Tamhas

by Ava Benton

  “Why of course? Why should I expect that you would take my phone?” I got up and went to the bars. He took things from the bag one by one, passing them through rather than opening the door.

  Except for the bag itself. He held onto that by the straps, letting it dangle. I had the vague impression that he didn’t want me to have anything I might hurt myself or somebody else with.

  I looked up at him, closer to him than I’d ever been. He was so… big. So much. Overwhelming. His energy. Whatever it was that made him who he was attracted me, pulled me in like nothing else ever had. If those bars weren’t between us, I might climb him like a tree.

  At least, that was how I felt before I saw his eyes up close.

  “No…” I backed away. Everything fell from my hands, but I hardly noticed.

  “What?”

  “They’re the same. The same as the others. All of them.”

  “What are? I don’t understand. Keira, tell me.”

  “Your eyes.” I backed into the cot and sat down with a thud. The room seemed to spin around me, and I was sure I would throw up if there was anything in my stomach. An invisible hand was choking me. “Your eyes are the same as theirs. With the ring around the iris. Why didn’t I see it before?” Because even if I had noticed it over the computer, which I hadn’t, I would’ve thought it was weird but wouldn’t have known what it meant.

  “Keira…” he whispered.

  I shook my head. Just another thing that couldn’t be possible and was possible anyway. “Oh, my God. You’re one of them.”

  9

  Tamhas

  No. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.

  “What do you mean? What’s wrong with my eyes?” I knew very well what was wrong with my eyes, at least when compared to hers, but she wasn’t supposed to be able to see that. How could she see it?

  Were they right about her being what they thought she was?

  “You know what’s wrong with them. Why are you doing this to me?” She drew her knees up again, pressing them close to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She was just as beautiful as she appeared during our chats, but stronger. Her body was all lean, powerful muscle. Even then, I couldn’t help but admire her.

  “I’m not trying to do anything to you, Keira. I promise you this.” Still, I couldn’t help glancing down the tunnel to where I knew the others waited. They’d want answers. I had nothing to give them.

  “Then why are you deliberately trying to mislead me? Why are you gaslighting me?”

  “You ought to know by now that I would never—”

  “Stop.” The word was like a whip, cutting through the air. “Just stop. I don’t know anything about you. God, she was right, she was right.”

  “Who was?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “It just doesn’t.”

  “It matters to me,” I growled.

  My patience was thin and getting thinner by the moment. What sort of game was she playing? A woman who could see the gold in my eyes when other humans could not. Who could get into a fight with three of my fellow dragons and come out relatively unscathed. Who could find us to begin with, which in and of itself was quite a feat.

  Why did she insist on pretending not to know who she was?

  Who did she think she was kidding?

  Her gaze was openly defiant when next she looked at me. “My best friend told me it was a bad idea to come out here. She reminded me that no matter how well I thought I knew you, I didn’t know you at all. That you could be anyone, absolutely anyone. I told her how wrong she was. I was so sure.” It came out almost as a sob at the end.

  Was she telling the truth? I wanted to believe she was. The thought of having hurt her, having deeply betrayed her trust, was heartbreaking but better than the alternative: that she had come to Scotland to attack my clan.

  I had to hear it from her lips. “Keira. Who do you think I am?”

  “I think you are exactly who the rest of them are. A dragon. I don’t know how. It’s crazy. It’s all so crazy. Isn’t it?” She looked at me with wide, wild eyes, almost as if she dared me to disagree but wished desperately that I would just the same.

  I held onto the bars and wished they would dissolve from between us—though whether I wished to take her in my arms or strangle her was still unclear. Was she telling the truth?

  “Well?” she prompted, challenging me.

  There was nothing to be said. Not when I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. I left her sitting there, glaring at me, the weight of her stare following me down the tunnel.

  “Well?” Alan asked the moment he laid eyes on me.

  I wondered what he’d think if he knew he’d echoed her last question.

  “Well, what?” I waited until we reached the control center, where Owen was waiting.

  I had more than a few questions for him—such as how Keira had found us, to begin with. He was supposed to be a genius when it came to such subterfuge.

  “What did she say? You know what I’m asking.” Alan closed the door behind us, leaving the others outside.

  They were all gathered, all waiting. All accusing me with silent, judgmental eyes I was more than happy to have on the other side of the door.

  I leaned against the table, spreading my hands in a shrug. “She claimed to have no idea dragons existed. Said it was crazy. Seemed extremely surprised and disbelieving of the entire situation.”

  “You confirmed to her that we were dragons?” Alan snarled.

  “I did no such thing—although, if you’re so certain she’s a Blood Moon Priestess, she’d already know. Wouldn’t she?”

  “He has a point,” Owen murmured.

  “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself,” Alan snapped in return, then came back around to me. “Who is she to you, then?”

  I barely managed to keep from squirming under his intense stare. He’d only been leader of the clan since right before our return, and I understood how important it was for him to present a good image to the rest of us—he craved our respect, not to mention a little peace and order—but that didn’t keep a rather large part of me from wishing I could remind him of how we’d come of age together and how he had very little right to speak to me as he was.

