Page 62 of Power of Draken

I cross my arms over my chest. “Please enlighten me as to my own thoughts and desires. Frankly, I’ve no notion of how I’ve made it as far in life as I did without your wisdom.”

He ignores the jab. “It’s obvious why I kissed you. I kissed you because I wanted to. I wanted to taste your lips on mine, to imagine for a moment what it might feel like to forget everything else and just be with you. To give into a pull that’s been plaguing me since I’d first laid eyes on you in formation, standing there with the other enchanters but as unlike the rest of them as I am unlike the combat cadets.” He pulls his wrung out shirt back on, his hands going to his breeches before thinking better of it—or remembering the leg shackles—and wringing the fabric out one fistfull at a time. “I walked away because I knew I would hurt you. It was too late to undo the kiss, but I could at least minimize the injury going forward.”

“Why did you imagine you’d hurt me?”

Kai slaps his palm against the door. “Not imagine, Ainsley. I didn't imagine. I said I knew. I know. You wanted the truth, and that is the truth. I. Will. Hurt. You.”

“Ah. That clairvoyance again. Must be nice to have that.”

“I’ve hurt every single person who’s cared about me. My perfect parents, who’d given me every perfect opportunity, every chance, every second chance? I can barely stand to be in the same room with them. And yes, they’ve tried everything. But I’ve managed to successfully sabotage each and every one of their attempts to turn me into a responsible being. So, the perfect people that they are, they sent me to another estate. A fresh start. The family who took me in had young children, who took a naive childish liking to me no matter what I did. You know how I repaid that kindness? I paralyzed my little foster sister. That’s how.”

Horror drains blood from my face.

Kai takes a step toward me, every line of his lithe body emanating menace. “So, when I tell you that I will hurt you, that is one truth coming out of my mouth that you can be sure of.”

I shake my head, my thoughts racing but not quite clicking into place. Not yet. “No. There is more to what you’ve said. I know there is more.”

“There is.” Kai agrees without humor. He is nearly on top of me now and I step back, and back again, until my back hits the wall. Kai braces his arms on it, one on either side of my head, trapping me. Menace ripples over him like a wave of magic, his shadows pouring into the space between us. Stealing the light from the already dim cellar. “And it’s all darker than you can imagine. Are you getting the picture, Ainsley? Are you glad you got to see the true me you wanted that glimpse of, here and now?”

A door slams upstairs and footsteps echo, getting louder as they descend toward us.

“We are about to have company,” Kai growls into my face, his breath hot against me for a moment before he shoves away from the wall and turns to stand between me and the door. “Truth time is over.”

Chapter 31

Kai

Our captors are coming.

After ensuring that Rowan is safely behind me, I let my weight droop onto my left leg, feigning exhaustion as if simply holding myself upright is taking every ounce of my willpower. It's a lie, of course. The incision is a barely noticeable throb now, the immortal blood circulating through me is once more filled with magic that’s mending the tissues and returning strength. Rowan had no idea who she was helping when she pulled out the auric steel that was leaching everything from me. Will she hate herself that much more when she learns the truth and realizes that she'd had the power to end me? All she'd have had to do was push that auric steel into my heart.

Or maybe she's already done that, because no matter what happens, she already owns a piece of it.

Footsteps clatter down the stairs before the door unlocks and three cadets are shoved inside.

“Ellie!” Rowan shouts and starts toward her friend—only to trip over her shackles. I have to let her fall, because the injured Kai wouldn't have made it to her side on time. Yet when her knees rap hard againstthe packed floor, I feel the impact as if it were me, falling onto auric steel nails.

Ellie gives me a wide berth and offers Rowan a weak smile that cracks the dried blood by her mouth. Her auburn hair, usually pulled back in a neat braid, hangs in tangled clumps around her face. She's already shackled and has a purple bruise blossoming across her left cheekbone along with a healing split in her bottom lip. Not a recent capture then, but a relocation. While she and Rowan hobble off together into a corner, I regard the other two cadets. Collin Chambers, who looks not nearly as worked over as Ellie and another man whose name I never bothered learning.

Logan says to tell you that the inn is crawling with guards and you should do nothing stupid, Ulyssus says into my mind, not bothering to hide his annoyance at playing relay. I have informed Nyx that such a direction is impossible for you to follow.

I'm sure you did. Is there anything else? Logan has been looking for a way to get Rowan and me out, but so far the mercenary contingent around Wishing Well Inn has only been getting larger. A few more and the arithmetic with the reward money will cease making sense entirely.

Ulyssus sighs in annoyance. He is still unhappy that both Logan and I stayed with Rowan instead of going with Kyrian to rescue the pair of captured draken. Someone named Hak, who is in charge of the mercenaries, has ordered a wagon and horses prepared.

"Hey you," Mercer calls to me, interrupting my conversation with Ulyssus. "Still alive boy?"

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Don't be. You are worth more alive." He tips his head, surveying me with a great deal more attention—and experience—that I find comfortable. "I just wasn't too sure you'd stay so. Didn't look too good a few hours earlier."

I shrug.

He frowns. "Unless... have we perhaps a healer on our hands?" He looks at Rowan with an evaluative glance.

A healer sold to the right buyer is worth a great deal more gold than the commandant is offering the local drunks.

I give Mercer a condescending smile. "No healer needed. Turns out I just needed to take a good shit."

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