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12
EVANNA
“Are you insane?!” I screeched in utter shock, sending another pillow flying towards Kingston. “You could have gotten him killed!”
He didn’t even try to stop my unleashed attack, the soft weapon hitting him in the head while he stared at me stoically. Taking the wooden brush from Willow’s hand—I was out of pillows—I threw it too. The damn thing flew right past him, hurling barely an inch from his face, and crashed into the wall behind him, splitting in two with the blow.
He didn’t even flinch.
“I missed on purpose,” I growled at him, and then scowled at Willow, who wouldn’t cease fussing over me. “Stop it! I am fine.” Nudging her aside, I proceeded to stand from the bed.
“Ugh. You are impossible when you get like this,” Willow huffed, picking up the healing cream she had applied on my side, the drinking tonic, and everything else she brought to treat my fading injury. “Frankly, I don’t see what the big deal is about that warrior? Yes, he helped you and we are grateful for it. But Kingston knows what he is doing, and you have never questioned his teachings before,” she chided. “Why are you so up in arms about this one?”
My guardian and I exchanged a cautious glance, but neither of us answered. We should have waited until she left to discuss Braxton, but we had never hidden anything from her before. It was unnatural for us.
Willow huffed again. “Fine, don’t tell me your stupid secret. I will find out for myself.” A challenge sparkled in her onyx eyes with the words, and she turned around, placing the tonic on the small table next to my bed. “Don’tforgetto drink the medicine before you fall asleep.”
With a pointed look, she took the tray and headed for the exit hallway, but not before gifting a sweet smile to the bronzed-skin giant she had just defended. He bowed to her with a gallant grin, his loving gaze following her departure until she went into the tunnels. When his attention returned to me, the grin fell from his lips.
My guardian’s expression said I was behaving like a child, but I didn’t really care. If there was ever a time to throw a grown-up tantrum, having your unofficial mate on the edge of a mountain cliff was definitely it.
“Sparring on theDragons’ altaris a rite of passage every single one of my warriors has had to overcome.”
“Yes, to graduate as an Elevated Warrior,” I snapped, marching towards him, “not when they have only been training for a week!” My fist punched his arm with all my might, but it bounced off his hard muscles like it was nothing.
Kingston sighed. “I took him there because I saw something in him. I believed that he had the potential, but it was buried under all his expectations and self doubts. He seems overwhelmed by his own thoughts.”
“Can you blame him?!” I threw my hands in the air. “Braxton is in a world he never knew existed. He can’t even get within a five-foot radius of the only person he knows and trusts, without you threatening to slice him with your spear. And he doesn’t even know who his parents were because I haven’t had a chance to tell him—” My words halted as unexpected emotion flourished in my chest, and I was forced to take a moment. “I don’t even know how to do it, because I know it will destroy him.”
His features hardened before my eyes, rejecting the compassion I felt. Kingston couldn’t comprehend why I would ever feel like that towards the son of the Harbinger of Justice. He didn’t know Braxton like I did.
“Taking him there wasn’t a punishment, Evanna. If you know my true heart like I think you do, you should never doubt me like that,” he answered as though he heard my thoughts, and the sincerity in his eyes made my chest ache.
“Of course I know that.” I reached for his arm, caressing it. “I’m sorry.”
With a sigh of relief, he nodded, his hand squeezing mine. “I wanted to ground his mind more than his feet. To free him from the thoughts that plague him and get a glimpse of what he was made of. I went against him without respite, so he would be forced to react, and it worked.”
A troubled look captured his expression, and his gaze left me, escaping through the window behind me.
“What did you see?” I whispered, stepping closer as anticipation and nervousness grew in my belly.
“His father.”
Both nostalgia and disbelief colored his voice with the confession, and when my guardian’s eyes bore into mine again, the light of the past shone in their depths.
“Once Braxton’s instincts finally kicked in, the resemblance was startling. He suddenly knew my attack combinations, every tactic I’ve ever taught. His spear blocked mine at each turn, and although his movements were far from precise, they were the same my warriors have mastered. It was as though his body had already learned them and it remembered.”
Kingston paused, brows gathering in confusion, and pain.
“There was a point where I was sparring with Khayden again. Not the mighty Harbinger of Justice, or the man who betrayed my trust. I was training with my friend.”
Silence stretched between us for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure what to say, mostly because I had never seen Kingston like that. He seemed lost between the memory of the Harbinger and the reality of his son.
My other hand gently curled around his, cupping it, and calling his attention to me once more. Honey eyes looked through me as though I wasn’t even there. “He is not his father—” I began to remind him, but soon, the legends of who the Harbinger had been before he abandoned us, flourished in my memory. I couldn’t help but compare his character to what I knew of Brax. “He is not his father’s mistake,” I corrected.
A burdened sigh sunk Kingston’s chest, and his gaze left the past, focusing on me. “Something happened to him during our fight. It was like his mind took him somewhere else, and that is when he fell. He couldn’t see my next move, and it caught him off guard.”
His confession reminded me of our initial brawl, and I smacked his arm. “I still can’t believe that happened! You are lucky one of the Dragons dove for him and caught him, because if you let something happen to him, Iwillstrangle you.”
