Dragon's Honor

by Natalie Grey

  “Aryn.” It was a plea. He was genuinely afraid for her.

  The sound of her name caught her attention and color came back to her face in a rush. Her lips parted, life came back to her eyes. She stared at him, looked to where his hand was still holding her.

  He did not know what to say. More than anything, he wanted to tell her that he had not wanted to go, had not wanted to leave her.

  But he could not. It was crossing a line—never mind that he didn’t know what line that was.

  “Good night,” he said quietly.

  She did not respond. Her grey eyes filled with tears, and then, horribly, she smiled, her face as perfectly pretty as it had been that first day.

  “Good night, Mr. Williams.” And she was gone.

  Cade leaned against her closed door and tipped his head back, squeezing his eyes shut. He stayed for what felt like hours, hoping. Hoping. But she did not open the door, and he did not have the courage to open it himself. At last, slowly, he made his way back down the hallway to his own rooms.

  21

  She waited, her hand on the doorknob. It would take so little effort to press the handle down, go out into the hall. She could come up with something, tell Cade that she heard a strange noise. He would be there with her in a moment, someone to distract her from her own thoughts.

  And when, exactly, had he become Cade instead of Mr. Williams?

  Too quickly. And he was gone now, of course, as Ellian had ordered him to be. He had brought her back to her rooms and left her, just as he left her at the dinner table. She took her hand off the doorknob and backed away from the door, swallowing her tears. What had she expected? That Cade would protect her from Ellian, from the very man who’d employed him?

  And protect her from what? She turned to look in the mirror. There was not a bruise on her, not the mark of fingers or nails. She was not a complete innocent. She had grown up on Ymir. She knew what cruelty looked like, and she knew there was nothing to fear from Ellian. He would never harm her. He had been angry, that was all. Angry because she questioned him when she should have listened.

  She felt very small, she realized. She could feel all of the space above her head, see the vastness of space and the tiny dot of New Arizona, the deep blue sky and the snow falling and a tiny tower, all glass and polished steel, and inside it, her, smaller than the tiny orb of the planet, smaller even than the needle of the skyscraper. She felt her shoulders curving forward and lifted her head with great effort.

  If you can’t trust me to keep my word, Aryn…

  She had to stop thinking about this. Aryn shrugged out of her evening gown and hung it up, trying to smile at the thought of what Emala would say tomorrow. Why didn’t you call me, ma’am? I’d have helped you, and hung this up.

  But she always thought Emala was a little bit pleased to come into the room in the morning and see that there was nothing to tidy up. Once, it had been one of the few genuine moments of warmth in Aryn’s day. She only noticed that one day, her smile to Emala became the same as the one she gave Ellian: the perfect mask. Aryn no longer knew any other smiles.

  She was being ridiculous. She had not been harmed, not even hurt. Her husband had not raised his voice to her, even. And she was here, safe and warm, well fed, away from the mines. Her parents were safe in their house in the city, and her sister could have the same if she wanted it. Ellian had saved them all. She sank down at her dressing table, staring at her reflection. Every fact was so simple. Why could she not remember them anymore?

  She was so lost in her reverie that at first she did not notice the beep of the incoming message. When she did, she was across the room in seconds, opening the window and pressing a hand over her mouth when she saw Samara.

  “You’re alive.” The words came out too high.

  “You’re … naked.” Samara raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh. I….” Aryn looked around herself and didn’t see anything close to hand. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Samara. “I heard the message. I’ve been so worried. It’s been days, Samara.”

  “I know.” Samara’s eyes were shadowed. “I called as soon as I could, I swear. There’s someone new in the district, an officer looking to make a name for herself, and she got Stefan—I got him back, don’t worry—and … Aryn? Are you crying?”

  She was, and in a rush that she could neither keep silent nor turn into pretty tears.

  “I was so afraid,” Aryn choked out. “After the last call. The air raid sirens. I remember—I remember the bombs falling. When we were little.”

  “Shhh.” Samara’s voice sounded fearful. “Aryn, you need to breathe. Breathe, now. I’m here, I’m safe. All of us are safe.” Her voice changed, and there was no malice in it, only hope. “And you’re safe. I know the memories are awful, but you’ll never have to face this again.”

  “I’m not—I’m not scared for me.” She tried to take a breath and choked on it. “I left you all.”

  “Aryn….”

  “I left you to die and saved my own skin!” Aryn bent her head, tears falling onto her bare legs. “Sam, I can’t … I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Do what? Aryn, what’s wrong?”

  She opened her mouth to respond, and one thought penetrated the haze. Ellian did not tap her calls, she was relatively sure of that—anyone on Ymir had learned the subtle signs that their calls were being monitored—but he might be listening through a device in the room.

  “Nothing,” Aryn said quietly. She picked up the computer and carried it with her. “I was just worried, that was all. I should really get dressed, shouldn’t I?”

  “Aryn? Aryn!” Samara’s voice was lowered to a fierce whisper. “I can’t see anything, are you still there?”

  “I’m still here.” Aryn set the computer down in the dressing room and knelt down. The hallway was curved, and there was no clear line of sight from either the dressing room or the main receiving room. “We have to speak quietly.”

