by Marcy Jacks
Jason tensed, his hands immediately ceasing their lazy strokes over his firm back, which was unfortunately because he stopped right where his fingertips had dipped into a rough scar.
“Your family?” Jason asked, thinking quickly. “Because they’re warriors, too?”
In another nest perhaps? Please let it be so. Please, please, please, don’t let it be what he was thinking about.
Kraigan shook his head. “No. They were killed,” he said, adding. “By humans.”
Jason’s heart immediately cracked and then fell into pieces inside of him. He couldn’t look. He couldn’t look into Kraigan’s face and see the pain that must be going on there for him to even be able to admit to something like that.
The thing that probably got to Jason the most was the sound of Kraigan’s voice cracking as he admitted to it. Of course, the man had to clear his throat. Pretending that he hadn’t made that choked noise to begin with? Still holding on to his strengths as though they were a shield?
Probably.
“I’m so sorry,” Jason said, wishing there was something he could say that wouldn’t sound so watered down and thin. It was all he had. He didn’t even know Kraigan’s family, or the people who’d done it, and yet he wanted to mourn the loss with Kraigan, wrap his arms around the man and tell him that he would never hurt him, that he would help him find the bastards who’d done it and hand them over to Kraigan for his own personal revenge.
Kraigan shrugged. “Do not be sorry. I killed them in due time. They died slowly enough.”
“Oh,” Jason said. Well, there went his idea of helping Kraigan find them so they could exact all sorts of horrific torture on them. Jason was stunned that it was something he would even think he’d ever want to do, but he definitely did.
Kraigan pulled away from him, not looking him in the eyes as he got up from the bed and moved away from Jason. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t need it.”
“I…I wasn’t going to feel sorry for you,” Jason lied. That was exactly what he’d felt, but what in the hell was he supposed to do otherwise? He couldn’t do anything in that moment but feel sorry for Kraigan. The man was clearly in pain, and there was nothing Jason could do to make it better.
Kraigan reached into the chest at the foot of his bed, pulling on the same robe that Jason had worn the day he and Kraigan had their first misunderstanding. Jason sat up, very aware that it seemed as though they were about to have another one.
“I’m sorry I asked. I won’t mention it again,” he said.
Kraigan still wasn’t looking at him as he tied his sash. “You’re right. You won’t.”
Jason’s heart was thumping now. That sounded final. It sounded incredibly final the way Kraigan was speaking.
“You’re not planning on killing me now, are you?” he asked, laughing weakly at his own joke. “I mean, I promised I won’t tell, and I won’t. Not a soul.”
It was no one else’s business as far as he was concerned, probably not even his own, and this was something that clearly bothered Kraigan.
He was a strong man, a warrior, but this was something that had cut him deep, and the wound was still tender. Maybe it would always be. Sometimes Jason couldn’t even think about the loss of his own parents without becoming angry and upset.
For Kraigan, it seemed much worse, and Jason stupidly opened his mouth again, not even thinking about the consequences of his actions. “Where you there? Did you see it happen?”
The thought of Kraigan having to witness something so terrible horrified him, but that horror was quickly replaced with a fear unlike anything Jason had ever felt when Kraigan rounded on him, his eyes blazing and the scales of his dragon form making an appearance along certain pockets of his skin.
“That is not your concern.”
Kraigan grabbed Jason by the arms, hoisting him out of bed before bending down, snatching his clothes off of the floor and shoving them at him. “Get dressed, right now,” Kraigan said.
“A-all right,” Jason said, hurrying and doing as he was told, even though it meant dirtying his already loose and torn clothes even more so than just by leaving them on the floor.
They would need to be washed and mended now. Perfect.
“What’s going on?” Jason asked, fastening his leggings. He’d just started to put on one of his shoes when Kraigan apparently lost all patience with waiting. He was in the middle of dragging Jason to the door before Jason even noticed what was happening and started to drag his feet.
“Hey, wait!” he said, but then the door was open and he was on the other side, pushed there by Kraigan, no longer welcome in his room.
He turned back and put his hands on the door, just barely stopping Kraigan from slamming it in his face. He didn’t dare stick his feet in the way. He had one foot bare and the other one in its thin, leather shoe, and Kraigan might accidentally break Jason’s foot if he stuck it in the way.
“Wait, Kraigan, what are you doing?” Jason asked. Was that his voice? Even to his own ears, the panic and desperation sounded a little too much, but he couldn’t help himself. There was nothing for it. He was panicked. His heart wouldn’t stop racing, and it had the after-effect of barely allowing him to think.
Kraigan scowled, but still refused to look at him. He was holding the door against Jason with one hand, one hand against all of Jason’s strength to push it back open. He would close that door when he was damned good and ready, and there was not a thing Jason would be able to do about it.
“We are done with this. This has gone on for as long as it can go.”
Jason shook his head. “What are you talking about? No it hasn’t! We just…I mean…”
He lost his ability to think, his mind blanking as though a snowstorm of fresh powder had erased away all of his thoughts. He continued to shake his head because it was the only thing he could do.
Earlier that day, he’d come to the realization that he was in love with this man, and Kraigan was choosing now to be rid of him?
