Dragon's Hope (The Dragon Corps Book 3)

by Natalie Grey

  “What is it?” She cupped his face in one hand. “Cade…”

  He let her down slowly, holding her close, his eyes locked with hers.

  “I was afraid for you,” he said softly. “The last thing I saw was them picking you up off the floor. Did they hurt you?”

  “No.” She shook her head, a despairing laugh escaping, too loud and all wrong. “They hurt you.” She felt her lip trembling. “Because of me.”

  “Stop,” he said quietly. When she broke off, he reached down to trace his thumb over her lips. “The Warlord sent them, and they chose to attack an unarmed woman. The fault is theirs.”

  “But if it weren’t for me…”

  “If it weren’t for you, I’d probably have frozen to death on New Arizona,” he said simply. “I signed on to be your bodyguard, Aryn. I knew what that meant. And just like you fought for me, there is nothing in the world that could keep me from fighting for you.”

  She laid her head against his chest, trying to blink away the tears. And then, so quietly that she wasn’t sure he’d even be able to hear her, she felt the question slip out:

  “What did Ellian say?”

  “Nothing pleasant.” He kept his tone neutral, but his arms tightened and she felt the quick jump of his chest.

  “Tell me.” She looked up at him, and raised an eyebrow. “You can’t pretend it was nothing. Not when he dumped you in the mines.”

  He drew her away from the rest of them, to one of the little cots that lined the walls, and she curled into his lap as he sat, laying her hand over his heartbeat. He was alive and she did not need to worry any longer, but she could not keep herself from keeping her hand pressed over his skin to feel that fact for herself.

  “Apparently,” Cade said finally, “he hired me to test you.”

  “What?” Her head came up suddenly, and she pushed herself away so she could look him in the eyes. It didn’t make any sense, none at all.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” His eyes met hers. “You were going to leave. You know he’s the Warlord’s armorer. Does it change anything to know what he was planning? Do you really want to know?”

  He wouldn’t ask, if he didn’t doubt. If it was nothing, she was sure he would tell her at once. She stared at him, a creeping fear warring with the sense that she must know. She had lived without the truth for so long…

  “Yes,” she said at last.

  His arms tightened slightly around her, and he took a deep breath.

  “He told me that he was beginning not to … want you, but to love you. He was confiding in you more.”

  “He was, for a while.” Aryn shook her head. “And then he stopped. I thought I had done something wrong.”

  “Aryn.” There was something in Cade’s voice that might have been a laugh, might have been a sob. He reached up to trace the outline of her face. He shook his head. “No. You did what anyone should do: you offered kindness, and in return, he loved you. And that should have been….”

  “What?”

  “A good thing,” he said, frustration echoing in his voice, tangling with disbelief. “It should be a good thing. A man who falls in love with his wife should be happy. Good God.”

  “He told you all of this?” Aryn frowned at him.

  “He needed an audience,” Cade said, disgusted. “Cruelty always needs an audience. He wanted me to know what he’d done before—”

  “Before he sent you to die,” Aryn finished softly.

  Cade nodded. “He knew we were planning to leave together,” he admitted. “He saw everything. For weeks. The times we almost…”

  “And on the ship?”

  “No.” Cade shook his head. “I wonder … if he thought he might catch us out when he arrived here. He was getting impatient. He—” He looked away from her. “I think he wanted you to fail the test. So that he could be rid of you, and not have to worry about what he felt.”

  “But why did it worry him?” Aryn turned away at last, untangling herself from his arms, running her hands through her hair. Her mind was racing. “I don’t understand. I don’t. I would never have betrayed him. He knew that.”

  “Aryn, his mistrust was nothing to do with you.” Cade’s touch was light, a request. When she turned her face back to him, he reached out for her hands. “Do you know what he said to me the first time we met? That he was a very bad man, and that he wondered why you stayed. He knew I was trained to spot lies, and so almost everything he said in that interview was the truth. Deep down, he knew you could never love him as he was.”