  “Aryn, are you in danger?” Samara’s voice was low. “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks.” Aryn tried to turn it into a joke, but Samara was having none of it.

  “Listen to me, if it’s dangerous, get out.”

  “I can’t get out.” The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “My parents need that house. Nura could be there, too, if she wanted.”

  “You know they would never accept—”

  “And there’s no way I’m getting off-planet without him knowing,” Aryn said simply, cutting Samara off.

  “Aryn, if you’re in trouble—”

  “Listen to me,” Aryn said. Something had snapped inside her, released as she cried—and in the wake of the tears, she felt calmer than she had in months. “You need help. I’ll get you help.”

  “What?” Samara looked at her as if she was crazy. “Also, Aryn … you’re still naked.”

  “That’s not important.” Shivering, Aryn pulled a robe down at random and draped it around her shoulders. “Ellian is well connected. I will get you the help you need. I’ve asked him and I just…I just haven’t made him see yet.”

  “Aryn, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Samara’s voice was suddenly wary.

  “Let me help.”

  “Listen. I don’t think Ellian is going to help us.”

  Had Aryn even considered that to be an option, she might have paid more attention, but she had learned her lesson tonight, along with another, more valuable lesson: that her fear for those on Ymir was stronger than her fear of Ellian.

  “Ellian is well connected,” she said, her voice low. “I will get you weapons.”

  Samara was staring at her, eyes narrowed.

  “You’re going to have Ellian send us weapons,” she said finally. Disbelief radiated through the phone line.

  “Of course not,” Aryn said impatiently. “He doesn’t have to know. But someone he works with must know how to get their hands on weapons, mustn’t they? Even he might. I’m sure he has to protect his
shipments somehow.”

  “Aryn….” Samara’s voice was choked. She turned her face away, but Aryn had seen pity there.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Aryn, I need you to listen to me.” Samara seemed to have come to a decision. “Do not do this. You were never meant to be a soldier, love.” There were tears shining in her eyes. “And you said you want to help, but you did help. You got your parents out to safety, and you got you out to safety. Don’t go against Ellian, Aryn, not with this.”

  Never in her life had Aryn seen Samara so passionate.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t say.” Samara looked miserable. “Aryn, please promise me. I need to hear the words.”

  “I promise.” When Samara’s face didn’t shift, Aryn sighed. “I promise I won’t use Ellian’s contacts to get you weapons.”

  “Thank you.” There was relief there. “Aryn, be safe. Your position there is too precious to waste for some lost cause.”

  There was a stricken silence, and Samara hastened to correct herself.

  “I didn’t mean that, Aryn. I didn’t.”

  “You did.” Aryn stared at her. “You think you’ll never win. Why are you fighting, if you think it’s a lost cause?”

  “I have to go.” Samara looked away. “Remember, Aryn. You promised. If you love us, if you love your parents and Nura—don’t do this.”

  Aryn nodded. She did not speak as Samara cut the line. As she paced back into the room, hugging the robe around her shoulders, she realized that she knew exactly why Samara was fighting. It was the same reason she had asked Ellian for help: because the right thing to do didn’t always have the best odds of success. That wasn’t why you did it.

  She sat down at the mirror and chewed her lip meditatively. She was breaking her promise to Samara, but she could live with that. Surely someone Ellian knew had to know how to get weapons.

  She just had to make sure she hid it from Cade.

  She opened up her computer, paused for a moment as she thought, and then typed, “how to buy weapons” into the search bar.

  The computer blooped, and Talon let his feet thud down from the desk to peer at the screen. For all his speeches, he’d spent two hours sitting here in the dark, and so far he’d come up not a single plan as to how to find money for—

  how to buy weapons

  He’d set an alert for the word “weapons” on all of Ellian’s network, along with a whole host of other keywords, and he blinked at this.

  There was no fucking way Ellian had built a business without knowing how to buy weapons, so who in the hell was doing the search? Cade? Possible. Or….

  Talon gave a tiny noise of satisfaction.

  The wife. The wife from Ymir.

  That was how he was going to get the money. And—his smile had a lot of teeth—it was going to be so, so much better to know that the money he was using belonged to Ellian Pallas.

  22

  Cade crossed the entry hall quickly, straightening the cuffs of his dress shirt beneath the suit jacket. He liked that the suit afforded him ease of motion, but he did not like how vulnerable he felt. A fighter should always wear armor.

  He came up short. He was not a fighter. He had spent the past two and a half years proving that to himself, walking away from confrontations, letting insults slide, and—more than once—letting himself be beaten into a bloody pulp. Through it all, he clung to the one thing that made sense: never harming another human being again. Even when he took this job, he did so because of Talon’s assurance that there was no danger.

  And somewhere along the line, the only principle that mattered to him had disappeared. He was moving with his weight on the balls of his feet, his muscles half-tensed. His eyes were scanning the room. His vow had disappeared.

