High House Draconis Box Set

by Riley Storm

  “Sorry I asked,” she said, shaking her head. “Anyway, take care, Francis.”

  “Somebody has to.”

  She snorted.

  “Wait,” the steward called after her.

  Kyla sighed. “Why do people keep saying that to me?” she moaned. “Are you part of the ‘convince Kyla to stay’ train too or something?”

  “What? No, of course not. You think I want to deal with another hormonal body around here?” Francis retorted. “But, it wasn’t my choice.”

  “What wasn’t your choice?” she asked, confused by the nonsense.

  “To tell you to stay.”

  “So you want me to go?”

  “No, I want you to stay,” Francis said, crossing his arms.

  “But you just said…” Kyla rubbed her temple with one hand. “I’m going now, Francis. Before you give me another headache.”

  “You’d at least understand my pain if that were the case,” Francis said. “It was so much easier when there were just two.”

  “Two what? What are you talking about? Goodbye, Francis,” she said, pushing past the steward, trying to get the confusing conversation out of her head.

  “You should stay,” Francis said, shifting slightly to block her path.

  “You just said you don’t want me to,” she pointed out, growing cross.

  “Oh, I don’t want you to. But I was told to do this.” The steward shrugged helplessly.

  “By whom? Who hates me so much that they’d make me put up with you?” she cried.

  “Nobody,” a third voice said from behind her.

  Francis was already turning to go, but not before she heard him mumble something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “The same people that told me working for them would be fun.”

  She couldn’t help but snicker at the sarcastic remark directed the dragon’s way, but it came and went as she turned to face the newcomer.

  “Aaric,” she said in a dull monotone. “Let me guess. You’ve come to gloat over me leaving? Finally got rid of that mage you dislike?”

  She glared at the fire dragon, wanting him to know that she was aware of how little he liked her. That he had been the biggest proponent of sending her packing the moment she’d appeared at the keep.

  “No.”

  “So then you want me to stay?” she asked. “Seems to be the theme of the evening. Why wouldn’t you have suddenly reversed your position on me, right? That would make complete sense?”

  Aaric frowned. “If you wanted to leave, you would have left already. You wouldn’t be listening to us try to convince you to stay. So quit acting irate about it.”

  The harsh words reached out and verbally slapped Kyla on the cheek. She blinked in astonishment as they sank home and she realized that Aaric was right. All the delaying, all the standing still, it was her choice.

  Nothing had been stopping her from walking and talking to Cheryl, or Francis. Even now, she could continue to walk, and if Aaric wanted to talk to her, it would be up to him to keep up. If she really wanted to leave.

  “That’s what I thought,” Aaric said with quiet confidence. No bragging, no sarcasm. He was simply stating the truth.

  “Even if I wanted to stay,” she said, not quite ready to accept the truth of her feelings. “He doesn’t want me to be here. He wants to be alone. Remote. Distance. I can’t get through to him.”

  Aaric sighed. “Galen has convinced himself that the best leader we need is someone cold and distant. No emotions, nothing. He thinks that what a King should be like.”

  “Why would he do that?” she asked, disliking how curious she was to know more about Galen. She was supposed to be over him. Moved on.

  “That’s a damn good question,” Aaric said with a helpless shrug. “He was like this before. Emotionally unavailable, closed off. Now it’s translated into his leadership.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen bits of that.”

  “He’s been better since you came along,” Aaric said. “More lively.”

  “Well I’m sorry that he’s going to return to the old Galen once I’m gone,” she said, trying to act like nothing within her had changed.

  “Galen needs you,” Aaric said.

  “No,” she growled, holding both hands up. “Don’t you put that on me. He is not my responsibility.”

  “No, he’s not,” Aaric agreed. “But you need him too. Even if you can’t admit it to me, I can see it on your face. You know the truth of it.”

  “I’m leaving,” she stated, not appreciative of how Aaric’s words were cutting through her, making her feel things she was trying to keep buried. She didn’t want to care for Galen, she told herself. He was a dragon shifter, her mortal enemy. She wasn’t supposed to like him. To want to be with him.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “You need to go to him. Get him to talk. You’re the only one who can get him to open up, Kyla. Please.”

  She shook her head stubbornly. “No.”

  “I can’t let you leave,” Aaric said quietly, and his hands began to glow. “You two need each other. I’m going to make you see that, even if I have to beat the sense into you myself. Then I’ll go to Galen and do the same damn thing if I must.” His voice became a growl. “The two of you have to be the most stubborn people I’ve ever met since—”

  “Since yourself?” Francis asked, popping out of seemingly nowhere and darting up the steps just out of Aaric’s grasp before disappearing inside. “You like him!” echoed out through the closing door.

  “One day,” Aaric muttered angrily at the door, shaking a fiery fist at it. “One day.”

  Kyla noted that, and called her own magic forth. The ruins on her staff burst into light, and green magic coalesced in her left hand.

  “You don’t want to do this,” she warned the fire dragon.

  “You’re right,” he said tiredly, advancing a step toward her. “I don’t. But my King needs me to.”

