Page 33 of Wings of Destruction

But Kieran is different.

“I’m not the kind of man to prove his masculinity with toxic tactics,” he whispers.

“Coward. Horrible coward! You watched that dragon burn my people.”

“Yes, I did, and I’m about to watch the rest of them be shuttled off into slavery and you to DragonSpear. You’ll look great on the floor, scrubbing my toilet.”

“You’d love it, wouldn’t you?”

He shrugs. “I can’t say I’m averse, no.”

“I’d rather die.”

He bends to my ear and his warm breath tickles my hair.

“Stop fighting,” he whispers, close enough for me to shiver, and low enough for no one else to hear. “I’m trying to help you. Do you understand? Let me help you.”

My instincts have never led me astray. At least, not when I’m in full control of my anger. It’s more difficult to pay attention when I’m in the throes of fury and lost to the sensation. Right now, I’m struggling to reel myself back, and some strange tickling in my nerves gives me pause.

I want to believe him.

Maybe it’s because of how he fought on the battlefield. He’d been brutal and beautiful but never employed any underhanded maneuvers against his enemy. A fair fight, at least until the pale dragon did his worst.

“Please,” Kieran adds.

He straightens sharply.

How can I believe him when we’re head-to-head and I’m losing?

He adjusts his fingers against my neck, my collarbone, his large hands splayed over my skin. The world stops spinning, but I’m still in motion, still lost in the depths of those fathomless eyes. They darken as I watch until the rich brown hue becomes charcoal.

Help me? No.

He’s trying to damn me.

“Leave her alone!”

One of the children pushes away from the group at the same moment my jaw drops and words of agreement half form in my head. The fifteen-year-old boy, poised between child and man, throws one of the elderly farmers at the nearest soldier and cuts toward Kieran.

“Get off of her!” the boy yells. “Stop touching her.”

He makes contact with Kieran’s arm, tugging at the shoulder plate of armor, and Kieran loses his hold on my neck. My wrist.

My freed arm drops to my side and I gawk at the boy just as Tristan draws his dagger from the holster across his chest. He moves in a blink, his reflexes quick, cutting across the cave toward us.

The world resumes full speed with a sickening lurch. Shadows shift and the sun outside struggles to cut through the plumes of darkness. But Tristan reaches the boy. They clash together.

“No, don’t!”

The warning hardly leaves me before Tristan stabs the boy in the throat. My scream ramps up, the boy’s eyes widening and blood spurting from the hole. A terrible gurgle sends even more crimson sputtering free.

Kieran whips me away in the same motion, bending at the knees and throwing me over his shoulder, his hands rough on my legs. Blocking my view and taking me from the violence of the teenager’s dying breath.

“Contain the others,” he calls back.

“No!” Howling, I fight, beating against Kieran’s back, craning my neck in time to see the boy drop to his side and lie still.

My fault.