Page 24 of Of Blood and Banes
“Kat…” He threads his fingers into the backs of mine.
“Don’t…” I mutter and slide my hand out of his. “It’s not fair. Because if you keep touching me, I won’t want you to stop.”
A broken sigh. “I’m sorry I put us here…”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Okay…okay. Get some rest. I won’t leave until you’re asleep.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, lost in the honey pools of his irises until I drift off to sleep.
The rest of the night is dreamless. I wake the next morning to a tingling beneath my ribs, like fire ants have been set free underneath my skin. Flinching forward, I yank my shirt up, catching only a glimpse of rippling skin as my wound heals completely. The only remnant is a faint four-inch-long scar on my ribs.
I touch the skin, as if I’ll blink and it’ll have been a hallucination. But even the pain has faded to only a dull ache. Scanning the rest of the room, I find Cole gone and Archie’s concerned gaze.
“Are you alright?” Archie asks from a few beds down.
I nod. “I…I think so?”
“What was that?”Daeja grumbles, her voice rough with sleep.
“My wound is gone. It wasn’t your doing?”
“No. Or…at least, I don’t think so?”
I lean into my side, testing the muscles. Even though I’m partly relieved it doesn’t sting like it has been, the lack of it strikes a hot flash of alarm through me. Because if it wasn’t Daeja…who was it? Orwhatwas it?
“You could feel it, too?”
“Yes, it woke me up.”
After I dress and grab the book under my bed, I slip out of the room to head for Sethan’s office. After requesting a private audience, the guards at the entrance let me through. Sethan sits at his massive wooden desk, its legs carved into clawed feet. The rich mahogany gleams in the sunlight sparkling through the sets of diamond-patterned windows lining the walls. A large rug, colorful and worn, spans the space around his desk, covering most of the gray stone tiles. I glance toward the several bookshelves lining the wall, searching for the spot where Sethan pulled the dragon journal from originally.
“Yes?” Sethan asks, not bothering to pause or look up from the letter he’s writing.
I take the book and lift it for him to see. “I wanted to return this to you.”
“And?”
I stride across the room, stopping at the edge of his desk, and drop the book onto his desk a few inches from the letter he’s writing. The move isn’t enough to gather his attention, so I place my fingertips on the cover of the journal and stare at him.
I clear my throat. “So, Daeja is a moon dragon.”
Finally, he looks up. “Great. That’s all you’ve come to tell me? We’ve already had this conversation. As you can see, I’m quite busy right now.”
He’s still pissed about our last encounter. But so am I. Except, I’m willing to push away my feelings to do what is right. As I lean forward, readying myself for a bite of a response, a glimmer of light catches my attention in my peripheral vision. Turning to the shine, a streak of sunlight glitters on a gold frame hanging on the wall. The canvas its framing is shredded, with bits of colored scraps still hanging limply like ribbons.
I wince, unable to imagine what orwhocould have caused it.
Sethan follows my stare, then turns to grin at me. “Cyrus was known to lose his temper quite easily, and frequently. Though, I suppose it could have been attributed to his heritage.”
I stare at the brutally tattered canvas. It’s as if a bear waltzed in here and tore its thick, gnarly claws down the painting. The rest of the room fades away, aside from its golden frame. I feel beckoned forward, as if it holds the key to all the answers I need.
I shake myself from the indescribable pull and turn my attention back to Sethan. “Why would you keep something like that?”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s a good reminder of all the things he was capable of, I suppose.”
“Who was he? What happened to him?”
