Ashes (The Slayer Chronicles Book 3)

by Val St. Crowe

  “I’m not saying that you did it,” I said. “Because I know maybe your family did things that you didn’t approve of.”

  “If you think someone is in the attic now, you obviously think I’m keeping someone up there.” Riley’s eyes flashed. “And I would never do that.”

  All right, he was mad. Maybe I should back off. I held up a hand. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry.”

  He just let out an angry-sounding huff.

  I went back to sorting.

  * * *

  In the afternoon, I went off to search in another room again, but Naelen didn’t come with me, probably because of what I’d said at breakfast.

  I felt bad, because I hadn’t wanted to make him feel guilty, but he also needed to learn how to interact with me. Ever since I’d met him, he’d been barreling past my defenses, and there was a point in which I felt like he disrespected me.

  Sure, Naelen never did anything that I strictly didn’t want, and what we had together was awesome, but that didn’t mean that he shouldn’t listen to me.

  And knock. He should knock.

  So, anyway, I was glad that I might have gotten through to him.

  I was hoping that I’d find something else, maybe another wedding album or something like that. I began to wonder more and more about this mysterious woman in the painting. Was she Riley’s mother? Why was she holding the cup? Why wouldn’t Riley talk about her?

  But I didn’t find anything else personal, and the trunk of albums that I’d found before had been handed over to Riley, so I couldn’t even snoop through it some more and hope to find something that might help.

  All in all, the day was another pointless day.

  Completely pointless.

  Since Riley was there, we all had another formal dinner in the dining room, with the gargoyles waiting on us.

  Logan kept trying to help them out in some way, taking the dishes away from them and trying to pass them around the table.

  Riley was clearly ashamed of even having gargoyle servants. He didn’t know what to do.

  Finally, Frederick came over to Logan and said, “Sir, will you please desist?”

  And that seemed to stop Logan cold. Looking chastened, he didn’t cause any more mischief for the rest of the meal.

  Naelen wouldn’t even look at me at dinner.

  I might have upset him more than I had thought.

  After dinner, we didn’t all watch television together again. Instead, we each went off on our own. For me, that meant to my room. I tried to call it an early night, but I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned in the bed, pounding the pillow, curling into a ball, pulling the covers over my head. Nothing worked.

  Maybe I’d try to get back into the attic again.

  I took my bow and arrows with me in case I ran into the psycho mage brother or something.

  I went through the door in the bedroom on our wing and managed to get up into the room from before. But it was empty and super creepy at night. There was nothing in here, anyway. It was just an empty, dusty room.

  I went over to the far wall, thinking that there must be some way to get into the rest of the attic. I looked for a door.

  And, yeah, there was one. Behind the wardrobe. I tried to move the wardrobe.

  It was incredibly heavy.

  But then I remembered that I had magic in my talisman. I grasped it and concentrated. I lifted the wardrobe off the ground and floated it several feet before setting it down.

  Then I tried the door.

  I managed to get it open, but there was nothing on the other side of the door except a piece of plywood. The door had been boarded off from the rest of the attic. I tried to use magic to bust the plywood off, but it didn’t work.

  Man.

  I went back down the stairs and made my way over to the other side of the house.

  Up another narrow set of stairs to the attic.

  The painting was still gone. I crept down the hallway and came face-to-face with the locked door we’d found earlier. I tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge. I tried to use magic to open it. That didn’t work either. Had I tapped out my talisman or something?

  I sighed.

  I put my ear to the door, hoping to hear something from inside.

  But there was nothing.

  Was I wrong? Was there really nothing up here at all?

  On my way back to bed, I found myself stopping outside of Naelen’s room. I had begged for some space, but I found that I missed him. It was his night, after all. I knocked on his door.

  It opened, and he was standing there in a pair of pants and no shirt. “Clarke.” He looked surprised to see me.

  I twisted my hands together. “Hey. I, um… can I come in?”

  “Sure.” He opened the door wider. And then he fished a shirt out of a pile of clothes on the floor and put it on.

  “You don’t have to cover up,” I said.

  He shrugged, looking self-conscious. “Well, I’m not going to strip now.”

  I laughed.

  He didn’t.

  “Look, I…” I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. That I was glad I’d said the things that I said, but I wished I’d said them in a different way?

  “Clarke, I’m sorry.” He had a little desk and a chair in his room. He sat down on the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t know how you felt about all this. If you need time to recover, then you can have it, and I’m sorry if I was pushy. You’re right, I’m a cocky bastard, and I don’t think before I act.”

  I considered. “Well, you are cocky. And impulsive. And infuriating. But I’m sorry if I made you feel horrible.”

  “If you didn’t want me to… if you didn’t want sex, you could have said something.”

  “I think I do say these things, actually. I’m just not sure you ever believe me.”

  He hung his head. “Damn it. Really?”

  “Really.”

  “So, you’re saying that all this time, I’ve been forcing myself on you—”

  “No.” I went to him and put my hand on his forearm. “It’s not like that.”

