by Rinelle Grey
Frustration welled up in Rita. “Why? Why are all you dragons so obsessed with life dragons? Why was creating one more important than your sister mating someone she loved?”
Warrian heaved a sigh. “Life dragons are special, and not just because their magic is useful in times of war.” He gave her a pointed look, and Rita ignored it. That assumption had been entirely reasonable. It was Warrian’s job to defend it, if he could.
He certainly gave it a good try. “Life dragons can heal a dragon that’s too sick to enter the Mesmer. They can calm a dragon who is distressed and upset. And yes, they could protect our clan against many threats. We would be silly not to do what we could to protect ourselves, wouldn’t we? Do humans not make choices based on keeping themselves safe?”
Well, she couldn’t really argue with that. In principle. In reality, it wasn’t so simple. “Was the gain important enough for your sister to spend her life without the person she loved?”
She expected a reaction from him over that, but he just shrugged. “It’s different for dragons. When we mate, when the mating bond is formed, we truly love the other person, even if we didn’t before. This fact means that there is no need for dragons to love before mating. That comes after. We just see things differently, that’s all.”
His words sounded rehearsed, parroted, like something he’d been told many times. Rita raised an eyebrow. “Ultrima didn’t seem to see things that way,” she pointed out. “I think perhaps that’s something you tell yourselves to excuse what you’re doing. I’m not sure it’s really true. I mean, could you really just walk away, right now, mate with some random dragon, and be perfectly happy?”
Warrian wouldn’t meet her eyes. “There’s no guarantees I’d be happy, but I would love my mate. The mating bond would see to it.”
Seriously? Did he have to keep beating around the bush? Could he not just admit it? “So you mean you wouldn’t be happy?” Rita prodded.
Warrian rose and paced the small cave for a few moments, carefully not looking at her. Finally he came and stood in front of her. “I cannot see the future. I don’t know if I would be happy or not if I were mated to someone else.” He paused, and his face twisted as he battled some internal demon. Finally he said in a rush, “But I do not like the idea. I don’t even want to consider it.”
Rita’s heart skipped a beat, and she was tempted to jump up and hug him. Well, actually, she was tempted to do a lot more than hug him, but that interruption would distract her from her purpose.
What was her purpose? She’d been trying to find out whether she should forgive Warrian, and now somehow that had morphed into trying to convince him to admit he loved her. What was the point in that? She wasn’t even sure if she could forgive him for what he’d done to his sister. They’d barely even started his story yet, so she could only guess at his motivations.
But deep down she knew she wanted to. She wanted this to work, and she somehow had the idea that Warrian admitting he loved her was an important step on the path.
She kind of liked the idea all on its own, too. It had a certain kind of symmetry. If Warrian admitted he loved her, and then he turned out to be worthy of her forgiveness, then everything would be awesome and perfect. If he admitted he loved her and then he turned out to be a bastard, then she would at least have the pleasure of rejecting him, knowing he would then suffer the same pain his sister had endured.
It hit her, in a blinding flash of light, that this was probably exactly how Ultrima viewed the situation. She couldn’t help giving a wry grin at that.
“What’s so amusing?” Warrian asked grumpily. “I’m telling you I don’t want to mate someone else and you’re smiling?”
“Well, do you expect me to be sad about that?” Rita pointed out.
Warrian heaved a sigh. “I guess not.” He returned to pacing the room.
Rita said nothing for a few moments, giving him time to ponder the situation. Then when he stopped pacing again, she asked, “So, back to the story. Ultrima had snuck away to meet with your sister, with or without her invitation.”
“Sarian didn’t invite him,” Warrian said immediately.
Rita raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure of that?”
A shadow crossed his face. “She would not,” he insisted, but his voice didn’t sound quite so certain.
Rita let that drop. “So what happened next? You went after them...” She trailed off and waited to see what Warrian said. She couldn’t help holding her breath. This was the important bit. What exactly had Warrian done? Was it justifiable?
