather remember Goran the way he was in life, not the way he died. I don’t want those images in my head.”

Gwen had dropped it then. Hell, she’d run.

And maybe that had been wrong.

Hells, she’d love to be in the wrong if it meant she’d misjudged the man staring back at her now. That, at least, was something she could try to right, that they could work through.

But he was fucking doing it again. Stonewalling her. Refusing to tell her anything.

A fact that had pissed her off then. The burn of it lingered in her veins, in her heart, in everything she did. Now it stoked hotter with every beat.

She was going to get the truth, damn it.

Because if Asher had been injured trying to help her brother, that told a very different story about Goran’s death than the one she knew.

After a long beat, Asher got to his feet. “We can’t stay here.”

As if it was helping make his point, a loud rumble of thunder crawled across the sky. She glanced over her shoulder and jumped to her feet. Seven hells, whatever drove that storm was strong. And fast. It was looming over them.

“We better hurry.” Asher grabbed a coconut, scooping up water, and guzzling it down. Then he grabbed another to toss to her. “Drink up.”

Gwen caught the tossed coconut husk with ease but instead of doing like he said, she sat staring.

Staring…and waiting.

“It’s history, Gwen,” he finally said in a voice that carried a finality that hit her heart wrong. He was hurting. He’d never admit it, but now, without the immediacy of her own grief blinding her, she could see it. But he wouldn’t fix it.

Why? She wanted to scream it at him. Beg him.

“It’s my brother’s history,” she insisted. “I deserve to know.”

He refused to look at her, jaw working, the muscles so twitchy under his skin she was surprised his teeth weren’t breaking. “No.”

Asher didn’t so much as glance in her direction again as he drank down at least three more coconuts full. The man was probably dying of thirst after everything he’d done to get them to the island and then taking care of her while she slept. Plus, he was big, and poisoned, and injured.

And the storm was hunting them. And getting close.

Which was the only reason why she started to fill the coconuts, setting them side by side on the sandy spit of beach. They gathered their water, and started off toward their crevice, walking quite a ways. But she couldn’t let it go.

“If you don’t tell me,” she aimed the words at his back. “I’ll ask your king.”

Asher paused mid-step, six-foot-four frame rigid for a half a second before he put his head down, barreling ahead through the brush. “Go ahead,” he said. “He wasn’t there.”

Frustration and all the years of pent-up anger singed her insides.

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