“Yeah.” His eyes glossed over as he looked me up and down. “Whatever triggered it is in the past. If it was your power, it would have been harder.”
I didn’t say anything as realization dawned on me. I couldn’t control it because it wasn’t over. Dahes wasn’t just in my past, he was my present and future. I walked around every day terrified he’d try it again, wondering why he hadn’t.
I swore he did it to mess with me. I didn’t delude myself into thinking that he wouldn’t do it again. He was dragging it out, making the trepidation of waiting for it to happen so much worse.
“Stay up tonight,” he said. “I don’t care what you have to do, but convince yourself that whatever the hell happened to cause it, doesn’t hold any weight anymore.”
He pushed off from the door frame. “We’ll train tomorrow night when I’m not so drunk,” he said, already starting to turn away. “And I expect to see improvement.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Dahes’ Whore
MAGNOLIA
For once I listened to Cash. I barely slept, staying up the entire night, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t completely terrified of Dahes.
It didn’t work.
All it did was make me irritable from lack of sleep.
Bran froze in the doorway the second he burst through my door. “You look like shit,” he said, looking me over.
I didn’t say anything as he started getting me ready. It took everything in me to hold my tongue. Maybe I was just as bad as everyone else, just as manipulative, but I needed to see what he was going to dress me in.
The tight grip around my chest loosened when he didn’t opt for any jewels and dressed me in black. At least it meant he wasn’t intentionally trying to kill me.
“What’s with the sass this morning?” he snapped as he tightened the ties around my waist.
“Care to enlighten me as to why you’ve been dressing me up as a dragon’s favorite meal this whole week?”
He pulled the strings tighter, causing me tomomentarily lose my breath as he smirked. “So you’ve found someone else to ask all your annoying questions to. Good.”
“I’m serious, Bran. Why did you dress me in jewels?”
He shrugged, then went to get my shoes. “To prove a point.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“That you aren’t scared of dragons. You’re the girl who escaped the Dead King, and everyone should be terrified ofyou. If you want to survive here, you’ll need it.”
“I need people to be scared of me?”
“Yes,” he nodded, finally meeting my gaze. “I have no idea what Moriann is like, but people take advantage of the weak here.”
I scoffed. Yeah, the two kingdoms were eerily similar.
“And you weren’t worried that an actual dragon would eat me?” I diverted, instead of talking about my home kingdom.
“Everyone knows that dragons don’t come to the Vargothi until the third day.”
Right. Everyone except for me apparently.
“And on top of making sure everyone takes you seriously, I’ve been making you look fucking hot, so I think a thank you instead of attacking me first thing in the morning would be nice.”
“Thank you, Bran,” I mimicked his voice as best as I could, which was surprisingly easy.
“You’re insufferable. I’ve done you two favors now and all I get out of it is your attitude.”
