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I stared at him in disbelief. His words were cold and dispassionate. I couldn’t believe this was the same boy I had once known, the boy who had defied all sense and taken on any risk that ever appeared. He had been so carefree once, yet now he was in a cocoon of sanctimonious righteousness.
“So, you’re just going to give up?” I asked.
He arched an eyebrow towards me and shot me a withering look, as though I was nothing more than an ant.
“Accepting the fortune of the world is not giving up, Mason. I’m not going to waste my energy or time on something that I cannot control. If people want to leave, then they are welcome to do so. If they are not devout enough to endure any hardship, then we do not need them in our thunder, for it will only make us weaker.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great, what an inspiring speech that will be. I can’t wait until you address the thunder.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Brett, you do realize that eventually it might just be you standing here alone, right? All the dragons are down there now thinking about what their lives mean. With Zeke gone,it’s up to us to rally their spirits, but if you’re going to be like this then I don’t know how we’re going to accomplish that. I just wish Buck was here,” I muttered the last few words, although by Brett’s reaction, I might as well have yelled them at the top of my lungs. He spun around quickly and glared at me, his entire body bristling with tension as he closed the distance between us. I actually thought he might attack me.
“Don’t say his name,” Brett hissed. “He betrayed us. He left us and he’s nothing to us anymore,” he slashed his arm through the air.
“Brett, you can’t stay angry at him forever. And anyway, this isn’t about him. It’s about us. All I’m saying is that he knew how to get people to trust him. You can’t deny his talents, and right now the dragons need someone they can believe in. Jade might just be the first to go.”
“The rest of the dragons have more sense than her,” Brett had turned back to look across the world, gazing into the sky. His voice was soft again, as though his outburst of anger had not happened at all.
“How can you be sure? They might take their chances elsewhere.”
Brett snorted a laugh. “Where? With the humans? They’ll never fit in, and they’ll soon grow tired of clipping their wings. And I know what you’re going to say next, the Children of Drakon, well more power to them if they want to be with that cult.”
“And what if they just want to fly for a while and take their chances elsewhere? Maybe they’ll find a small island in the ocean and make it their home. Maybe they’ll find another part of the world that has been untouched by humans and land there, and they’ll leave all of this behind.”
Brett angled his face towards me slightly, just enough so that I could see his face in profile. It was hard, and I wondered whether the Brett I knew had been truly lost within him.
“Then they’ve betrayed us, and they do not deserve our care or our pity. If they want to be like Buck, then they can leave, but they should know that there is no way back here. We have to be strong, Mason. We have to have conviction in our beliefs. We are here because we are together. We have survived this long because we are united. If we start to fragment now, then they are embracing weakness, and there isn’t going to be anything to save them. If they want to take their chances like that then so be it, but I will not grant them any quarter.”
“There has to be some compromise here, Brett. You need to be more like the water, less like the mountain,” I said, and immediately regretted my words.
He turned on me and strode towards me, taking the few strides until he was right in my face. His expression was twisted with anger and the air shimmered with heat. I could see the fire in his eyes, and I feared he may explode.
“Don’t use his words. Don’t speak with his voice,” Brett said. Spittle flew through his gritted teeth. I clenched my teeth, unwilling to back down.
“But he was right. Zeke was right Brett. If you’re going to mourn him then at least honor him by following the advice he gave you.”
“How dare you-” he began, but then he caught sight of something beyond my shoulder. His face changed. The anger slipped away and was replaced by confusion and intrigue. I couldn’t help but look back myself, and it was the strangest thing. I saw two dragons in the air, heading towards us. At first, I thought it might have been Jade returning, but no, it wasn’t her. The dragons slipped through the veil of night and came into view.
I gasped.
Brett muttered a curse under his breath, and then we both ventured back down to the ground, ready to greet our new guests.
Chapter Nine
Brett
The night had been the worst night of my life already, and now Mason was trying to make it even more terrible. I couldn’t believe he was quoting Zeke at me, trying to replace the man already. What did I care if people wanted to be foolish enough to leave the home we had built? They were free to make their own mistakes.
And then, I saw them in the sky, these two dragons gliding towards us. I blinked at first, wondering whether I was truly seeing this. Then they came closer into view. I could see the shade of their scales. One of them I did not recognize. The scales were light purple, an unusual shade for sure. But the other, oh, the other I knew well. Anger rose in the pit of my stomach again and I went down to the ground, ready to throttle him for daring to come back here, now. Mason’s footsteps crashed against the ground behind me.
“Don’t say what you’re going to say, Brett, just hear him out. Maybe he’s here to make amends,” Mason said desperately.
“If he was interested in that, then he would have returned before,” I growled.
Mason stood by my side as Buck and his companion landed. I looked at them both warily as they shifted, and the only thing that halted my rebuke of him was her beauty. She was soft and delightful, as though a drop of sunlight had fallen upon the earth and been given the form of this woman. Her eyes were wide and bright, while her mouth was slanted in such a way that it appeared as if she was constantly wearing an enigmatic smile. Strands of hair slipped across her face. Her body was slender,but she was clearly a woman, and there was some instinctual, primal part of me that twitched with arousal.
But, of course, she was with him.
As much as I could have looked at her vision of loveliness all night, I dragged my gaze towards him. He hadn’t changed at all. He looked exactly like the time I had last seen him, as though it had only been yesterday.
It wasn’t yesterday though. The world had changed since the last time he was here. He still had that damned smug smile and that swagger about him, as though he knew all the secrets of the world. He didn’t look sorry at all. It was too much for me. There was something I had been waiting to do all this time and I wasn’t going to be the damned water. I was the damned mountain. Sorry Zeke, but your son had this coming.
