Page 25 of Dallas

“I suppose we should start out,” I murmured, looking away out of shame and confusion and regret. He thought it was because I hated him and his kind, I just knew it. And while that might have been the case before, and might still have somewhat been the case now, I didn't deny him out of that hatred. I wasn't a stubborn ass for my own sake.

I opened my mouth to explain this, but he cut me off.

“Do you plan to keep her in this trance while we move?” he asked as he opened the door to the storm.

“Of course.” I wished I hadn’t changed my clothes after all, but it seemed as though the rain had slowed. Whether this was a permanent development or only a matter of minutes, I couldn’t say. I could only hope it held off until we reached shelter.

“You’ll have to carry our bags,” he announced. “I’ll be as gentle with her as I can.”

I scrambled out of the car and watched with my heart in my throat as Dallas moved my poor, broken sister. I could barely see through the tears in my eyes, but I saw enough to know the care he took with her. For someone as large as he was, for someone whose nature was that of a beast, he managed to treat her as though she were made of glass and might shatter at any moment.

It struck me as unthinkable, even laughable, but she was in good hands.

“Gods, I hate doing this,” he grunted. “I can feel the bones shifting in her legs.”

“We’ll deal with that once we reach shelter,” I decided, trying to sound as though I had any sort of hold on the situation when I had absolutely none.

We’d been raised to be strong. Self-reliant. Confident in the knowledge that no one could best us, either in a fight or in terms of our powers. We ruled the world, or very nearly, and there were none who could stand in our way without ruing their decision later.

Yet there I was, struggling to hold two suitcases while my feet slid through mud covered in slick leaves, wondering what was next. How to manage the situation.

How to manage him. If there was even a chance of such a phenomenon.

11

“I’ll build a fire,” I offered once I’d laid Callie to rest in the cave.

Hecate rolled up a sweater she’d found in Callie’s bag and placed it under her head as a pillow. She snorted, her face turned away. “I’d think you would be quite quick with a fire, being a dragon.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke? Do I strike you as being in the mood for a joke?” A quick mental inventory took note of the sopping-wet clothing plastered to my body, the soaked shoes, and socks which had likely pruned my feet, my general fatigue, and consternation. I even felt a chill in the air, and that was rare for those of my kind. We normally ran several degrees warmer than anyone else.

She cringed, glancing my way. “I’m sorry. Really.”

The first genuine apology I’d ever received. I decided to consider myself fortunate and refrained from pressing the matter. “As it is, no, I can’t breathe fire. I hate to disappoint you.”

“It’s not a disappointment. Truly, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m too comfortable with nagging and teasing you, I imagine.”

I turned away from the task of gathering dry kindling inside the cave, my mouth agape. “Teasing? That’s what you call it?”

“What would you call it?”

My laughter echoed, bouncing off the cave’s walls. “Teasing would not be the word. Bedeviling is much more what I had in mind. Teasing implies… I don’t know. Friendship? Camaraderie, at the very least.”

She pursed her lips, her brow furrowed. “You make a good point.”

“Surely you haven’t been bedeviling me all this time with nothing but lighthearted intentions. Surely, you didn’t think of it as teasing. You only refer to it as such now as a way to make up for what’s already been done.”

“My, you’re clever,” she retorted, glaring at me. “Just one of the many things I happen to despise about you.”

That might have injured my pride if she had not already taken me far past the point of caring. While my dragon roared and raged and demanded justice—just what form that justice would take, I couldn’t say—I dropped to one knee with a bundle of kindling and began to arrange it far enough inside the cave to avoid the rain no matter how the wind blew it. “And just what else do you despise, then?” I asked as I worked.

“You do not truly wish to hear this. We aren’t truly having this conversation.”

“But we are, and I do truly wish to know. What do you despise about me? Besides my cleverness?”

She hesitated. Did I mean what I said? Did I wish to know? Would I take it out on her once I decided she’d said too much, once she’d wounded my pride beyond the point of return? Could she trust me?

She cleared her throat, kneeling on the opposite side of the kindling with Callie behind her. Kneeling, sitting, crouching and lying down were the most we could do, as the roof of the cave was low even for her.

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