Page 57 of Bad Blood Alpha

Chapter 23

Later, they sat side by side on Flynn’s big bed, backs against the headboard, silently passing Alexander Grant’s bottle of whiskey back and forth between them.

Flynn still felt weary in his bones. He should make her go away, he thought. Make her go to her own bed. Make her do something that wasn’t here, with him, because she ripped open too many doors inside him, and as long as he could feel her skin, her scent filling his nose, they’d never close again.

He needed them closed.

But she was so warm, so strong. Touching her felt so good.

Shifters needed touch, but Flynn shied away from it. The most he got was when he and Tank sat this way sometimes, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, sharing a bottle.

Or the occasional touch from his crew—a hug or a rub against his face, when one of them was feeling especially emotional.

Flynn had always discouraged too much mushy shit—it made him feel weak and uncertain. But deep down, he knew his cat craved touch. It craved warmth, and someone to curl up with when he slept. His bed was so fucking cold and empty.

Who the hell was he kidding? He wanted Kira to stay. In his bed, in his home, in his crew. Right now he could feel her breathing, hear her heart beating, slow and soothing.

She took a drink of whiskey and tipped her head back. “I remember you, you know,” she said. “From our pledging ceremony.” She added, unexpectedly, “You were kind to me.”

Flynn snorted. “I barely remember it, but I’m sure I wasn’t.” He couldn’t look at her, though, because he did remember. He just didn’t want to. Especially now, with the wound over Markus so raw.

He added in a softer voice, “We weren’t trained to be kind.”

“You were, though,” she said. Her voice grew dreamy. “I remember walking up the aisle in the Great Hall. All those people.”

He remembered the Great Hall of her father’s castle, a cavernous stone room with a domed ceiling. The entire fucking House of Al-Maddeiri lining both sides of the room. Draken in their human forms, rows and rows of them, tall and beautiful and intimidating, and the Elite Lion Guard, faces hard and stern.

At the front of the room, on a raised dais, sat the royal family. Kira’s father, the most intimidating of all. Her mother, young and almost impossibly beautiful to Flynn’s eyes, holding Kira’s baby sister Mayah her arms. The prince, Emon, three years old, was wriggling impatiently and pulling at the collar of his formal suit.

“I was so excited,” Kira said, taking a sip of whiskey. “Everything was so beautiful. I thought the carpet looked like stars.”

Flynn felt himself softening, just a tiny bit. He took the bottle from her and took a mouthful, leaning his head back against the headboard. “It did. It was embroidered with jewels in the shapes of all the constellations of the night sky in Al-Maddeiri. Diamonds on black velvet.”

His eyes were closed, but he still felt her smile. “You do remember.”

He remembered. Something inside him that he hadn’t realized was knotted up released itself. She wanted him to remember.

He said, “You were wearing a dress the color of fire, with a zillion petticoats underneath to make it full. They made these little points, all different lengths, and all different shades of yellow and red and orange. So when you twirled around, they looked like flames dancing.”

She giggled. He’d never heard her giggle before, like the little girl they were remembering. It was an unexpectedly sweet sound, like bells.

“I loved that dress,” she said. “I thought I looked like a creature in a story, like a living flame. I felt so beautiful, and so grown-up. Five years old!”

“Ancient,” he agreed.

She nudged him with her shoulder, and took the bottle back from him. He heard the slosh of whiskey as she tilted it to drink.

“My tutor escorted me from my apartments to the back of the room and told me I had to walk solemnly down the aisle. But I felt so pretty, and there was music playing, and so I started dancing down the aisle instead.”

“You did look like a flame creature,” Flynn said. “Your skirt rippling with the music. I remember you looked so…happy.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Until my Aunt Thekla hissed at me from the sidelines that I was shaming the family, and to walk properly. I looked up and saw all those people watching me, and I froze.”

Flynn laughed. “Was that what happened? I thought maybe you just got scared.”

“I did. I suddenly felt ashamed of myself, and everyone was staring at me with those carved-out-of-rock expressions draken can get. I was terrified.” She moved closer to him. She was so warm, like the desert sun in the morning. “And then you looked down that long, long, aisle, and you smiled at me.”

“I wasn’t supposed to. But you were so fucking cute. Like a tasra flower.” Tasras had once grown in the Al-Maddeiri gardens. Bright orange, with waxy outer leaves and feathery inner ones that ruffled in the breeze and looked like fire.