  He winced from my touch. “I think it is, though. I mean, I think it’s kind of black and white. Either you wanted it or you didn’t.”

  “It’s not, though,” I said. “Black and white. There are shades of wanting. You’re definitely not in the against-my-will shades. Because trust me, I do know how to protect myself, and I would not hesitate to put an arrow in your ass if I had to.”

  He smiled. Finally. “All right.”

  “All right?”

  “Well, I still don’t think I understand.”

  I squared my shoulders. “Your cockiness is part of your charm. Your confidence in yourself and your unshaking belief that I’m constantly hot for you… well, it tends to make me constantly hot for you.”

  He was still smiling. “Is that so?”

  I nodded, smiling too. “That’s so.”

  He waited.

  I just smiled at him. I wanted to touch him again, but he’d shied away from me before, and now I was feeling timid.

  “There’s a ‘but’,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said with a little laugh. I’d been distracted by him; he’d dazzled me. I nodded. “But I guess you still make me crazy. And you really don’t need to be this all over me right now. I’m not saying you were doing something criminal, but I do want us to talk about boundaries.”

  He raked his hands through his hair. “Okay. I guess I understand that. So, what kind of boundaries are we talking about?”

  “Well, until things are settled with the three of us, could you stop baiting Logan?”

  “Baiting him?”

  “Yeah, just wait to jump me until we’re alone.”

  “I do.”

  “For the night. Do it somewhere he knows not to enter. Stop shoving it in his face.”

  “Did he tell you to say this?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s only that I thought he and I were in a really good
place last night. Heck, I was starting to get in a good place with everything, and then that argument at breakfast this morning happened, and it’s like we’re all back to square one.”

  Naelen ran a thumb over his bottom lip. “It’s hard not to want to touch you all the time.”

  I squirmed. His words made me feel warm and wanton. “I’m not saying I don’t like it when you touch me.”

  “Because you love it.”

  I laughed, shaking my head at him. “Because I love it,” I agreed.

  “But don’t do it anymore,” he said in a rough voice.

  “Do it,” I said. “Definitely touch me. Just… less often.”

  “Right,” he said. “Well, that’s not easy for me.”

  “It’s not forever,” I said. “Logan said if he had time… And you know, maybe we should talk about why it’s so hard for you to keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Um, because you’re beautiful, and I’m in love with you?”

  I liked the way those words made me feel too. I basked in it for a minute. But then I took in a breath. “You’re not threatened by Logan? You keep making this big thing about how I’m yours. As if you don’t like it that I’m sort of Logan’s too.”

  He made a face. “Well… it’s not ideal, but at least it’s Logan, you know. I mean, Logan’s a good guy. He loves you. I like him. And the three of us, we’re a good team. So, no, it’s not that I don’t like it.” He crossed the distance between us so that we were only inches apart. His voice dropped several decibels. “You don’t like it when I say you’re mine?”

  I melted a little. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You do like it. You love being mine.”

  “Naelen…”

  He kissed me. “You.” He kissed me again. “Are.” Another kiss. “Mine.” His voice was gravelly.

  I shut my eyes. I was having a hard time thinking.

  He kissed me again.

  I shoved him. “Wait, come on. We’re not done talking.”

  “Could we make love and then talk afterward?” he said. Then he backed away from me. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I? You’re trying to tell me something, and I’m not listening to you, and—”

  I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and pulled him against me. “Make me yours again,” I whispered.

  We tumbled back onto his bed.

  Later on, when we were lying naked and entwined together, he nipped my shoulder. “So, what else did you want to talk about?”

  I groaned. “I don’t even remember, you bastard.”

  He chuckled. “You want us only to have sex inside closed rooms, not on picnic tables or in showers.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Nowhere Logan could walk in.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t like walking in on him and me.”

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said. But then he lay his head back on the pillow. We were still touching, but we weren’t as close as we had been.

  I wanted to kiss him until it was all okay, but I remembered Cunningham forcing our kisses on us, and everything seemed tainted now.

  “Clarke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you please tell me what Cunningham made you do when you were gone for the week?”

  I sighed. “He just took me away because…” I bit my lip. “Because I had my period, all right? I guess that was too gross for him to watch happening.”

  “Are you serious?” he said. “That’s it? Why didn’t you just tell us?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like a thing that I wanted to… I’m not good at talking about that kind of stuff.” Which wasn’t really the truth, but guys were so squeamish about menstruation that maybe he’d buy it.

  He was quiet for a minute. “But you never had it again. You still haven’t.”

  “No, because Cunningham gave me a shot,” I said. “One of those injectable birth control things that keeps you from having a period. It wears off in another couple months. If I didn’t have that, you think I’d be okay with all this unprotected sex we’re having?”

  “I guess I didn’t think about that,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t,” I muttered. Now, we were hovering dangerously too close to a subject that I really wanted to avoid, so I did start kissing him again. I ran my hands over his chest, his stomach, teased them lower.