Warrian wasn’t in a rush to relieve her fears. He heaved a long sigh, then said slowly, “I arrived at Sarian’s chambers and barged in without knocking.”
“Always a bad idea,” Rita couldn’t help interrupting.
Warrian inclined his head. Was that agreement? He continued. “They were... close. Touching. Whispering together.”
“Well, they were in love.”
Warrian shot her an irritated look.
“All right, all right.” Rita held up her hands. “I’ll let you tell it.”
But he didn’t. Warrian started pacing again, silently.
Rita waited patiently for a few minutes, but she couldn’t keep it up for long. “What did you do?” she pushed.
Warrian paced back and forth a few more times before stopping in front of her and heaving a sigh. “I saw red,” he admitted. “I imagined everything Sarian had planned for and worked for slipping away. So I stepped in and tried to pull them apart, to remind my sister of what she was risking.”
His story wasn’t unpredictable. In fact, it was almost exactly what Rita had expected him to say. But somehow it was disappointing. “It didn’t occur to you that she had the right to choose to let it go?” she asked softly.
Warrian shrugged, hunching his shoulders and turning away to pace again. “It isn’t that simple,” he said, the restlessness in his voice echoing his restless movement. “It might have been her choice, but I had worked for this too. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I had a part in it.”
Rita knew it. He’d been motivated by his own selfishness. No matter how much he might deny wanting power, he couldn’t help it. None of these damn dragons could. Her heart sank in disappointment. So much for being worthy of forgiveness.
But Warrian didn’t stop there. While Rita was admonishing herself, he kept talking. “That wasn’t all though. If it had been, I might have held my tongue. If I hadn’t been concerned that... that she was making the choice with her head, but with her heart.”
Rita frowned. “Does that make her choice any less valid?”
Warrian hesitated. “Being the leader of a clan is a big responsibility,” he said earnestly. “Not one to be taken lightly. When Sarian became queen, she would become the protector of nearly five hundred dragons. No small responsibility. She couldn’t afford to make decisions with her heart. Not if those decisions only benefited her. I... I thought I was saving her from herself. I thought I was doing the right thing for our clan. I honestly thought Sarian would thank me in a few years, once she was settled.”
The anguish in his voice was real. He really had believed he’d been making the right choice and helping his sister. She could see that. She wasn’t sure if it justified his actions or not, but at least it had come from the right place. “You didn’t foresee the war her decision cost the clan,” Rita said softly. Of course he hadn’t. Who could have predicted that?
Warrian shook his head. “It never occurred to me Ultrian would attack me for pulling Sarian away. Once he’d done that, there was no going back. Attacking a prince was considered unacceptable in our clan. Even then, if Ultrima had left when he was banished, it would have been over. But instead, he gave this huge speech, in the middle of the lair, telling everyone who would listen how wronged he had been.” Warrian shuddered.
Rita could understand why. The experience must have been painful for him, especially if he’d been uncertain about the legitimacy of his actions. “I take i
t Trima clan was formed from those who were willing to listen?”
Warrian nodded. “Most of the dragons refused to believe Ultrima over me, their prince.” His words were stiff and formal, a clear awareness of how he had deceived his clan. “But the lightning dragons were different. They always had been. They’re not quite impulsive like fire dragons, they’re slower to anger, but if you do, they tend to stick together. Which is what they did in this case. They might have been persuaded to listen if Sarian, as a fellow lightning dragon, had spoken to them, but while my sister didn’t dispute my story, she didn’t corroborate it either. The lightning dragons took that as proof that I was lying and followed Ultrima when he left the clan and formed his own.”
“And even then, you weren’t tempted to tell the truth?” Rita probed. She felt bad for pushing him when he was clearly already down, but she had to know.
