Chapter 18 CHAPTER 18
DRACO'S POV
Thump.
Thump.
That's how fast blood pumped in my body, like I'd been possessed by something animalistic; like I'd somehow taken a full glass of dragon blood and was losing my mind.
But I knew I hadn't taken any intoxicant for over a decade now, hadn't allowed my body to feel… this.
She felt so small in front of me, breakable, and if I weren't advanced in the knowledge of my kind, I could have assumed she was human.
But I'd come across many feminine, soft women; some even breaking tradition and throwing themselves my way, but none had been able to make me feel anything other than irritation.
But I'd barely known the lass for about twelve hours and I was already questioning my beliefs.
I guided Styx toward my backyard, somewhere I'd not been to in six moons now.
But yet, here I was, bringing her to my personal home, the one I'd spent happier days in.
What was I thinking?
Only I wasn't; only feeling.
Feeling calmness, yet a torrent of desire hammered at me, demanding I take what she didn't even know she had.
But I'd placed these rules myself. Students were out of our reach, until they became one of us, that is.
But she was barely a day in the academy and here I was, looking at the nape of her neck, my tongue itching to lick the soft flesh.
I took a deep breath and put my hands tentatively under her arms and lifted her up.
She squealed, the sound ricocheting through my body. Again.
Control yourself, boy.
"You could have warned me, you know?" she snapped, limping away from the horse shed.
I didn't realize I was smiling until I felt ShadowRider scoff in my head.
"Fuck off," I mumbled, climbing down.
His rumbles of laughter greeted me as I forced myself to school my features.
One would think he could communicate clearly in Pallavi if you didn't know dragons didn't speak.
They felt—anger more than most emotions, but pride was up there too.
Mine has a wider range of emotions though, all the ones I was supposed to feel but locked away.
I secured Styx to her stall before walking toward the young woman who was messing around with my head.
Did she know what effect she had on me?
Hopefully not.
It would do us both no good.
I found her trying to climb the small steps that led to the house, a stubborn edge to her that I caught myself smiling about again, pushing one step after the other.
But the pain in each step pierced through my head like pine needles, and I stalked toward her and lifted her off the ground.
"Eek!" she screamed, and before I could stop it, my brain began imagining hearing that voice in another—
She hit my chest.
"Thank you for your help, but if you'll keep giving me a heart attack while at it, don't fucking bother!"
"A heart attack?" I wondered out loud, confused.
Why would she think I wanted to attack her heart? I can't kill a dragon kin. No one is allowed to, not even His Majesty. We're already losing many lives to the war.
"Yes? The thing that'll happen if you keep popping out of the blues and… carrying me."
I looked at her for a second longer but shook my head and walked into the house. I wasn't going to understand her anyway. She'd spent all her life in the twin world and definitely came back with oddities.
I also couldn't spare more brain cells for anything except going into the house and fixing her something to eat.
Because the other parts—almost all of it, anyway—were busy thinking about her face.
Her heart-shaped face, the small nose that made her look so innocent I felt horrible for thinking about her… in that way.
And those emerald-colored eyes contrasting with the purple strands on her head kept looping in my mind.
Just like they had last night in my dream.
Why I was dreaming about her, I had no idea.
Why I was dreaming in the first place rather than seeing the faces I'd spent years drawing?
Faces I'd failed to save.
Children like me who never got the chance to rebuild, I didn't know either.
I'd come to expect these torturous nightmares. I'd accepted my punishment and made my demons my friends.
But she walks into my office one night and I lose my hold, shattering a wall I'd painstakingly built for survival.
What right did she have to do that? What gave her the right to expose me to a different reality? One that filled me with so much hope and joy, that I definitely didn't deserve?
I allowed the anger to cloak my head as I dropped her on the Caston beast fur couches that decorated my living room, and I hurried into the kitchen, my feet carrying me quickly away from the woman who was threatening my control.
I'd not been here in ages, but the servants still recycled food items in my pantry and kept everywhere dust-free. The mountain can be dramatic sometimes.
I pulled out a pan, dough, eggs, and other ingredients.
I'd not done this since I accepted this role, to everyone's shock.
But they didn't see their eyes, those children, as Faerin killed them before me, because I didn't give him secrets I never even had in the first place.
Every time I plunged my sword into another Fae, it was their eyes I saw. I thought training to be the strongest person in the room would make it easier to escape my own mind, but it didn't do that.
I just became stronger yet terrified.
So I took this job and began to accept that I was born to suffer. Once I did, everything else fell into place.
Until last night.
I plated everything I'd made for her and took it to the living room where she was examining her injured foot.
"Eat up," I commanded, and turned around without waiting for a response.
I got healing herbs from the bathroom counter and joined her again.
Only to stop in my tracks.
This must be sorcery because why does the view of her eating do things to me?
Her eyes slowly lifted from the pancakes to me.
I cleared my throat and walked toward her.
I dropped the jar on the table.
"Apply that on your foot and wait for an hour before moving it," I instructed her.
And then I fled.
I needed to train. My body would remind my mind what we were supposed to do.
And it's definitely not having feelings for a confused half-dragon kin girl who looked like a lot of trouble.