  “But I could have,” Aryn whispered. She saw Cade flinch, and she shook her head. “Not—I mean—I don’t know what I mean. I tried to love him. And he could have been a good man, don’t you see?” She saw the flash in his eyes and bit her lip. “You think I’m naïve. But I’m not. People have a choice, they always have a choice. He could have been a good man if he wanted to be.”

  “He did want to be,” Cade said. “A little bit. Because of you. That’s what scared him, Aryn.” He paused, swallowed. “And more of him—the stronger part—wanted to keep being the way he was. Something had to give, and if he couldn’t trust you to accept him when he chose to hurt people, then he was going to destroy you.”

  “I was trustworthy,” she insisted. Tears were starting in her eyes.

  “Aryn.” He reached out again. “You weren’t.”

  The words were like a slap. She jerked away, and he shook his head.

  “Don’t you see what I mean? When you found out what he was—and I’m sure he meant for you to find out, for me to tell you—you didn’t hide yourself away and let him do what he would. You stood up for your family. You went against him.”

  Horror coursed through her. She had tried. She had wanted so hard to be the wife Ellian wanted. And she had to be, or—

  “You did the one thing Ellian couldn’t accept,” Cade told her, his voice soft but relentless, undoing her. “You came back here to defeat the Warlord. Without the Warlord, what would Ellian be? Without the Warlord, where was his power over you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Aryn, he never wanted to love you. He wanted to possess you.”

  “I said stop it!” She was on her feet, and the others were looking over at them. Aryn pressed her hands over her ears like a child, turning her face away from them.

  “Aryn.” Cade reached out for her.

  “You think I’m stupid.”

  “I think you’re honorable,” he said steadily. “I think you’re brave. I think you’re kind. My God, woman, you sold yourself back to a man who had killed thousands, because you hoped you could keep him from killing thousands more. Aryn, that’s….”

  “You think it’s stupid,” she repeated.

  “Is hope stupid?” He met her eyes. “I didn’t believe it would work. But I know why you tried. And….” He swallowed. “I love you for trying.”

  Her hands fell away from her ears.

  “What?”

  “I love you.” He did not move toward her, even when she held out her hand. “I should have walked away a hundred times, but I couldn’t.”

  “No. I should have left him sooner. I should have seen the truth.” Aryn stepped into his arms, looking up as he enfolded her in a hug. “Forgive me?”

  “There is nothing to forgive.” He kissed her, and she melted against him.

  “Wait.” She pulled away, suddenly smiling.

  “What?”

  “You hated me.” She raised an eyebrow, grinning now. “I remember. I distinctly remember. You hated me.”

  “Oh.” Cade looked a bit embarrassed. It was a remarkably endearing expression on that chiseled face. “I, er … well, bear in mind that I didn’t know you very well.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Aryn stood on tiptoe and pulled him down for a kiss. “It’s all right, you know. I first thought you were there to try to use me against Ellian. I thought you were one of his business partners. A few of them tried that.”

  “Was that why you
were so unfriendly there at the start?” He laughed. “I thought you hated me because you knew I was a servant.”

  “You thought—” She hit him on the chest. “Oh, unfair.”

  He was laughing. “I didn’t know anything about you. Aryn, all I knew was that you’d married this rich man. I went in there thinking you’d never loved him, that you were just there for the money.” His smiled died when she stepped away. “What? What is it?”

  She couldn’t lie anymore. She couldn’t pretend. She wouldn’t pretend.

  “I was,” she said simply.

  27

  “What?” Cade stared at her, his eyes wide with shock.

  “Come with me.” She didn’t look back, only turned and crossed the bunker, not sparing a glance for the others, thought they turned to watch her go.

  “Where are you going?” he called after her, and she stopped on the stairs to look over her shoulder.

  “Come with me,” she repeated.

