“At the end of the day, Lærke and I fight for ourselves.” Mikkel holds my gaze with intention. “Your quest may be noble, but we’ll only help you so you’ll help us. Reveal to us the truth about our missing memories… and who it was that tore them from our minds in the first place.”
“You want to kill Alfhild Fey—if you find her,” I say as I understand now, finally seeing that Mikkel doesn’t care about us and our quest. He’s in it for what we can do for him.
And he wants to punish the woman who fucked with him—to the grave.
“Don’t you, for what she did to Ström?” he asks, and I know he’s got my number. As a seething wave of hate washes up in me now for that red-haired woman from Ström’s missing memory, I can’t suppress it. It goes rolling around me, burning with blood-red daggers as everything inside me bristles. My Bloodshield is banished as something darker spikes out from me, replacing it.
A terrible wave of my Bone Mage energy flowing out now, like sharpened black snakes, to kill her.
“There she is…” Mikkel says with awed approval, as the darkest side of my magic comes out to play. “There is the truth behind the brightness of your inner drakaina. You have a streak of blackest retribution in you, Rikyava, same as me. The only difference between us is I don’t repress it.”
“We’re different. Very different,” I insist, even as something inside me crumbles to Mikkel’s arguments.
“We’re not.” His voice is quiet as he regards me. “You’d do anything to save those you love; I’d do anything to save myself and my sister from harm. We’ve both got a ruthless streak, right to our very core. You simply haven’t fully unleashed yours yet. Despite all the adversity you’ve faced… nothing has quite made you unleash that most unforgiving part of yourself. To do what must be done and punish those that have to be punished. When need calls for it.”
“Need never calls for us to be that unscrupulous.” I lift my chin in righteous defiance.
“It does,” Mikkel says quietly, almost sad. “You’ve just not been in a situation yet that demanded it.”
As he regards me across the table now, I see another side to Mikkel I’ve not seen before. Both his devil-may-care attitude and his cold-as-death personality drop away… and there’s a third Mikkel beneath it.
World-weary, this Mikkel is tired of the games of life and death he must play, day in and day out. I see it as something in him longs for things to be simple, to still have that sense of moral righteousness my drakes and I possess.
That ship has sailed for him, though—and it’s never coming back.
“In any case,” Mikkel continues as he sighs, smiling, “we’re not going to life-mate, you and I. I wish to keep my empire and not complicate it with bonding to you, then feeling obligated to fulfill your quest. It is noble—and nobility is not in my heart anymore. Lærke and I will help you with your scrolls, thanks to the long friendship we have with Ström, and we will help each other get our missing memories back and find the enemy Bone Mage drakaina you seek. But that’s where it ends, I’m afraid. I will hold my dragon back from tasting you, and you will hold yours back from jumping me. We will all get along nicely until thisendeavor ends. And you go off to finish hunting your Black Dragon, while Lærke and I take care of the person who betrayed us. That will be it.”
“You make it sound so simple.” I chuckle, wry, as I shake my head.
“Nothing in life is ever simple, though I do like to impress myself with how I can make it sound that way.” Mikkel winks at me now with some of his blithe demeanor, before his gaze drops to my chest. He’s not looking at my boobs, but at the little silver stone that is once again hidden by my dress strap. As he gazes at it, I reach up, pulling my black strap down.
A hard breath leaves him as it begins to hum and swirl with runes.
“What is it?” His dark eyes fix on Aesa’s stone. “How does it work to reveal lost memories?”
“It’s something an ancient ancestor of mine made, the sister of someone who is blood-kin to me.” I recall Aesa’s story, though I do not yet know my own ancestor’s name, she who created the Black Dragon. “It points me towards the truth, helps me illuminate my deepest instincts about things. When Ström opens up his Bone Magic, it resonates through my bond to him, along with my own Bloodwalker power. Combining those three magics produces some kind of alchemy. I don’t understand it. But it’s sent Ström into fits a few times, nearly becoming Berserk as his dragon, during which he receives flashes of memory. Only one has made sense, so far.”
“Wraith.” Mikkel corrects me now as his gaze flicks back up to me. “When Bone Mages go out of control, it’s called becoming a Wraith, not going Berserk.”
“Right. Of course.” I flush a little at my mistake.
But it’s also because Mikkel’s dark, intense eyes are pinning me again. I feel the vast power of his indomitable dragon churn inside him now, though he’s still keeping it away from touching me.
Wanting me, though we keep ourselves so carefully apart.
“May I touch it?” Mikkel asks, as his glance goes back to the stone.
“Your funeral,” I say as I wave a hand at it. “I can’t be responsible foranything that might happen to you if you touch it. You sure you don’t want a few dozen bouncers in here to help, in case you go wild?”
“I can handle my dragon.” Mikkel has far more certainty than I’ve ever felt. Though, until recently, I was quite good at wrangling my inner beast.
Standing from his chaise, he comes to me now, rounding the table with the chess match so he can sink to a seat beside me. His nearness amps my inner drakaina up high in my veins, and my Bone Magic higher than that. With a will, I haul everything back.
As I feel Mikkel haul his own Bone Magic drake back, just as hard as I’m doing with mine.
“Can you hold your inner beasts while I investigate this thing?” Mikkel asks now as he reaches out, eyeballing me. As I hold the strap of my dress down, his fingers hesitate over Aesa’s stone, about to touch it, but not quite.
“I can hold my shit,” I say, knowing I have to. “Can you?”