“Kraigan, please, don’t do this,” Jason said, letting his need show through, his pathetic urge to hold on to something that did not exist.
He couldn’t look up at the man now. He just held the door, staring at his hands, until Kraigan decided to close it. “I’m sorry that I asked about your tattoo. I’ll never ask of it again. I swear that I won’t.”
Kraigan didn’t say anything for a long minute. Jason could just imagine how he looked to the other man. Needy, clingy, the very definition of undesirable as he pressed against Kraigan’s door, half-naked in a hallway where he did not belong and eyes swimming with moisture.
He hoped that by keeping his head down that Kraigan wouldn’t be able to notice that part. He didn’t want a strong, proud dragon warrior to see how close he was tears.
“I’ll call for Lightning. He’ll be out in a moment to escort you back to the servants’ area. We’re done, Jason,” Kraigan said, and it was just another simple push before the door was shut, locking Jason out of Kraigan’s room, and probably his life, for good.
The only sound Jason heard was that of his own breathing, the choked noise of his breath hitching as he struggled to hold everything in.
He couldn’t. It wouldn’t stay down, and Jason didn’t bother with putting on his other shoe or with waiting for Lightning to escort him. He grabbed up his things and began to run back to the servants’ area on his own.
Chapter Eleven
Tatsu knocked on Kraigan’s door. He saw the way the man had thrown the little human out, had watched as Jason had begged to be let back in, only to be denied, and now he needed to know exactly what it was that had brought about such a strange and unexpected result.
Kraigan answered, yanking the door open, a fearsome scowl on his face and his teeth bared. His dragon teeth.
Tatsu was neither frightened by the sight, nor was he impressed. As fearsome as Kraigan could be whenever he gave that look to anyone else—and Tatsu was fairly sure one dragon male had even pissed himself
when Kraigan had looked at him that way—Tatsu had seen it plenty, and he pushed against Kraigan’s chest, letting himself into the bedroom that still smelled of sex.
The bed sheets certainly gave it away.
Kraigan hissed at him again for stepping into his space when he clearly didn’t want to be disturbed.
“Cut that out. Tell me what happened,” Tatsu demanded, searching around the room for...he wasn’t sure. What could have caused Kraigan to throw out the annoying little human? Jason didn’t seem like the type for theft, so it had to have been something he said.
“That’s not your business,” Kraigan snapped, moving over to his bed and fixing the sheets. Then he seemed to decide better of it before he yanked them right off and tossed them into the corner of his room.
“I watched you throw out that little human like you were done with him. Did he hurt you?” Tatsu asked. “If he did, I can deal with him.”
“Don’t touch him,” Kraigan grumbled. “Nothing happened. I decided I was done.”
“Done?” Tatsu asked.
Kraigan wouldn’t look at him when he nodded. It was that, the fact that the man still seemed so cut off as he moved to a wardrobe, opened it, and pulled out fresh sheets before returning to his bed that stopped Tatsu from feeling any hope with this.
Just because Kraigan had decided he was done with the human did not mean that there was any room for Tatsu to get involved.
Kraigan had made his opinion clear. He thought of Tatsu too much like a brother.
“Why are you done?” Tatsu asked. “The human seemed a little upset about that.”
“It’s not your business.”
And it wasn’t, but Tatsu was not about to let that stop him. “I care for you, you know that, and even if it can only be as a brother, I want to know how he hurt you. Did he say anything?”
Tatsu immediately thought of Kraigan’s family. They’d both lost their families in a similar way. Humans being reckless and violent with lives. They’d both vowed to hate the humans forever.
Perhaps that was why it stung so badly that Kraigan seemed only interested in being with a human over him and why it hurt to see the man so distraught over one as he made his bed, hands sliding over the sheets, smoothing out the wrinkles.
“Kraigan, I won’t hurt him if you tell me not to, but at least tell me what he did. We never shied away from speaking about the people we hated.”
“Who said I hated him?” Kraigan snapped, finally glaring over his shoulder. “I said I was done with him.”
“All right, then why could you possibly be this angry about being done with one simple little—”
The answer came to him in a flash, and Tatsu just about choked on his words before he could get them out. He had his answer now, and he couldn’t believe it.
“Have you...” He couldn’t even say the words. They got stuck in his throat, and he had to clear it before continuing on. “Do you love that human?”
Kraigan tensed and stood up to his full height, no longer interested in bending forward and making his bed, and then he turned and gave Tatsu one hard glare.
They’d looked at each other like that many times before, but this was much different. This time there was a warning there that Tatsu felt certain Kraigan was serious about.
“You will watch your mouth.”
He couldn’t. Not because he was the kind of male who would blurt things out uncontrollably like that annoying little human but because he needed to poke and prod because his pride demanded that he know. “Are you in love with a human? A human, Kraigan?”
“I know what he is, and no, I’m not in love with him.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tatsu said, shaking his head. He didn’t even believe this. “This is...This is horseshit! You can’t seriously tell me that you’ve fallen for a human!”
“What does it matter? Even if I have, which I haven’t,” Kraigan insisted, “why would it matter?”
