She darts toward the van where Cassian and Miram disappeared, leaving me, Will, and the gray one alone.
He steps forward as though he might follow Tamra. I block his path, my chest heaving, the smolder eating its way up my windpipe. I shake my head in warning at him.
His eyes flare as he comes face-to-face with me. He remembers me well.
“She’s my sister,” I announce as if that should squash his interest in her. He did try to kill me, after all—something I haven’t forgotten, no matter that I might sympathize with his motivation at the time. He looks from me to her retreating figure and back at me again.
And still, he holds himself maddeningly silent.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to go?” I wave a hand, motioning in the direction Lia took. “You’re free.”
A low rumble rises from his chest, not quite a growl, but close.
I angle my head. “What? You don’t speak?”
“Jacinda, what are you doing? Trying to irritate him?” Will moves up beside me, ready to jump into any potential fray that may erupt. He can’t understand my words but he recognizes my provoking tone. His square jaw clenches tightly, a muscle feathering the flesh of his cheek.
The rumble comes again, even less growllike, almost like the draki tongue … and then I realize it is the draki tongue. The sound is a little rusty from disuse and neglect, but it’s undeniably draki speech. “Listen to the human. Don’t get in my face, fire-breather.”
His voice, so deep and guttural, startles me—more than the threat of his words. Footsteps sound behind me and I see that Tamra approaches hesitantly, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, looking both normal and eerily beautiful with her frosty eyes and silvery hair.
Her wide eyes raptly fix on the gray draki in front of me. She looks less uncomfortable now. I frown. Less uncomfortable and more intrigued, and this only makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know anything about this guy except that he’s built for killing—the perfect weapon. But then, so am I.
“Maybe we should demanifest,” I suggest, glancing from his body to mine, glimmering in the night. “That might make us both feel easier.”
He angles his head and gives me a funny look. “I’m not uneasy.”
Of course not. He can sprout a thousand blades all over his body in a mere heartbeat. Why should he feel uneasy?
“Just demanifest,” I snap.
It’s a long while before he answers. “I don’t know how.”
I’m slow to process his words, but once I do, I pull back, needing the distance, not feeling safe so close to this draki that is essentially a dragon.
“What?” Will asks, immediately registering my reaction and knowing something is wrong. “Can you demanifest and talk to me? Tell me what’s going on?”
“She asked him to demanifest and he said he can’t,” Tamra explains, stepping closer to me. But she’s careful to stay behind me. Like she’s afraid of getting too close to this draki.
“What do you mean?” I demand.
He doesn’t know how? How is that possible? That’s what we are—what a draki does. The human part of us is every bit as real as the draki.
“It’s been too long,” he says. “I don’t remember how.”
I look him up and down. “How long have you been like this?”
“Since they captured me and my pride.”
They captured his entire pride?
As though he can read my mind, he continues, “My pride had been hunted for so long. We were just a handful at the end. Seventeen of us. No children. Now I’m all that’s left.”
I shudder, thinking of this, of how it must feel to be captured alongside of everyone you know and love, family and friends. To lose them all. “How long were you a prisoner?” I repeat, an ache starting in my chest.
He shakes his head, tossing his ash blond waves. His hair falls past his shoulders—as matted and wild as the rest of him. “I can’t know for sure,” he says in that raspy voice. “You don’t count the days in there. It’s not possible. It feels as though I spent several lifetimes in those walls.”
I nod, well remembering how the single day I spent in that cell felt so much longer. Forever.
“I watched my kin die all around me. They either faded away until death claimed them or the enkros killed them with their experiments. I wished for death, so that I could be free, too.” He tilts his face up to the night, clearly savoring the wind on his face. The ridges along his nose flex with breath.
“And now you are free,” I say.
“It’s been so long. I was fourteen when I went in.” His lips twist, the top lip curling over a flash of bone-white teeth.
Tamra gasps behind me.
He levels that smile of sorts on her. “I’m guessing I don’t look fourteen any longer?”
No. No, he doesn’t. He looks hardened and experienced. Probably older than I am.
He’s been with them for years. My thoughts reel. At least four years, I would guess. And a draki all this time. No wonder he’s so primitive … such a savage.
Will and Tamra talk in low voices as she translates everything that’s been said.
Cassian returns then, and I’m relieved. I don’t know what else to say to this nameless draki, a wild animal freed from his cage. The way he’s acted … it’s no surprise.
“He needs a place to go,” Cassian announces in a voice that rings with the confidence of one destined to rule, and dominate, especially if Severin has any say. “We’ll take him with us.”
I swing around. “To the pride?”
I’m not sure about this. Even if I feel slightly more empathetic toward him, it’s a lot to forget the danger he poses.
“Where else?” Cassian asks. “He can’t demanifest.” Apparently the draki explained his situation to Cassian, too. “We can’t just leave him here on his own.”
And then I remember that I’m not going back. When I left the pride I had no intention of ever returning and now that Cassian can escort Miram home, there’s no need to. I shouldn’t care if Cassian wants to take a wild beast back to the pride.
But I do.
It’s not a switch I can flip off. I care about Cassian and Az and countless others still living in the pride. Taking this draki there could risk them all.
