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“That he’d respect you enough to show up guns blazing?”
“Something like that.”
There was a sadness to her tone that he didn’t like very much. And an air of dejection surrounding her, as though she’d just had a sliver of her previous view of the world cut off, shifting her perspective of her place in it. Or of her place in her father’s esteem.
Perhaps it was making her doubt he would ever pass the mantle onto her shoulders.
“He’s crazy,” Dmitri offered. “To not respect you.”
The briefest glimmer in her eyes. Gratitude, he supposed. But something more as well. Did she feel it too? Was that why she’d kissed him? He felt as though he’d known her longer. He felt like he’d waited for her his whole, long, lonely existence. But finding his true mate through a random set of circumstances… It seemed too fantastical. He did feel drawn to her, though, and the pull was only getting stronger.
Especially after that kiss. It had taken his breath away, gone straight to his head. Made him forget about the pain he was in. His entire being had responded like a match had been struck against it. How had she done that? He hadn’t felt anything like it in much too long.
“What’s it like?” she asked. “To be in charge.”
She went over to the foot of the bed, having a seat.
He remembered the small parcel in his hand, knowing the crushed herbs would help take the edge off the searing pain in his leg. Someone had been thinking of him. Bringing the herbs over to a bowl on one of the side tables he emptied the contents of the parcel into it, thinking of how best to answer her question.
“It’s isolation in its truest form,” he said, looking over at her. “You lock yourself in a cage. You know? You put steel bars around you to make certain nobody gets close enough to knock you off your chair.”
“Sounds amazing. Tell me more,” she said.
He sent a crooked smile her way.
“Thought you’d like it.” A smile back. She was calming down then. She’d looked like a storm cloud when she came through that door. The clouds were slowly lifting, her brow smoothing.
“Were you taught how to do that?” she asked.
“It’s a simple spell,” he said, crushing the herbs with his fingers.
“No, I mean, how to put steel bars around your chair.”
He chuckled, adding a splash of water from a nearby jug to the bowl. Water for healing. He closed his eyes, whispering the words his mother taught him when he was still a child. She’d always been the protective one. Always making sure he knew how to protect himself.
“Steel bars aren’t taught, it’s a skill you’re either born with or not,” he said simply.
“If you don’t have a killer instinct, how can you lead those that do?”
“Of courseyou can learn to have a killer instinct,” she disagreed.
“Really?”
“Yes. What about mercenaries? Soldiers? Aren’t they trained into it?”
“Why do you think they feel compelled to become mercenaries and soldiers?”
She wanted to argue further but knew he had her. He knew it too, raising his eyebrows to underline it.
“There’s something primal that some people have access to, even if they’re not entirely aware of it until they actually try or are forced to. Not everyone can connect to it. Not everyone will kill, even if it means killing will save their own life. Not everyone are wired that way, and that’s fine. It’s as nature intended. My point is, though, that no, the steel bars can’t be taught. It’s about that primal instinct.”
“Control,” she remarked.
“What?”
“It’s about control,” she clarified, cocking an eyebrow back at him. “It’s about keeping the seat in that chair against all odds. Does that mean you have to be able to kill?”
“Yes.” He grabbed one of the small glasses standing on the tray next to the water jug, dipped it in the bowl, swallowing the liquid down in one hard gulp before finishing, “Kill or be killed. It’s trite but true.”