  She led him into the little passage, climbing over rocks and ducking under beams with a practiced grace, and finally slipping into what looked like an alcove, detouring until she reached the tunnel that led directly to the mines.

  Cade had to work to keep himself from turning around. The air drifting up here was hot, carrying a scent he couldn’t identify. The sounds of machinery were faint, but they were there, catching his augmented hearing. This was different from where he’d found himself in the other district, an unknown he did not like and did not trust.

  But he followed her, ducking under the braces as she moved easily. Despite the tension in her silence, she seemed more comfortable here than he’d ever seen her in her high heels and evening gowns. The air was growing even more unbearably hot as they went down, down, down, but she did not even seem to notice, except to catch up her dark hair; a trickle of sweat ran down the back of her neck. She looked up once at the machines that were sucking up gasses and spewing out clean air, but otherwise she did not waver from her single-minded focus on the tunnel ahead of her.

  Partway along, the heavy dust caught in his throat and he began to cough. At that, she stopped to look at him. Just for a moment. Then she continued on. At an alcove, when the noise of the machinery had reached almost intolerable levels, she stopped and rummaged in the darkness, pulling some clothes from the ground: the same sort of coveralls he’d found himself in before.

  “Put these on.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.” She pulled on a set herself, and then scooped up a handful of dirt and pulled him down to smear it on his face. “Rub it on your hands, too. And when we go in, keep your mouth closed. Your teeth are nice.”

  It didn’t sound like a compliment. Cade rubbed dirt over his face and neck and hands, watching her do the same. There was no expression on her face as she disappeared into the woman she had once been, long ago. When she looked over at him and nodded to denote that he was sufficiently dirty now, he followed her, ducking under a door frame and pausing as she held out a hand to keep him back while she scanned the area, then hurrying forward at her signal.

  It was Hell. That was his first thought: that he had actually gone to Hell. Had he thought the mines were purgatory? He had not truly been in them. Here, hot air hit him in a blast, heavy with dust that made him hack and cough, and her small hands helped him pull the collar of his filthy coveralls up over his nose.

  She looked out for a long moment, taking in the view: a vast underground chamber lit with industrial lamps and floodlights, workers swarming up metal staircases and hacking at the rock, setting explosives. Shouts echoed as they hauled huge pallets of rock up toward the surface, chains clanking and the payloads dangling precariously.

  She looked out at the hot rock and the dynamite explosions and the legions of workers, and she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Sweat was making rivulets on her recently dirtied skin, but she did not even seem to notice it. Her breathing was deep and even, her eyes distant. He could see the same rigid calm she wore in the society events and dinners of New Arizona.

  She had learned to endure this, so she waited for him to call it, and he didn’t last long. Her eyes caught the turn of his head and at the plea in his eyes, she only nodded. Checking for observation, she ushered him back through the door and he winced in relief as the door blocked much of the noise. They stripped off their clothes and she began to brush the dirt off her face, starting up the hallway without a word.

  “I have to see the surface,” was all she said, and the admission warmed his chest—that she would not hesitate to share her fears with him. He, too, craved the feel of cool air on his skin. He did not speak as she led them at a jog, bursting out into the open with a deep draw of breath, even as they hung inside the entryway to stay clear of the patrols.

  They stood in silence for a moment, her swaying, eyes closed.

  “So?” he asked her, after a time, and she looked over at him at last.

  “Do you know how long a miner lives? On average?”

  “Aryn—” He was afraid to hear this, but she did not scream at him as she might have.

  “Thirty-seven,” she said softly. “They start work at fifteen. The coughing? That doesn’t stop. That’s always, forever. The doctors have done what they could with me. Everything money could buy.” Her face twisted, and he knew she was thinking of this as Ellian’s gift. “But I’ll die young.”

  “Aryn.” It was a plea, and at the sound of it, her temper came to life. She rounded on him.