  The moment he realized that, he realized that he did not even need to ask himself how that had happened, or when. As he sat down on his bed last night, staring blankly at the wall and remembering Aryn’s pleading look at the dinner table, her mechanical smile in her bedroom, he understood that he had failed. Even when he hated her, he took this job to protect her—and last night, he hadn’t. Now that he stopped to think about it, he remembered his promise to himself as he was on the edge of sleep: that he wasn’t going to fail again, no matter who he had to defy to keep his word.

  That didn’t surprise him. Cade wasn’t a man who accepted failure lightly. What terrified him, however, was that it simply didn’t seem to matter to him anymore whether he hurt anyone in the process or not. He would rather not, all things being equal. But as he searched his heart, he no longer felt any revulsion toward the thought of acting in defense. If anyone hurt Aryn…

  “Mr. Williams.”

  Like, for instance, the man who had hired him. Cade turned to look at Ellian, trying to keep his face neutral.

  “Good morning, Mr. Pallas.”

  “Are you inspecting our entryway for danger?” Ellian’s voice suggested that he knew Cade had been lost in thought.

  “Trying to remember if I filed an address change.” Cade tried to turn it into a joke.

  “I see.” Ellian’s smile, as always, came with cold eyes. “Should such distraction result in harm to my wife, however….”

  The urge to lash out was so powerful that Cade saw it unfold in his mind’s eye. He watched his fist hit the side of Ellian’s face and saw the man’s head snap back. How dare this man tell Cade about harm coming to Aryn?

  Thankfully, the part of his brain that controlled motor function seemed to realize none of this was a good idea. Cade nodded his head with what he hoped was a self-deprecating smile.

  “It won’t happen again, Mr. Pallas.”

  “Excellent.” Ellian turned without another word and walked to his study, and Cade knew the man was listening for his footsteps, waiting for him to act on the implied order.

  Hurrying down the hallways, as much to leave Ellian’s presence as get to Aryn, Cade paused at her door. Now that he was away from the man he suddenly hated, he was very aware that he would need to speak to the woman he had failed the night before. Taking a deep breath, trying to come up with a way to say he was sorry, he rapped on the door with his knuckles and slid into the room.

  “Ms. Beranek?”

  Aryn had been at her computer, fingers sliding over the screen and her brow furrowed as she read. As her eyes flicked up to him, he saw panic flit across her face, and she slammed the screen down onto the desk with a movement that was just slightly too quick. She managed her mechanical smile again.

  “Mr. Williams. Good morning.” She looked around herself as if searching for something to say, and, as her gaze fixed on a tray of food by the window, gestured. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Yes.” Cade felt instantly adrift in this conversation. “Did you … order this for me?”

  She frowned, still lost in thought.

  “I think Emala brought it for me.” She shook her head, shrugged, gave him a smile. “But you can have it if you want.”

  “You should eat something, too.” He went to the table and picked up the tray, carrying it over to her desk.

  “I suppose I should.” She smiled up at him as he set the tray down. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.” He perched on the back of the couch as she began to eat, and then realized that was far too familiar. Standing, he paced around the back of the room, stealing glances at her. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She spoke around a mouthful of food.

  Something was off. It wasn’t like Aryn to forget to eat, and though she did indeed seem to be in good spirits—a somewhat dizzying change from last night—there were circles under her eyes. Had she been up late?

  If so, why? It didn’t seem to have been tears that kept her awake, for she was giving off neither sadness nor the emotional emptiness that came with a storm of crying. And then there had been whatever she was reading, something she didn’t want him to see. A naughty book, perhaps? The corner of his m
outh twitched at the idea.

  He sobered suddenly. He would have to break her good mood, even if only for a moment. It did not matter if she was happy now—she must know that he would not leave her again. She must know she could tell him what she was afraid of, and he would do his utmost to keep it from happening.

  “Ms. Beranek.” He kept his voice low, so low that the voice scanners wouldn’t pick it up, and he saw her mark the difference at once. Her head came up slowly, and she frowned, nodding for him to continue. He drifted slightly closer, trying to keep his face neutral for the cameras. “I regret the events of last night.”

  It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about, and that confused him even more. She had been so frightened then—what could possibly have happened between then and now that she would not even remember her fear? He watched her frown, her eyes meeting his almost blankly. Then she remembered. Her face went cold, her gaze wary. Any hint of a smile died from her lips.

  “It’s nothing,” she said simply. “It’s not important.”

  “It is important.” He was shaking with how much he wanted to go by her side and take her hand. He had to stay here, on the other side of the room. Who knew who might be watching? “I failed you.”

  Her lips parted, and for a moment, he thought she might smile. But she looked down at the table instead.

  “Mr. Williams, you did exactly as you should have.” There, at last, was the sadness, and it pulled at his heart.

  “No.” His answer surprised even him. “I was hired to protect you. You, Aryn.”

  The sound of her name startled them both. It came from his lips unbidden, an echo of the night before, and the world shifted around them. Her head jerked up at the sound of it, her grey-blue eyes shining with tears, and she pressed her lips together as she looked away.

  “Thank you.” Her voice broke on the words. “But I think you know the type of thing you were hired to protect me from. And it isn’t what happened last night.”