“I knew what I was, even back then, Rikyava. I knew I had what it took to overcome Lærke’s and my start in life and come out on top.” Mikkel gives a soft growl now as he watches me.
“What was your start in life? What made you this way, Mikkel—so vicious for retribution, and for building an empire to solidify your power?” I have to ask, as I wonder for the umpteenth time about the twins’ backstory.
“That’s for me to know, not you.” Mikkel stares me down, but then he takes a deep breath, as if surfacing out of the black depths of his inner demon of a drake. He thaws, his smile still wry but more gentle, his eyes softer, too. “I don’t want to burden anyone with that, Rikyava. Truly, I don’t. The less you know about Lærke and me, the better. Your drakes, too.”
“Even Ström doesn’t know the whole story, does he?” I say as I understand, and Mikkel nods.
“And he never will.”
I stop circling the pool table and Mikkel stops, too. It leaves us atopposite ends of the table with the sensation of a gulf between us, though I know we should be trying to get closer and solidify our bond.
Mikkel’s just too prickly a kitty to get to know well, however, and I know now that he will not let me in. Not unless I force my way there. Which I could do with my magics, I also know, as I feel Aesa’s Truthstone hum upon my chest.
But forcing my drakes to spill their secrets just isn’t my style. I abandon the thought, even as Mikkel cocks his head, watching me with curiosity.
“You just had the thought that you could force me to tell you about my past… but you chose not to. Why?” he asks now, genuine befuddlement on his face, as if that’s the exact opposite of how he would have done things.
“I’m not like that, Mikkel,” I say as I regard him, “and being with me isn’t a chore, or a drag on your ruthless ambitions. I’m sorry I bound you—that I had to. I’m sorry fate put us in this situation, to bond or die from everything we’re up against. I will not apologize for what I am, though, or how I’ve chosen to be in life. I got a rough start, too; my entire family is dead, and you don’t see me carrying a massive vendetta like some huge fucking chip on my shoulder to the end of my days. Does my family’s death still piss me off? Absolutely. Do I let it define what I am? No. That ismychoice. And it always will be.”
I see Mikkel take that in as he startles at my tirade, then goes stock-still. It’s almost like he’s turned to stone; he’s gone quiet in a way I’ve never felt, from his massive, indomitable energy.
As if both he and his dragon have been shocked by the idea that they have a choice about what and how they might be, I see him expand his thoughts on the matter.
And wonder if he’s made the right choice all these years.
“You think I’m a bad man,” he says abruptly now.
“Yes and no,” I say back, truthful. “You’ve done bad things in your life; I’ll give you that. Was some of it warranted? Maybe. You make achoice, however, to continue being ruthless, rather than taking aproperlook at your life and wondering if there is some other way you could be. Amassing clubs, influence, money, and power is one way to do things—and making people shit-scared of you with how your monstrous energy can change on a fucking dime. But now, you’ve got a chance to do something else with it. What will you choose, Mikkel? What will you choose…?”
I leave it hanging as I give it to him straight, because someone needs to. I see Mikkel ponder it now as his head cocks and his grip upon the pool cue flexes and eases, then flexes again.
It’s as if he can’t decide whether to be furious with me right now for giving him a piece of my mind in the way he only allows Lærke, or be ruthlessly attracted to me, for being such a ballsy drakaina that I would speak to him this way.
Absolutely zero fucks given about his power, influence, or his money.
“No drakaina’s ever spoken to me like this, no one but Lærke.” He confirms my suspicions as his full lips twitch into the most perplexed smile ever. “No one’s ever dared to—or they wanted something out of me and chose their words far more carefully.”
“Hey, if your Bloodmate can’t give it to you straight, then who can?” I chide now, pretending to be lighthearted, even though I’m still staring him down.
I feel a deep movement in his aura, then. At the wordBloodmate, something in Mikkel flinched. I can see it now, feel it, as his black aura swirls all around me in the gaming hall. It flickers just the tiniest bit copper, though it soon fades to its regular vicious chartreuse green and black.
“Do you want to leave this bond, Mikkel?” I ask now, as we come to it at last. “I don’t know how to do that, but I can sure as hell find some way to make it happen, if that’s what you want.”
“No,” he says at once. Closing his eyes, he takes a moment before opening them. “I don’t want to leave your bond. Lærke seems to think it’sgood for me, and I trust her opinion. I feel it too, strangely, though I do not know how.”
“Then you need to let me in.” I speak on instinct now, knowing it’s right as Aesa’s stone hums upon my chest. “If you can’t trust me and my drakes to have your back, Mikkel, then we can’t trust you to have ours. And trust is what we all need to go up against the Black Dragon, the Knights, and anything else that assails us. And whatever makes you so ruthless, and so protective of Lærke… well, we’ve got your back on that, too. Because you’re one of us now. Just like we helped Ström with his memories, and we will help Bjorn when he finally faces his father, we’ve got you, too. We might go about helping with your problem a bit differently than you’ve been doing, but we’re here for you, Mikkel—you and Lærke, both. You’re a part of this now, a part of us. I don’t take that shit lightly. You get me?”
Mikkel stares at me, and I feel something inside him churn. He’s got such a tremendous lock on his mind and magic that I feel little of it, and see nothing inside my mind.
But it’s as if something inside him has been waiting all his life to hear that someone’s got his back. I see him swallow hard, his dark eyebrows pinching ever so slightly into a look of pure hope, despair, and woe.
That one moment transforms him from sensually diabolical into absolutely stunning, as I watch his almost vengeful-angel handsomeness flip into heartache and hope.
With that tentative hope, however, comes so much despair. It makes my entire heart ache now for Mikkel, and for Lærke both, as he stares at me. His lips have fallen open; slowly, he shuts them, but not before I hear a sigh escape him.
Mikkel sets the pool cue down on top of the table.
Then comes to me, as I stand my ground and let him.