Warrian bit his lip. “Of course I was tempted. But if I had, if they had lost faith in their leaders, in me… well, I felt it would do more damage at that point than staying quiet. I never thought Ultrima would go to war over this. I wouldn’t have, had the situation been reversed. I would have accepted the rejection with good grace, knowing it was the best for the clan. For the greater good.”
Of course he would have. Rita was sure he believed it too. But he was forgetting one thing. “Perhaps Ultrima might have accepted the rejection if it had come from Sarian.”
Warrian winced, but he nodded. “He might have. But instead I pulled them apart. And in a desperate bid to keep him away, I told the entire clan he had been trying to force himself on my sister.”
“That was what led to war, not Sarian’s rejection.” Rita spoke out loud, mulling over the situation and trying to tease it apart in her mind, not really considering the effect her words would have on Warrian until his face fell. She didn’t want him to feel bad, but perhaps he needed to. Perhaps they both needed to nut this out. So she continued. “In fact, I’m guessing Sarian just might not have rejected him. And if you hadn’t been afraid of the same thing, you wouldn’t have lied about him, would you?”
Warrian hung his head. “No.” The words were hollow. Hopeless. Wretched.
Warrian had messed up, and he clearly knew it. That much, at least, gave Rita hope they could figure this out.
She had no idea how, but she knew it was possible.
It had to be.
Because, more than anything else in the world right now, she wanted to be able to forgive Warrian.
In reality, they had far more important problems to worry about. If they never escaped from Ultrima’s lair, if he decided to kill them after all, it wouldn’t matter if she forgave Warrian or not.
But it did.
Chapter 6
Talking to Rita and telling his story had completely wrung Warrian out. He felt more exhausted than he would have had he been flying all day.
And yet, it was a good kind of exhaustion. Nothing was different, but he felt better even though he didn’t deserve to.
If anything, the discussion should have rammed home to him the mistakes he’d made. But to his surprise, though she had challenged him over several of his reasons, she hadn’t pulled away from him as he’d expected her to. Warrian could assume that was because there wasn’t really anywhere she could go right now, except he knew she could still withdraw emotionally. He’d been doing it himself.
But neither of them were withdrawing now. They were facing each other, opening up about their actions and motivations, and instead of it being terrifying, it felt safe, strong. Neither of them were perfect, but perhaps they didn’t have to be. Perhaps they could be imperfect together.
“So, now you’ve realised you made a mistake, what are you going to do to fix it?” Rita challenged.
Warrian stared at her. Fix it? How on earth could he even begin to do that? But even though his first instinct was to reject her idea, he tried to work with it, tried to figure out how he could fix things. Even though the very idea seemed impossible. “I suppose I could apologise to Sarian, but she’s not here.”
Rita shook her head. “You could, but you know that won’t fix the problem. That’s too easy. Your sister has already forgiven you, otherwise you would have been thrown out of the clan along with Ultrima. Apologising to her isn’t really going to change anything.”
She had a point. In fact, Warrian had always taken his sister’s lack of denial of his accusation as tacit agreement of it.
Then again, with so many of his brothers awake, why had they not woken him? He couldn’t be sure, but he had the sneaking suspicion that he had been the only one of his clan still asleep. Warrian made a mental note to talk to Sarian, if and when he saw her again, even though the conversation wasn’t going to be pleasant. Then he returned to trying to think of an appeal that might be acceptable to Rita.
“You’re not thinking I should apologise to Ultrima are you?” Much as he wanted to make amends, Warrian felt his blood pressure rising at just the thought. “I’m not sure he deserves that, not after all he’s done.”
“Ahh, but it’s not about what he’s done,” Rita said firmly. “It’s about what you did and making it right. It’s Ultrima’s responsibility to fix his own mistakes, and it doesn’t excuse you from dealing with your own.”
There was a certain amount of sense in her words, but Warrian just couldn’t accept them. “I don’t see how apologising to Ultrima is going to help any. Unless you think he’s going to let us go if we do, but I don’t really believe that, and I don’t think you do either.”
