Page 73 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
But because ofhim. Bene.
There he stood right on the veranda steps, his head bowed.
Clearly waiting for me.
Without even bothering to lift his eyes to mine, he snatched my hand and bodily tugged me down the stairs, out into the garden, and behind a row of hedges.
“Bene,” I gasped, stumbling, my shoes already filling with water. “What are you doing?”
He answered me with a sob—a choked, wounded sound I never imagined I would ever hear from my dragon prince. It was then I realized he was crying. His tears mingled with the raindrops streaming down his face, but his eyes told me all I needed to know when he finally lifted his head.
I lost myself within the depths of his sorrow. I drowned right along with him, the threat of tears stinging my own eyes. Without a word, I stepped toward him and lifted my hands, cupping his ashen cheeks.
I didn’t know what was wrong; I didn’t know what had happened, but I did know this:
He had come to say goodbye.
Shivering like a man wracked by a fever, he wrapped his strong arms around my waist and scandalously tugged me close. Close enough to make my pulse race. Close enough to twist the knife of sorrow already piercing my heart that much more. Bene never held me. He so rarely touched me.
Only now, when our time together was at an end, did he deign to do so.
Come with me. Be with me. Marry me. I love you. I’ve always loved you.
Those were the things I so desperately wanted him to say.
Instead, he hoarsely whispered into the scant space between us, “I can’t stay long. But I had to come. I had to see you again. One last time.”
I shook my head, struggling to breathe. “No.” I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to say goodbye.
Not like this. Not hiding in Selina Danbury’s garden in the rain. Not narrowly avoiding scandal with every moment that passed. “No. Bene, please.” My hold on his face tightened when I felt him try to pull away. “Bene,don’t.”
Shamefully, pitifully, I begged, “Don’t leave me here.”
His shoulders hunched against the rain. His face lowered. His body trembled against mine. “I have to, Aurelia. I have to. He’s dead.”
My heart seized. Who was dead?
But Bene kept speaking, babbling like a madman. “He’s dead. I killed him. The Door is closing. It’s closing now. I have to return. Mother needs me. She’ll drown the world if she loses me, too. He’s dead. He’s dead. My father’s…dead.”
That final word was but a sob in Bene’s throat. I could almosthearhis heart breaking.
And mine broke right along with it.
“Bene—” I started to say around the rising lump in my throat, desperate to comfort him.
But he shook his head again and pried himself from my grip, retreating from me through the wind and rain. “Don’t. Don’t. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I killed him. Ikilledhim.”
He wasn’t making sense. I knew he’d never kill his father.
The Benevolence I knew could never kill anyone, least of all his father.
“Shh, Bene,” I tried again, pursuing him further through the soaked garden as he fled from me. The rain was beginning to let up. The storm was passing.
Which made it entirely too easy to see the pain blazing deep within his eyes when he spun around to face me again and stepped in close to do the unthinkable.
He pressed his lips against my brow.
For a moment, my heart stopped beating.
