Page 47 of Dragon Bodyguard
“What?” he asked.
“You set this up,” she said. “All of it. You staged this kidnapping. Why? What is it, exactly, that you want with me?”
“Tell her,” Byron said, voice lowered.
Ilya brought the gun up again, pointing it at Byron’s head in warning, but it made the rest of the men in the room, save for Dmitri and Misha, pull their guns as well. Even Aleksander, his gaze on his father’s.
“What did you do?” Aleksander asked him, pain etching itself onto his face.
He’d always been the spitting image of Ilya. Kristina thought that he had never looked less like him.
Ilya lowered his gun again, and Dmitri stepped up to him, yanking it from his grasp. Ilya took a step back, holding his hands up in submission. The quiet in the room was so intense it made Misha knead his thumb in a steady pattern against Kristina’s knuckles.
“Your blood has healing magic,” Ilya finally said, turning his eyes on Kristina’s again. “I was going to pretend you were taken…”
“And then what?” Aleksander demanded.
“And then I was going to lock her away and drain her of a pint a day and sell it, all right?” Ilya said, throwing his hands out to the sides in a defeated gesture. “I would have made a fortune,” he added, looking back at Kristina.
“You were going to enslave her?” Aleksander asked, tears shining in his eyes. “She’s family.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Ilya asked. “She’s a runt. A powerful one, but a runt. You don’t have a father, Kristina. You barely even have a mother anymore. Yes, I lied to you about what you are because I knew it was the only way to keep your powers hidden.”
“Why now?” she asked.
“Because of the deal with the Volkovs,” Misha said.
Ilya glared at him, but an appreciative smile still appeared on his mouth, and he nodded.
“Your man is right,” Ilya said. “Full disclosure? Since that seems to be what we’re doing here. Our family, Aleksander, is a little fucked. I’ve made a few bad deals and this last one with the Volkovs… If I don’t find a way to cut them in, there will be war. You understand? It was for the family that I did this.”
“No,” Aleksander shook his head. “You only ever do anything for yourself.”
“Ilya,” Dmitri said. “You could have come to me.”
“Oh, spare me,” Ilya said. “You know my brother would rather see my head on a platter than throw money at my problems. Please, don’t embarrass yourself by saying you’d overrule him and help me if he refused. I know how this works.”
Kristina stared at this man, this dragon, who had cast a shadow. For as long as she could remember, he had been the shadow she hid in. She had never thought to shine a light in that dark space because she’d been told she couldn’t. That would do no good anyway. That she wasn’t strong enough, capable enough and that the source of light could never be her anyway. She had believed it with her entire being and because she had, her inner dragon had been kept buried so deep within her that she hadn’t even been sure it was even there.
She’d felt rejected by it. She’d thought it didn’t deem her worthy, when all along it had been him. The man who had told him he was her father, her parent.
He was a stranger.
She had never truly seen him until this moment and what she saw wasn’t a shadow at all. It was a sad, selfish sack of a dragon long past his former glories. Someone who made bad decisions and put his family at risk. She owed him no respect. None at all.
“You’ve manipulated me my entire life,” Kristina said. “For a century. Kept me as a backup in case you ever fell on hard times. That was all I ever was to you. Security.”
Ilya observed her in silence, then nodded.
“Yes, that’s all you ever were to me.”
Something in her loosened.
The sorrow lifted as though a spell had been broken.
He wasn’t her father. He had never cared about her, so she had no obligation to care about him. His hold over her was gone.
“Then all I can say to you is thank you,” she said, stepping close to Misha. He wrapped an arm around her waist. “You brought us together again.”