“Probably not,” Rita agreed. “But an apology made to help us escape isn’t a genuine one anyway. You need to apologise because it’s the right thing to do, not for personal gain.”
That attitude Warrian couldn’t agree with. Wasn’t their aim to escape? “How can I fix anything while I’m stuck here in Ultrima’s lair? The problems are back at my clan, not here.”
Rita put her hands on her hips and just stared at him.
Okay, that was probably fair. They were stuck here because of what he’d done to Ultrima. In fact, this situation was virtually the physical manifestation of Warrian’s mistakes.
Warrian heaved a sigh. Maybe Rita had a point. But he didn’t want it to be so.
She didn’t even keep arguing with him, just watched him quietly, as though she was trusting him to make the right choice.
Warrian wasn’t sure he could. He certainly wasn’t ready to accept it yet. “Ultrima persecuted and fought my clan for years,” he argued. “Shouldn’t he apologise to me first?”
Rita gave a ghost of a smile. “Ultrima certainly has a lot to atone for. There’s no arguing with that. But his mistakes don’t excuse yours, especially not when yours were first.”
Warrian paced the room, trying to sort things out in his mind. He might agree with Rita’s argument in principle, but in his heart it still didn’t feel right. Not the least of all because it still seemed far too easy. So much had happened since that first mistake it seemed almost like cheating to solve it with something as minor as an apology.
And that wouldn’t solve it, of course. It was just the first step. Warrian knew there would be more to do after that. It would be a long road, but it was one he wanted to take.
So why was he still hesitating to take the first step?
Was it because it meant admitting he was wrong? Warrian had never balked at doing that. He’d already done so in this conversation.
Was it fear of how his clan would react? Because once he started down this path, that ending was inevitable. And when they found out the truth, his brothers and sisters, and all the other dragons in his clan, would look at him with doubt and suspicion. That would be painful. The shame would be hard to bear. But he’d already known he would bear it one day. That wasn’t his problem.
A far bigger concern was the likelihood Ultrima would be insulted by his apology and decide to kill them on the spot. Even so, Warrian didn’t think that was likely. The Trima dragon had already demanded
an apology. He’d even claimed he wanted to put this behind them. That made it a doubly good idea.
Given Ultrima’s earlier reaction, it was not out of the realm of possibility Ultrima would accept his apology and release them. Maybe they could end this war, and Ultrima could even return to Rian clan.
If he did that, there was also a possibility the lightning dragon might end up mated to his sister? Warrian’s stomach churned uncomfortably at that thought, so he paused to examine it. If the war ended, there was nothing else standing in the way of their mating. Lirian would be long dead, and Trima clan already had a life dragon besides. Rian clan too, if the Trima life dragon were to be believed.
In reality, it was the perfect ending to this whole affair. Even his jaded mind could see that. After all the problems Warrian had caused, it would be churlish not to wish his sister and his friend lifelong happiness.
And yet, Warrian couldn’t bring himself to feel good about the idea. Ultrima didn’t really care about Rian clan. He’d been more than happy to reign war on them for hundreds of years. Why did he deserve forgiveness when Warrian couldn’t forgive himself?
Why did he deserve the perfect life with his mate when Warrian doubted he could ever have that himself?
A stab of regret hit him in the gut.
That was his problem.
He was worried his sister would find her love, Ultrima would find his love, they’d be happy together, and he’d be alone.
How could Rita ever care about him after what he’d done? She might not be turning away from him in disgust, but that was a far cry from wanting to mate with him. He had no right to hope for that. He had nothing to offer her.
Clearly she wasn’t going to mate with him for anything other than love, she’d spoken of it often enough that he had no doubt of that. His only chance at winning her love was to redeem himself in her eyes.
And she’d shown him what she thought that consisted off. Could he do it? Was there any way he could ever be the man she needed him to be? He wanted to, more than he’d wanted anything in his life before.