  I wasn’t daft enough to challenge him, however, not when I was the reason she’d found us. No matter who she was.

  “I met her online. Perhaps a year prior to the kidnapping. It was innocent,” I said, holding up my hands in defense of what I knew the two of them were about to hurl at me. “We spoke on a forum. She was performing research on our old weaponry, and I wanted to be of help.”

  “And yet she’s here, with us. I suppose this means your acquaintance did not end there.”

  “We emailed regularly.” I looked back and forth from one of them to the other. “How did it feel when we met Mary and her people? Granted, the circumstances weren’t desirable, but even so. Wasn’t it… different? Speaking with others? After so much time, I mean.”

  Alan frowned, jamming his hands into his pockets as he did. “It was, at that.”

  “You must believe me. I never thought she’d find us.”

  I looked at Owen. As did Alan.

  “I don’t know,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “She would know better than I would how she managed it. Our security is tighter than it ever was, so it must have been pre-kidnapping that she tracked us. Whoever did it must be quite skilled.”

  “I want you to find out,” Alan commanded me. “Ask her exactly how she managed it. Exactly how. I won’t risk another outsider tracking an email.”

  “I will,” I muttered, feeling just as low as I could. I’d led her straight to us. “The reason she came… according to the explanation she gave, when we disappeared—were kidnapped—she became alarmed. As I said, we had corresponded regularly. Then I dropped out of sight completely…”

  “I see,” Alan whispered.

  “I swear to you, I knew nothing about her. And she k
new nothing about me. I told her absolutely nothing. She wasn’t even aware that I lived with anyone else, or of how I lived. I was careful at all times. You can read all of my emails if you wish.” A desperate move, to be sure. I had no intention of allowing such a thing, although I’d never been anything but friendly in my messages and Keira had followed suit. They weren’t love letters. Even so, they were personal.

  Alan groaned. “I don’t know that I need to go that far. I’ll take you at your word. I cannot speak for the others, however. You’ll have to deal with them on your own.”

  “I’m sure I will.” I stared at the floor, wondering how I’d manage it.

  “They’re angry. Furious, in fact.”

  “There’s no need to rub salt in the wound, Alan,” I warned. His wasn’t the only patience wearing thin.

  “You must understand.” He stepped in front of me, the toes of our shoes nearly touching. “Don’t you think all of us wish to reach out to the rest of the world? Certainly, it must have been lovely for you to form a friendship or whatever it was with this lass. I don’t doubt the temptation was quite strong. But we’ve all had these yearnings to reach out. What do you believe made you so special that you deserved it? No matter how safe you believed yourself to be?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  “I doubt you thought about it at all.”

  I doubted he knew how close he was to feeling the wrath of my dragon. “All right, all right. That’s quite enough. I’m well aware of the mistakes I’ve made.”

  He went to the door, but instead of opening, he leaned against it. “You’ve put me in a difficult position with the clan. They’re angry. Furious. They will not let go of this easily—and they will most definitely wish to see her questioned on every aspect of herself.”

  I gritted my teeth against this reminder, but remained silent.

  “Do you wish to do the questioning?” he asked. “She may be more likely to answer questions if they come from you.”

  I imagined raking her across the coals, probing into her life, into her motives for developing whatever it was we’d built between us. “No. I doubt she would. After all, if her motive was always to deceive me, why would she admit it easily? I’d think she’d be better inclined to confess to a stranger.”

  He took this in, finally nodding in agreement. “Fair enough. But I believe you’ll be kinder with your questioning than any of us would. She’d be more likely to respond well to kindness.”

  I was not going to get off so easily, and he wanted me to know it.

  “Fair enough.” I followed him back out into the tunnel, where the gazes of my clan—my family—shifted in my direction.

  I tried to put myself in their shoes and asked myself if I’d feel any different if the positions were reversed. If Owen or Dallas had made such a blunder, wouldn’t I look at them with accusations in my eyes? Wouldn’t I resent their thoughtless jeopardization of what we’d spent over a thousand years protecting?

  Alan cleared his throat. “We’ll question her again, and this time we’ll be frank. I want to know about her involvement with the Blood Moon Priestesses—and if any more of her kind are aware of her presence here. We won’t allow another invader into our home.”

  It finally hit me then, as we walked toward the cells as a group.

  He viewed this as another threat along the lines of our kidnapping.

  I wanted to tell him that she was nothing like them, those mercenaries and so-called doctors who’d held us captive and performed tests on us.

  She was simply… Keira.

  Except I wasn’t certain that I believed myself.

  10

  Keira

  How could he be one of them?

  Emelie, you would laugh your ass off if you know about this.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle a little when I imagined how she’d react. There was no humor in my chuckling—I was laughing at myself more than anything else.