  Kyla raised her hand warningly, but the dragon took another step toward her, his fire glowing brighter, the heatwaves starting to wash over her face and skin.

  Why is he doing this? Why is it so important that I go talk to Galen some more?

  She bared her teeth as Aaric came another step closer. Her magic burst forth, a curved green shield interposing itself between the two of them.

  “Let’s see if you really mean it, dragon,” she challenged.

  Aaric didn’t stop.

  Chapter 22

  Galen gazed out over the Keep.

  Up this high on the balcony, a cool breeze whipped at him, ruffling his hair, pulling the black strands into a wild unkempt mess. Distracted by his thoughts, he ran a hand across his head, but it didn’t make any difference. In seconds, his efforts had been undone.

  After leaving Kyla, his most pressing need had been to find a quiet place to think. Diving down into the bowels of Drakon Keep had never been a thing for Galen, like it was for some of his brothers. They loved wandering the old, original hallways of the Keep, finding new passages and rooms that had once been important, but were now all but forgotten about.

  Not him. Galen needed heights, he needed freedom, and fresh air, when he had something he needed to think deeply on. If he’d been free to change, he would have taken to the skies in his dragon form, or headed westward to the small range of mountains that ran north to south on this side of the continent.

  The vampires had taken all that freedom away from him, however, and so he was left with one of the tall spires that dotted the sprawling Keep. There he could taste a hint of the wind as it spoke to him, but only a hint. He could not truly embrace its nature, let himself be carried away in a storm, all but merging with the winds themselves.

  Like his brothers, he felt trapped. Caged. Confined.

  Part of him just wished that the vampires would attack already, so that they could get things over with. The realist in him, however, knew that every day that passed without the attack gave the dragons one more chance to find a wa
y to defeat them.

  The other shifters waited patiently for his call, slowly assembling their might to come to the aid of the dragons. The vampires would be in for a rude awakening, but even with the strength of all five shifter Houses united, Galen wasn’t sure that there was a hope for victory.

  Not without more of his kin.

  The wind picked up, sensing his dark thoughts and swirling around him and whistling across the roof of the Keep. Angry that he’d let his emotions boil over, he flicked a hand at the growing windstorm, dissipating it before it could take on a life of its own.

  “Get yourself together, Galen. The others expect better of you. They need better of you. Keep yourself controlled.”

  “You seem so sure of what the others need.”

  He lifted his head in surprise. “Kyla,” he said, tensing. “I thought you were leaving?”

  The mage came out onto the balcony. Apparently, he was so deep in his thoughts that she’d made the entire climb up to his level without him hearing a sound.

  She’s as bad as Francis for sneaking up on us.

  “So did I,” she said, coming up next to him, leaning on the ledge. “I really thought I was.”

  “What happened?” he asked, worried that perhaps the vampires had attacked. Was she hurt?

  “Things.”

  Galen’s nostrils scented something on her. “Aaric,” he said dryly, recognizing the brand of fire and ash.

  “I’m here,” she said, ignoring his half-stated question. “If you will talk with me. Openly,” she emphasized.

  “Is that not what we’re doing?” he asked.

  Kyla scowled and flicked a hand in his direction. A little ball of red energy smacked into his face, inflicting little pain but leaving a tingle in its place. A magic slap.

  “No,” she told him emphatically. “Talk to me, Galen.”

  Rubbing his face where it continued to tingle from the sting of her attack, Galen sobered, looking away, unable to meet the mage’s gaze.

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” he said softly. “Not the way you want to.”

  “Why not?” Kyla pleaded. “Just speak to me. Open up to me.”

  Galen sighed, bending at the waist to slump over the railing, looking out over the Keep once more. “I don’t know if I know how,” he said, fighting back the pain threatening to blossom in his chest. “It hurts.”

  “Sometimes, those are the things we need to talk about most,” she said. “Here. Let me ask you a question. Why do you want me to go?”

  Hanging his head, Galen composed his thoughts. He considered her question. Why did he want her to go? What was it that made having her around so unbearable?

  “You…you make me…” he trailed off, growling at himself in frustration, unable to find the words he wanted to use. “I think I’m interested in you,” he said, forcing it out before his brain could catch up to wherever the words were coming from.

  There was a long silence.

  “You want me to leave. Because you’re interested in me. Have I got that right?” Kyla finally asked.

  He sighed, burying his face in his hands. “Yes,” he said, the answer practically a moan, hating himself for having even admitted that much to her.

  I’m sorry, Katherine, my love. I have tried so hard to remain faithful to you. To honor you. But I have failed. Failed in my duties as your mate, as your lover.

  “Why is that such a bad thing that you’re interested in me?” Kyla asked softly.

  “You wouldn’t understand. Not truly,” he said, the guilt that had subsided from earlier coming roaring back to fill his mind.

  “It goes back to your belief that dragons only mate once,” she said quietly. “Right?”

  “It’s not a belief,” he said with a hollow laugh. “It’s the truth. It means I can’t do this. I can’t give you what you want from me.”

  Kyla snorted loudly. “Oh, is that it? That’s a bit arrogant of you, don’t you think?”

  “Huh?” he looked up, not following.

