“You… you lied to me,” she whispered harshly.
“I was protecting you,” I told her, but she pushed back from the table furiously, and I got up to follow and stop her in case she tried to leave.
“You… you had… you had no right!”
“Sabella, please.”
“No! Damn it, Tristan! You can’t do this, you can’t keep things from me! Especially when they happen to me!”
I reached for her hand, but she yanked hers away, storming toward the door. I was faster and blocked her from leaving. “We need to talk about this.”
“Move!”
“Not happening, Red, sit down.”
Her eyes narrowed at my order and she crossed her arms, that glare promising this fight was far from over. She stalked back to her seat and sat down hard, not uncrossing her arms, and glaring at the table so hard, I expected it to burst into flames. At least fire was not in her control otherwise I was sure she would’ve set me alight by now. When I made it back to my place, Kate scowled at me like she wanted to smack me upside the head. I couldn’t blame her, but I met her glare for glare and growled for her to back off. She had her own issues with Craig. She needed to keep her nose out of mine and Sabella’s.
“What did he say?” Lucy asked. “Baladon.”
“Not much except there was a test coming for me, to see if I was a true king or not,” I relayed. “And he was upset we were killing so many of his pets.”
“Good,” Craig snapped. “Means we’re getting to him.”
“Or he’s planning something worse,” Boris suggested. “We need to find him.”
“That leads me to my other idea,” I said, wishing Sabella would look at me, but she refused. “I would like to return to the stone maze and see if Baladon is still there. If he is, I say we aim to wound or capture him. Kill him if we can.”
“Are you insane?” Sabella yelled. “Really? You want to go back there! Just like that?”
“We have no other leads. Going there will give us information if nothing else.”
“Or it’s a trap, and you’ll get yourself killed,” she snarled, “but what do I know? I’m just a seer, right?” This time when she stormed for the door, I didn’t try to stop her, but let her leave. Kate excused herself and followed her out, hopefully, to calm her down.
I rubbed my forehead. “Why is this so hard?” I muttered to myself.
“She’s frustrated, we all are,” Lucy said simply. “Our hands are tied with no leads to go on, no way to know where Baladon is. But this plan of yours, are you sure it’s what you want to do?”
“What choice do we have? It’s not as if Baladon is dropping us any hints here.”
“Shall I prepare our warriors then?” Boris asked.
I looked around the table to see Craig and Hank, as well as my other commanders, nodding in agreement. “Yes, we’ll head out tomorrow,” I ordered. “Lucy, I would ask you accompany us if you are able. We may find ourselves in need of some extra firepower.”
“Of course,” she said, bowing her head.
They got up to leave, but I stayed at the table, leaning back in my chair and willing my sudden throbbing headache to go away. I felt Sabella’s rage from this far away, and it set my teeth on edge. I had to face her eventually and got up to track her down. I scented the air and followed the light trail of lilac through the castle and out toward the courtyard. When it passed through the main gate, my heart hammered with worry in my chest, and I picked up the pace, shifting so I could sniff her out better. I feared she had taken off, and no one noticed, but I followed her trail around the outer wall and back toward a grove of trees surrounding a small pond. When I neared the tree line, I spied her; her pants rolled up to her knees as she moved delicately through the water.
I stayed where I was, watching as she bent down and scooped up a lily in her hands. I had no idea what she was trying to do but couldn’t turn away.
“What am I supposed to do with him?” she asked loudly, and my ears flattened, fearing she was hearing voices again, until I saw Kate move into view, her pants also rolled up as she sat down and dunked her feet in the water.
“Craig is exactly the same way.”
“Even after all you’ve done?” Sabella asked, dropping the lily back to the water.
“Yeah. You and I aren’t from this world, you know. We grew up without the fear of danger lurking around every corner. Think it freaks them out more on some level. They don’t think we have the right instincts for survival, you know?”
I sat down with a huff. Kate was onto something there. Sabella grew up isolated in the same building all her life. She knew nothing of how perilous this world could be.
“That’s not an excuse to treat us like we’re made of glass,” Sabella muttered, swishing her foot through the water. “I just want him to trust me.”
Was that really what she thought? I didn’t trust her?
“He does,” Kate assured her, and I mentally told myself to thank her later. “He’s just worried. These visions of yours and the whole part-god thing throw him off. You and I, we’re not exactly normal,” she added with a laugh.
“We’re complicated,” Sabella agreed. “Maybe too complicated.”
Why did she sound so saddened by the thought? I almost went to her, but then the conversation shifted to a different topic, and I paused.
“I wonder sometimes though, if he has the same doubts I do,” Sabella said.
“Doubts about what?”
“About whether I’m meant to be part of his pack or not. We haven’t talked about anything except this war. Nothing!”
“You both have been a bit preoccupied,” Kate tried to say, but she even sounded a bit doubtful.
“But if we’re meant to be together, if that’s what this is, then why haven’t we made time to figure it out? Make it official and what not? I just… never mind.”
I backed away slowly through the trees, my mind racing with her words as I made my way back to the castle. Forrest and Craig had expected me to make it official right away, but I wanted to wait until there wasn’t a war going on. Saving our people was more important than having a ceremony to show everyone what we already knew. Sabella and I were meant to be together. She was my beta, I knew that, but she was starting to second guess everything we had together. How was I supposed to prove my feelings to her when she fought me at every turn?
As I shifted back, walking through the courtyard, I vowed to set aside a night, soon, when we could sit down and decide our future together. But as I started to plan out what that night might entail, one of my commanders was coming up to me with questions about tomorrow’s plan. I followed him and lost myself in the preparations for what could very well be another battle I knew we were far from prepared for.
I hope you enjoyed Asylum! I can’t wait to bring you the next book in this series!
Visions!
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Copyright © 2018 by Kit Bladegrave
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Asylum (Dragon Reign Book 6) Page 22