  “I’m everything you thought I was. All of it. But Ellian knew. He knew I didn’t love him and he still wanted me, and I didn’t want him but I still wanted to get out. You’ve never met my little sister, because she hates me for what I did. And you’ve never met my brother, because he died in a bombing run when he was eleven—and some of them down there would call him lucky. What I did got me out of there. It gave my sister a chance to leave, even though she wouldn’t take it. And it got my parents out. They could stop. They’re safe, and I’m safe.”

  “Aryn, I didn’t know.”

  “But you did,” she said, her voice shaking. “You knew how poor we were on Ymir. I heard you talking to Talon on the ship about how you stopped slave traders coming from here. People sold themselves into slavery—themselves. They weren’t captured. You knew that, but you never thought about it, did you? It just offended you that I took a different bargain. If I’d sold myself into slavery or been captured, you would have thought that I was a victim, wouldn’t you? People always do. But when I made a bargain that would keep my parents and my sister out of poverty forever, you didn’t think that made me a victim, and you didn’t even think it made me clever or a good businesswoman. You thought it made me a whore. You thought it made me dishonorable.”

  He stared at her.

  “Ellian knew,” she told him again, and there were tears trembling in her eyes. “He knew I didn’t love him, Cade. And I won’t have you think I’m both a victim and a cheat for something I did. I got dealt a bad hand, and I made the best of it that I could. He took that bargain and so did I. I can’t come back here. I can’t let Samara and the rest die like this. I ran away once, and I came back to help. So don’t you pity me, and if you think for a moment that I’m less than you for what I did, you can turn around and leave. I won’t stop you.”

  I’m everything you thought I was. The lies and the false smiles and the adoration that Ellian had…

  …wanted. It was not that Ellian had not known. It was not that he had not been able to see. When Aryn behaved as he wanted, despite feeling nothing at all in her soul, that had been precisely what Ellian sought. Cade found it in him to wonder if Ellian would have married a woman who truly loved him. But it did not matter, did it? She had made the best choice she had. In the starkness of this life, the dirt and the heat still on his skin, he could not say that he would have done differently.

  He was still choosing his words when a series of booms echoed above them. Aryn ducked instinctively and Cade
looked up, watching as troop carriers streaked overhead high in the atmosphere. Aryn, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled out the tiny binoculars she’d come back with from the scouting mission, and tracked the ships across the sky.

  “No ship names,” she said quietly. “They’ve got a logo of a blue leaf and a sword underneath.”

  “Kell,” Cade said simply. “It’s a mercenary company.”

  “Kell?” She dropped the binoculars. “Ellian made a deal with them recently. He said…” She shook her head.

  “What?”

  “He said they were a personnel company,” she said, disgusted. “God, I was such an idiot.”

  “Aryn.” The words came to him at last and he swung her to face him. “Listen to me. You were not an idiot. And it was wrong of me to think less of you. I always knew where you came from. Even if it had only been you, it would have been worth it to escape.” His voice cracked and he pulled her close. “You thought I hated you. That’s not true. I was drawn to you the first moment I saw you, and I did everything in my power to keep from wanting you. But it was no use. And you deserve….”

  “Cade—”

  “You deserve so much better than me,” he told her harshly. “I’ve killed thousands. I’m no better than Ellian. Aryn, I will fight to give you the world you should have had, to free Ymir. But you don’t….you shouldn’t…”

  Alarms blared distantly from the launch pad. Aryn looked over for a moment, her face twisting as she stared at the ships. Suddenly, she was still. Her face had cleared, and she looked back to Cade, and he could not read her eyes.

  “Talon told me about your vow.”

  He could not decide if what he was feeling was relief, or the urge to kill Talon. Probably both.

  “Did he tell you why I made it?”

  She paused, her eyes searching his. Slowly, she shook her head.

  “We went in for a slave trader,” he said. “A bad man. Makes Ellian look like a kitten by comparison. He even put the Warlord to shame. He was overseeing a…delivery.”

  She swallowed. He could see her fighting to keep from stopping him. She was afraid of what was coming.