  He was easily distracted.

  * * *

  I woke up to the door bursting open.

  Logan ran into the room, jumped onto the bed, and unfurled his wings. He covered both of us with his wings.

  The sound of splintering wood.

  I let out a little startled cry, but then there was a flash of heat and smoke just behind Logan. Around the edges of his wings, I could see flames.

  I peered over Logan’s wing. There was a dragon in the room. It had knocked down the door and now it was perched on the foot of the bed, sucking in breath to blow out more fire. I ducked back under Logan’s wing just in time.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “Good morning,” said Logan. “There’s rogues everywhere.”

  “God damn it,” said Naelen.

  “Count of three, you two both roll off either side of the bed and get dressed,” said Logan. “I’ll keep this one busy.”

  “Okay,” I said, not seeing any reason to argue.

  “One, two, three,” said Logan.

  We rolled.

  Logan leaped up onto the bed, clutched his talisman, and held out one hand. He froze the dragon in place.

  Another dragon crashed through the window.

  Hell, there wasn’t time to get dressed. I was just glad that I’d brought my bow and arrows when I’d gone exploring last night. I yanked up three arrows and my bow. I notched the arrows, taking aim.

  The dragon at the window blew out flame.

  I had to duck.

  When I came back up, Naelen—fully clothed—was now holding off the dragon, using magic to keep it in the window.

  I notched the arrow again, took aim, pulled back on the string, and—

  The arrow pierced the eye of the dragon Logan was holding off.

  I pivoted and sent another arrow flying at the second dragon. Another eye shot.

  The guys both let go of their magic, releasing the dragons. The beasts fell to the ground, lifeless.

  I had one last arrow notched, and I stood there, at the ready.

  Naelen surveyed me. “That’s really hot, you know? You naked with the arrows?” He turned to Logan. “You think?”

  “Yeah,” said Logan. “Nice.”

  I threw down the bow and the arrow. “Screw you both.” I dove into my clothes.

  Together, we went over to the broken window. There were dragons flying everywhere out there, all around the house. “Wards are no good against dragons, huh?”

  “They’re used against magic, not against brute force,” said Logan. He pointed at a blue dragon, froze it.

  I took aim, let an arrow fly.

  The arrow burrowed into the dragon’s skull. It fell.

  “Got one,” said Naelen, freezing a red dragon above one of the gargoyles, which was perched higher than our window, stone in the light of dawn.

  I squinted into the morning light, taking aim. It was really easy when the targets weren’t moving, though. I put an arrow right under the dragon’s chin. It went through its head, coming out the top, and the dragon was dead too.

  We worked like that as quick as we could—the guys using magic to freeze the dragons, me sending arrow after arrow out to kill them.

  It was going pretty well. We only had maybe two dragons left.

  Crash.

  We all whirled. A dragon was coming in through the busted doorway.

  “How are they getting inside?” I yelled.

  “Maybe through the windows?” said Logan, reaching out his hand to freeze the dragon.

  But he wasn’t fast enough and the dragon’s head shot out and sunk teeth into Logan’s forearm.

>   Logan shrieked, losing his balance and falling into the dragon.

  I lifted my bow and arrows, but Logan’s body was blocking my shot.

  The dragon opened its jaws wide.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Naelen froze the dragon in mid bite.

  I let an arrow loose and it went right into the dragon’s mouth, settling in its soft palate. It fell on the body of the other one.

  From the window, more fire.

  We whirled.

  Naelen froze it.

  I shot it.

  Another dead.

  Bright red scales streamed past the window. The smell of smoke.

  I leaned out the window, notching an arrow.

  The dragon disappeared behind the house. It was flying in a circle. I turned, waiting for it to appear from the other direction.

  The minute it did, I let loose another arrow.

  It soared through the air and punctured the dragon in the head.

  The monster plummeted and crashed into the ground.

  I let out a long, slow breath, looking around.

  That was all of them. The dragons were all dead.

  We stood in the room, gasping for breath, anxious another one was going to come through the door or window. But none did.

  Logan was bleeding.

  I went to him. “You keep getting hurt!”

  “I’ll heal this up in no time,” he said. “I swear, it’s no big deal.”

  “It doesn’t look like no big deal,” I said.

  Logan shook his head. “Man, I didn’t know where you were, Clarke. You weren’t in your room, and I thought for sure you said hands-off.”

  I cringed. “Don’t be mad, okay? I just… Naelen and I talked is all, and things are better.”

  “You had a naked talk?” said Logan.

  “Logan,” I sighed.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m messing with you. I’m glad you guys talked. And actually, I’m glad you were both in here. I wouldn’t have been able to protect you at the same time otherwise.”

  I smiled at him.

  He smiled at me.

  And Naelen smiled too.

  We all smiled at each other.

  Then I leaned up and gave them both pecks on the cheek. I knew we weren’t supposed to do displays of affection in front of each other, but—