“You wanting to use a human for your pleasure is one thing, but to do something like this...to let it get so far...We swore an oath to each other to never trust them, to always despise them, and then you do something like this?”
It felt like an even worse betrayal than when those dragons had gone against their king and taken the humans out of the nest. It was an even harsher punch to the stomach than when he’d kissed Kraigan and Kraigan had tried to spare his feelings by telling him there was nothing there. No hope to salvage, no chance for any sort of romantic relationship.
It had been a lie because Kraigan hadn’t just been in lust with the human, he’d been in love with him.
It made Tatsu want to find the little bastard and hurt him even more than when he’d thought Jason had said something cruel and disrespectful to Kraigan.
Maybe Kraigan saw that in his eyes because the next thing Tatsu was aware of was the way Kraigan stepped forward, toe to toe with him, his mouth pulled back to reveal those sharp, dragon teeth once more as his face twisted in a snarl.
“Don’t you dare touch him.”
“If you’re not in love with him, then what does it matter?” Tatsu demanded. “He’s a human. He’s nothing, and he’s worthless, and you just finished throwing him from your bedchambers.”
“And I will throw you out, after I break your nose, if you do not shut up,” Kraigan warned.
“And all because you want to protect the feelings of the dirty slut—”
Tatsu’s head jerked back. The pain was sharp and over quickly, leaving behind more of a throbbing ache in its place, but it was still enough, still hard to believe that Kraigan had struck him in anger.
Not anger. No, that was wrong. They’d hit each other in anger before, releasing tension and pent-up emotions in a good spar.
The look on Kraigan’s face, however, was the look, one of sheer rage. Tatsu had thought he’d seen Kraigan angry before, but it was nothing compared to now. Kraigan would only be so angry if he cared, if this human truly did mean something to him. It was enough to make Tatsu’s blood boil.
He brought his hand up to his nose. The pain flared again at the touch. The cartilage felt wrong and squished, and there was a tiny gritting, crunching sound. He needed to pull his fingers away from his nose before he made it worse. There was bright red blood on his fingers when he pulled them back.
Kraigan glared at him. Tatsu glared back.
His honor and pride were saved when he started to speak and his voice did not come out sounding nasally from the strike. “It’s good to know you have no feelings for the little wretch. Otherwise, I might have gotten the wrong idea,” he said, and then he turned to go.
He wiped off some more blood gathering on his top lip, and just because he was in the mood to be petty, he wiped it on the wall beside the door before seeing himself out.
Let Kraigan clean that up. Let him have, at least, that reminder of how he’d betrayed Tatsu for one stupid little human.
The sound of the door banging as it shut behind him—not because it had slammed but because Kraigan had punched it—offered Tatsu no comfort on his way out. Lightning was standing in the hall, looking concerned.
“I just got a call from Kraigan,” he said, holding up his black radio. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Tatsu said, shaking his head. “Nothing at all.”
* * * *
Kraigan’s fist throbbed from where he’d punched his door. His breathing was so erratic he could hardly control it, and a layer of sweat had built on his face from the heat in the room, brought on by his own anger.
Now it was cooling, leaving him shivering as he pulled his knuckles away from the reinforced wooden door.
His fist shook. There was some blood. He would likely have to see the healer. Again. Fuck.
Not now. He didn’t want to go anywhere now if he didn’t have to. Tomorrow. Tomorrow after his shift, he would go and have his hand checked. He would have it bandaged and make certain there was nothing broken, and if he was lucky, perhaps the pain would be g
one when he woke up for his shift tomorrow and he wouldn’t have to go at all.
But Tatsu’s words were still floating around the room, still taunting him and echoing inside of his mind like a ghost that he couldn’t strike or hit or scare away.
Accusing him, accusing him of being in love with a human.
Kraigan loved nothing. He loved nothing and no one, and that was the way it was going to remain. Even with Jason.
But the look on Jason’s face as he’d begged to stay...
Don’t think about it.
Kraigan went back to his newly made bed. Slipping under the freshly lain sheets did not make him feel as good as he’d thought they would. Now they simply felt cold. There had been no bodies in these sheets to warm them prior to him getting under. Those sheets were now sitting in a corner, cold and smelling of Jason.
His face. God, his face.
Kraigan loved nothing. He didn’t, but there had been a moment when, as he’d confessed to the man about how his family had been killed, that something had happened.
Kraigan couldn’t exactly describe it, but as Jason’s hands had smoothed over his skin, the man’s lips kissing him as he attempted to comfort Kraigan, something had switched inside of his mind that he couldn’t turn off.
A knowledge that suddenly became his. It was the realization that he might, perhaps, care more than he’d thought he would. A space that had been available inside of his chest had been filled, and that was not good.
This wasn’t caring in the same way Kraigan might care for a plant—and he never even did that since any plant he thought to purchase always died. This was a different sort of caring, the sort that frightened Kraigan because he couldn’t push that caring feeling away. Not with Jason inhabiting that space inside of him.
He hadn’t been frightened of anything since the day he’d witness his family’s murder. Nothing had scared him, and yet this realization, this tiny light of truth, had frozen him to the core of his being, so deep inside of himself that he wouldn’t be able to dig it out without killing himself first.