  “You assume that, just because you think you only mate once, that you can’t be interested in anyone else ever again. Okay, fine, I guess. I don’t believe it, I don’t believe fate works that way. But I’ll let you believe in that. So you’re interested in me. So you slept with me. Now you’re sending me away, because you can’t give me what I want? When in any of this did I say I wanted to be your mate?”

  Galen gaped at her. “Uh. Um. I…well. You know, there’s like. And then…” he trailed off, realizing he didn’t have an answer for her. “Shit.”

  Kyla smiled back at him. “Exactly.”

  “I never thought about that,” he said, wrapping his head around the massive assumption he’d made regarding her. Kyla made him feel things that he hadn’t felt since Katherine, and because of that, he’d just assumed that… “Wow.”

  “Little arrogant, don’t you think?” she asked.

  Galen nodded. It was arrogant of him to think that. It was even worse, because he’d even begun to fight back a sliver of hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, the winds of fate had found him a second mate, as impossible as that was supposed to be. Yet he couldn’t deny the way she made him feel.

  Now he knew better.

  “You’re right, of course,” he said, standing up tall as he realized his mistake and accepted it. “Yeah. Yeah, I should have known better. I am sorry for the way I treated you, Miss Langston.”

  He saw her frown at the manner of address, but ignored it. The old Galen was back, his momentary indiscretion something he would handle himself. It was time that he resumed his position as King, and stopped worrying about his own life. It didn’t matter anymore. There was a war to be won.

  Not once did Galen consider why Kyla had come back, if she truthfully wasn’t interested in him at all.

  Chapter 23

  Kyla watched the transformation come over Galen. She could see him becoming revitalized, snapping out of his funk.

  She’d hoped to help him do so by coming up here, but things were quickly spiraling out of control, taking a path she hadn’t planned. After her fight with Aaric, she’d decided to come up to the spire balcony and try one more time. To put herself out there, in hopes that maybe Galen would do the same.

  Somehow she’d managed to do the exact opposite. Instead of encouraging him to open up to her so that they could perhaps explore things between them, whatever it was, he was determined to go the opposite route.

  She almost left, then and there, but Aaric had pleaded with her to come and talk some sense into their King, to make him see reality.

  And I already made the climb up here. What can it hurt to try one more time? You know he’s hiding how he truly feels.

  “Miss Langston?” she asked, throwing the words back at him. “That’s a little rude, don’t you think? Again, making assumptions here.”

  “What assumption am I making now?” he asked calmly, his eyes looking at her, yet focused somewhere entirely else.

  What was going on behind that thick skull of his? And why was she trying so hard to get him to open up? Did she really care that much about him?

  Rather than answering that question, scared of what it might be, Kyla pushed on with her conversation with Galen, fully recognizing that he wasn’t the only one concealing how he truly felt.

  “From one extreme to the other,” she said with a sigh. “Now you’re assuming that I want nothing from you. That I want a cold, formal, businesslike interaction, and nothing more.”

  “Do you not?”

  “Galen, in all your life, have you ever met a woman who willingly sleeps with someone with whom they want nothing more than that? Seriously?”

  The shifter hesitated before giving her just the tiniest of shrugs as his answer.

  She thought about calling him out, telling him right then and there that she could see he cared for her, but he was hiding behind his mask like a coward, unwilling to confront what the world had put in front of him.

  But she di
dn’t. Galen, she was pretty sure, wouldn’t respond to that sort of prodding. Not when he was still hurting. What Kyla needed was to get him to talk to her, just admit his feelings, all of them, and then they could work it out together. Somehow.

  “You don’t have to stay here any longer you know,” Galen said distantly. “You can return to the mages now if you want.”

  “I could have returned to them at any point,” she said, crossing her arms, not moving.

  Kyla was starting to accept that she wasn’t likely to convince him to open up and let her in, but she didn’t like losing either. Turning and going at his suggestion would be tantamount to admitting defeat, and so she dug her heels in harder.

  “You have what you came for,” Galen countered. “You can assure them that the shifters aren’t coming to attack. On top of that, you’ll be able to provide them with evidence that the vampires are back. The mages will have plenty of time to prepare before they come after you. Maybe it will even be enough, though I have my doubts,” he said, wincing in apology.

  There was something about his body language, about the way he’d said everything so fatalistically. Kyla suddenly realized that was important if she was to understand his change of mood and attitude toward her.

  “You don’t expect to win this fight, do you?” she asked softly. It was the first time she’d voiced such a question out loud, but his answer would be key to her next question.

  Galen looked over her shoulder, out into the night sky, taking a long time in answer. “I have to believe that we can,” he said tightly.

  It was a lie.

  No, not a lie. He just phrased it carefully. He believes they can, but not that they will.

  That was it, then. She understood, just like that, why Galen was so adamant on pushing her away, on keeping himself distant.

  He expected to die, and the big oaf thought that by distancing himself from her, it would be the best way to possibly keep her alive.

  Kyla wanted to reach out and throttle him, to let him know that it was her own decision what she did. If she wanted to die, to go down fighting at his side, than that was her choice, not his. He did not get to make it for her, like he was trying to do now.