  Laughing at my stupidity. How naïve I was, thinking he needed help. Wanting to know how he could forget me that easily. What did I really think I was going to achieve by flying across the ocean and confronting him?

  The joke was on me. He was the last person in need of help. He was a…

  I could barely bring myself to think it.

  He was a dragon.

  Like the others. They had changed right in front of my eyes. How long had they existed? No wonder he seemed so old-fashioned. He might have been alive for twice as long as me, even three times. So what if he looked young and healthy?

  Looks were deceiving. They had taught me that. If I ran into any of them on the street—if they were wearing sunglasses—I never would’ve guessed there was anything different about them. Just those eyes.

  Why did he seem so surprised that I could see the difference in his eyes?

  More questions. Always more questions. I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t stop asking them, going over them, picking them apart. I’d also lose my mind if I just sat there and stared at the cell bars. I’d go crazy either way. No matter how I sliced a shit sandwich, it was still a shit sandwich.

  Lucky me.

  It didn’t come as a surprise when their footsteps echoed down the tunnel again, getting louder the closer they came. They weren’t through with me by a long shot. God, I was so stupid. If I lived through the experience, it would make for a great story.

  If anybody believed it.

  But I’d have to live through this, first.

  Tamhas was at the head of the group. They all looked so much alike, like a bunch of fitness models. I guessed that was the whole dragon thing. It set them apart from regular humans like me. I worked for my body, always had. Had they? Or could they eat an entire cake and never gain an ounce?

  If so, screw them.

  There was one way he stood out from the rest: he looked sorry for what was about to happen. He was frowning, sullen. The rest of them brought to mind the image of burning torches. They would’ve been carrying them to my door if we were in a situation like that.

  An angry mob, demanding answers.

  Only they were the mythical monsters. Not me. They were the ones whose doors would’ve been banged down, who would’ve been bound and dragged from their homes in the middle of the night because they’d be considered animals.

  I was too tired to think straight, too hungry, too confused.

  Tamhas looked at me.

  Too hurt.

  The leader cleared his throat and looked to Tamhas, like he was signaling for him to start.

  I saw what this was all about. He wanted Tamhas to do the talking because we were friends. Was that what he believed?

  Were we friends? Obviously not, since being friends would’ve meant knowing he wasn’t fricking human. For starters. Finding out about his living in some sort of dragon commune under a mountain—one with actual, honest-to-God jail cells inside—would’ve been nice, too.

  Tamhas took a deep breath. “Keira, I’ve explained how we met online.”

  “I see.” I sat on the cot, hands folded in my lap, back straight and chin raised.

  Let them try to break me down. Let them try to accuse me of being unwilling to answer their questions. I would be a model prisoner.

  “Did you have any idea who Tamhas was?” the leader asked.

  “Alan,” Tamas muttered, glancing his way.

  Alan ignored him. “Did you?”

  “Of course, I didn’t. Do you think I would’ve come here if I had?” I cringed inwardly. My temper was already getting the better of me. I had to rein in it.

  Tamhas winced like I’d hurt him. Good. Let him hurt a little. It would be nothing compared to the way I was hurting.

  “And why did you come?” Alan asked.

  “I’ve already told you. When I didn’t hear from Tamhas, I got on a plane and came out here.”

  “To find someone you’d never met?”

  “Yes.” I looked over all of their
faces—angry, sullen, distrusting. I knew how that felt. “Wouldn’t you have? I was looking for someone I thought was my friend. I thought he might have needed help. At the very least, I wanted to know why he had disappeared.”

  None of them looked like they believed this. None of them but Tamhas. Were they all really that sheltered that they couldn’t understand? Or was I just an outsider who couldn’t be trusted?

  “How did you know where to look?” Tamhas asked.

  I sighed. Something told me this was really what they wanted to know. They were secretive, to put it mildly. “I have a friend who works as a freelance… network expert.”

  “Hacker,” one of them translated. A man, standing to Alan’s left while Tamhas stood to his right.

  “Yes. If you want to call it that.” I silently dared him to come at me, glaring without blinking. He didn’t.

  “And she’s the one who traced us?” Alan frowned.

  “I sure didn’t know how to do it.”

  “What did she use?”

  “An email. Just an email.”

  My heart started racing fast enough to nauseate me. Oh, God, what if they went after Emelie? “She didn’t do anything wrong. She only did it as a favor to me. She told me how crazy it was for me to come out here when I didn’t know anything about Tamhas, but I couldn’t help myself.”

  Funny how the moment I thought she might be in trouble, my resolve broke and I just about babbled in a panic.

  I looked at him, pleaded with him. “You went away. I didn’t know why. We talked for so long, I thought we were friends. I was worried about you. That’s all. Nothing more than that. She did it because she’s my best friend and we’ve known each other our whole lives. She doesn’t know anything about you. I didn’t know anything about you until I got here. I mean it. That’s the truth.”

  Everything went silent when I stopped babbling. None of them spoke or even moved for a painfully long minute. Did they believe me? They had to believe me. I couldn’t get her into trouble, too.