I look Cassian over. His breathing is labored. He’s still hurting, one hand clutching his side. How’s he going to handle Miram and a draki that can’t demanifest? All on his own? “He’s a little unpredictable, isn’t he?”
“Leaving him like this would be irresponsible,” Cassian says with a wave toward him. “He has no pride. Nowhere to go. He can’t be cut loose. He’ll either be captured again or end up harming someone.”
“Jacinda, it’s the right thing to do,” Tamra inserts.
I growl now. From frustration at this entire situation. From my sister’s altruism.
Then I feel bad because I know it’s not fair to think that way. She’s here because of me. When we left home, she would have been happy to leave the pride behind forever and search for Mom. I persuaded her to delay that plan on Miram’s behalf. I owe it to her to listen to her opinion.
With that thought, I bite back the urge to disagree and stalk away to the van to locate more clothes—and try to cool down enough to demanifest.
Will stays behind with the others, his wary gaze still on the gray draki, and I know he won’t drop his guard even for a moment. Not just because he senses my unease, but because he’s smart that way. As a hunter, willing or not, he possesses his own share of well-honed instincts.
This mollifies me a little.
Until my gaze lands on Cassian. My chin lifts as I convey to him that he should really reconsider taking this draki home with him. His jaw locks tightly with resolution. Still, I try to reach him. I communicate with my eyes … with the bond that hums between us. And I sigh. No matter what, there is always that. No matter what I have with Will. I have something with Cassian, too.
11
Stepping out of sig
ht from the others, I round the van. Embracing my solitude, I take a deep breath, dragging cool air into my burning lungs for several moments. The heat subsides, and so do I. My wings ease back down, disappearing between my shoulder blades with a crack of bone and cartilage … until the next time.
“Here you go.”
I jump a little at the sound of Will’s voice. Turning, I accept the shirt he stretches out for me and pull it over my head. “Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” His eyes drill into mine.
“Yes. Sure. Cassian’s alive.” I’m shaky inside as I say this and I realize that it’s just hitting me. Cassian. Alive. Not dead. My legs wobble, ready to give out.
The arrival of the gray draki eclipses my relief. Looking at him is like seeing what I could be, what we all could be—draki everywhere—if we were kept captive for years and treated like wild animals. And the way he is staring at Tamra just gives me a bad feeling.
Will stares at me soberly. “We’re parting ways with them, Jacinda. Remember? You shouldn’t feel responsible for them.”
“Yeah.” I nod, even if I’m not convinced. Cassian’s emotions run strong, pulling at me. He believes he needs me to get back to the pride. Needs … or wants. I’m not sure which. Maybe both.
I inhale. And that’s when I smell him. That aroma that is distinctly Will. Standing so close to him again, I feel my chest grow tight and achy. There were moments in the last twenty-four hours where I doubted I’d ever have this again. I tilt my face up to him. Everywhere Will’s gaze roams feels like a touch, a caress.
Soon it will be just me and Will. And Tam. We’ll be safe. And we’ll find Mom. Everything will be all right.
Still, the unease lingers in me.
My scalp tingles and tightens knowing the gray draki is just a few yards away. And Cassian intends to take him back to the pride, when he’s hardly fit to get himself back there.
And even more than that. Something still seems wrong. I worry we haven’t entirely escaped. We may not be free yet. It still feels like something is … coming.
As if sensing my bleak thoughts, Will steps closer. His hands slide up and down my arms. I look up into his face and lose myself in the deep sea of his eyes.
“Everything has worked out. We’re on our way, just like we planned. And not a moment too soon.” One corner of his mouth curls. “I’ve waited long enough to get you alone.”
And I can’t say the words burning inside me with his hopeful gaze locked on me. I can’t tell him that deep in my core, in the marrow of my bones, I don’t feel like any of this is over yet.
I hide my feelings with a smile. “We won’t be too alone. There will still be my sister.”
He grins. “She likes me—”
“You think?” I tease.
“I know. Don’t go trying to put doubts in my head.” His fingers dance along my ribs, tickling my side. Even this light touch leaves me breathless—and not because I’m ticklish. I jerk and bounce sideways but he follows me, pulling me flush against him and backing us both against the van. “She likes me and will take pity on me to give us a moment alone now and then.” His gaze scans my face, warming my skin.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I tease back. “You still owe me that date. Dinner. A movie.”
The laughter in those hazel eyes fades, and his gaze grows intent and serious. Desire brims there. The longing of someone who has waited too long already. “What about you? Will you take pity and ease my suffering?” He buries his nose in my hair and inhales deeply.
“How have you been suffering?” I whisper, my vanity craving the words.
“I suffer for you … from wanting you and only getting these stolen moments here and there.”
As if to prove his point, the sound of my name stretches on the wind. “Jacinda!”
Will groans and drops his head into his palm. “See what I mean?”
Tamra approaches, her hair glistening like pearls in the moonlight. “Ah, there you are. Cassian thinks we should get moving again … that we’re still too close to the enkros stronghold.”
I bite back my question: Since when do you care what Cassian wants? I stop myself though. Better that he affects her so little that she can speak his name as if he’d never broken her heart.
