Page 78 of Blood of Dragons
“Perhaps,” he said. “What are your orders?”
“Keep following him. I want to know if he gets himself killed.”
Commander Navarrese gave a quick nod before he left my study.
Khazmuda spoke in my mind again.Talon?
Commander Navarrese required my attention.
Well, now I require yours. Let’s fly together.
Khazmuda landed in the meadow, the poppy flowers filling every inch of the green grass. It was close to sunset, the sun low in the sky on a clear day, the sky pink and orange instead of its usual gray.
Being here only reminded me of the fact that Khazmuda had also shared this withher.
The woman who had betrayed me.
I leaned up against a tree and crossed my ankles, watching the sky as the colors slowly deepened.
Khazmuda stared at the view for a while before he turned back to me.
“I fucking trusted her…like a goddamn fool.”
His eyes watched mine.
“I thought she was with me all the way. But she lied to my face every fucking day. I should have listened to you, Khazmuda. You’re the only one who actually gives a shit about me, but I chose my gut over you.”
I think she did care for your cause. I just think your past made it difficult for her. If that had never happened, she would probably be with you now. You even said yourself that you respected her decision?—
“Doesn’t mean I fucking like it,” I snapped. “Here I am begging this woman for the information I desperately need, and she fucking denies me. After what she did to me, she should be grateful that she’s even alive—but she fucked me over again.” I grabbed the rock sitting beside me and chucked it as far as it would go. “I told her what happened. I fucking told her about my father, my brother, my mother…the sounds of their screams… I fucking told her.” I felt my eyes start to water as the memory came back to me, still vivid all these decades later.
But you didn’t tell her about Vivian.
My heart dropped like a rock into my stomach. It was hard to hear her name…even now.
Or Lena.
“Please…don’t say her name.” I inhaled a painful breath when I heard that name, when I pictured a beautiful little girl with dark hair and bright eyes. She would be my age now, already married with children of her own, a short life already well lived.
Khazmuda looked away to give me privacy.You didn’t give her the full picture.
“It shouldn’t matter.”
But it does matter. She’s decided to remain wherever she is and abandon Scorpion Valley—even though you offered her the crown. Because she has the option to move on. But you don’t have that option.
“No…I don’t.”
I think if you told her, it might change things.
“Never.”
Talon—
“I never want to speak of it—ever.”
Khazmuda turned back to me, giving me that dark stare that matched mine.
“Let it lie, Khazmuda.” My eyes moved back to the valley, looking at the last glimpse of the sun. “I can’t believe she has everything I want right in the palm of her hand, and she refuses to give it to me. It’s fucking infuriating. And then she says she never wishes to see me again…because I mean so little to her.”