“Sure,” I say, squeezing past the warm solidness of Will’s chest with a sigh. I’d like nothing more than to curl up and sleep with him as my pillow.
Tamra moves away. I hear the door at the back of the van creak open and I start to head that way, not wanting to leave my sister alone with a draki who looks at her like she’s his first glimpse of sunlight. Will stops me and quickly tugs me back into his arms for a heated kiss. His lips. On mine. It’s everything. I revel in the feel of his hands, the texture of his roughened palms as they hold my face. His thumbs pressing lightly into my cheeks. I melt against him.
When we finally break for air, he whispers against my hair, “It’s just until we reach the truck stop where we left the car. Hang on until then.”
His words wash me in cold. I should speak up now and let him know that I’m worried about leaving Cassian injured with the burden of Miram and the gray draki.
But I can’t find my voice yet. And maybe Cassian will have recovered enough before we reach the truck stop. We heal quickly, after all. I flex my fingers against the cool cotton of his T-shirt and hold him close for a moment longer. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
We’re cramped inside the back of the van. Even with Miram sitting up front with Will, Cassian and the gray draki take up a lot of room. Especially a fully manifested draki.
Cassian insisted that Miram sit up front, claiming she’d been confined in a cell long enough. As it was a rather wretched experience—my brief stay in the enkros stronghold can attest to that—I didn’t argue.
The gray draki seems too huge. He devours all the space, sucks everything inside himself, leaving Tamra and me pressed close together. I think longingly of that front passenger seat that Miram now occupies.
“So do you have a name?” Tamra surprises me by asking him. Her tone was a little too friendly for my taste. I shoot her a look. She meets my gaze and shrugs. Keeping my watchful gaze on him, I resist rolling my eyes. He must have a name. He did exist somewhere else, presumably in this country, before the enkros took him.
He nods once. “Deghan,” he says.
Deghan. An old-sounding name. And it fits him perfectly.
“Why don’t you concentrate on trying to demanifest while you’re stuck back here?” Cassian suggests.
Deghan looks at Cassian and his lips curl almost with disgust. I can’t blame him. Who wants to openly struggle, in front of an audience, to do something he can’t?
“Maybe another time,” Tamra quickly inserts, her voice softly comforting. “You’ve just forgotten how is all. It will come back to you.”
Deghan watches her intently, his pewter dragon eyes devouring. I can’t fathom his thoughts. I only know that I don’t like that he watches her. Period.
We stop at a diner in the middle of nowhere. The sound of traffic on the two-lane highway is sporadic. I smell the aroma of cooking meat on the wind before Will even opens one of the doors. My stomach grumbles. We shared a bag of powdered doughnuts this morning—hardly the stuff of champions. We could all use some real food. Bright light slants in through the back doors and I squint at the intrusion.
“Obviously, we can’t all go in and sit down to eat,” Will announces, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one wanders close and happens to spot a seven-foot winged creature in the back of the van. “Jacinda and I can order food for everyone and bring it back.” He nods his head, indicating that I should climb out.
I step down and we walk across the parking lot. Loose gravel crunches under my shoes. It’s a long walk. Will parked at the back of the lot, far from the doors and prying eyes.
“Thanks,” I murmur. “Nice to get a break from back there.”
“Figured as much,” he replies, slipping his hand around mine. “And Miram doesn’t seem eager to surround herself with humans. She’s not exactly chatty with me up there.”
We order burgers and fries in the diner. I make sure to order extra, knowing how Cassian eats and guessing Deghan has an equally ravenous appetite.
Sitting on stools at the counter, waiting for our order, I almost feel normal. Since Tamra interrupted us the last time we were alone, it’s nice to have this time together.
“Would you like drinks while you wait?” a waitress behind the counter asks. At our nods, she pours and leaves us with two sodas sweating in plastic red glasses.
I fiddle with a straw. “This might be the closest we get to a real sit-down date for a while.”
He shakes his head. “Not exactly what I had in mind. We can do better.” He winks at me. “We will.”
Tearing the paper off the extra straw, I smooth it semi-flat with my fingers until it’s just right. Bringing one end to my lips, I carefully cup my hands, positioning them into the perfect pocket, and begin to blow out a tune. Lowering my hands, I ask, “Impressed?”
“You have no idea.”
I nod in satisfaction. “Just wait. It gets better.” Next, I start whistling the tune of “Camptown Races.”
“Okay,” he says with mock seriousness. “Now you’re just turning me on.”
I almost mess up, tempted to giggle at that. Finished, I lean back with a flourish and grin. He claps.
“Didn’t know about that particular talent of mine, did you?” I preen, enjoying myself.
“It puts your other … abilities to shame.”
I laugh, and swivel on the stool. It feels so normal, so right and good to be with him like this. Happy and silly and carefree. I can almost pretend the others aren’t out there waiting on us. He catches my legs and stops me. His face is solemn as he leans in to kiss me with those cool, smooth lips of his, not even caring if anyone watches us. I grasp the edge of his jacket with my fingers, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss, wishing we were alone.
Hidden: A Firelight Novel Page 8