Page 35 of Renegade Kingdom
My hands were still shaking when I reached the corridor. I pressed my back against the wall and stood there in the dim light, breathing hard, staring at the faint marks my claws had left on my own palms from clenching my fists too tight.
I’d almost lost control. Almost taken Damon’s choice away because I was angry and scared and desperate. Almost became exactly what the nightmare accused me of being.
But I hadn’t.
And the nightmare was afraid.
I let that truth settle into my bones. Let it fill the space where the guilt had been rotting, not replacing it entirely but giving it something to exist alongside. Something that felt a lot like hope.
Then I wiped my eyes, pushed off the wall, and went to find my mate.
Chapter Ten
Alyssa
“He was absolutely horrified,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips despite the ache in my chest. “Standing there on the bank in nothing but his underthings, staring at me like I’d lost my mind. And I was already waist-deep in the water, yelling at him to hurry up before someone caught us.”
Maddox laughed softly beside me, and the sound was like sunlight breaking through clouds. We were standing in the corridor just inside the door to the main deck. Neither of us quite ready to step outside. Not yet.
“Did he get in?” Maddox asked.
“He was so close. I swear, he was about to jump. He had that look on his face, you know the one, where he’d already decided to do something reckless but was trying to pretend he was still thinking it over.” I shook my head, the memory so vivid I could almost smell the summer air, the warm grass, the lake water sparkling under the festival lights. “And then the entire procession came around the bend. Fifty people. Banners. Music. His mother at the front.”
Maddox winced. “No.”
“His mother saw him first. Standing at the edge of the lake practically naked with me treading water behind him, laughing so hard I nearly drowned.” The smile on my face widened even as tears pricked at my eyes. “He was grounded for a month. And every time I visited the Summer Court after that, his mother would give me this look. This absolute death stare that said she knew exactly who the bad influence was.”
“Was she wrong?”
“Not even slightly.”
The laughter faded into something quieter. Something that hurt in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop feeling.
“Thank you,” Maddox said softly. “For telling me about him. The real him. Not just the warrior.”
“He was so much more than a warrior.” My throat tightened. “He was my friend. My first friend, really. Before everything got complicated with courts and prophecies and wars. He was just the boy who almost went skinny dipping with me at the Summer Court festival.”
I’d seen the heaviness in Maddox’s eyes when he’d come back to our cabin this morning. I didn’t know if it was seeing Damon or the same guilt he’d been torturing himself with for days. Either way, I knew Maddox needed to hear about the man who had chosen to give his life for all of us. He needed the same happy memories of Rhidian that I had and there had been a soft comfort in sharing them with him.
Maddox took my hand and squeezed. “He’d have liked that being how you remember him.”
I squeezed back, drew a breath, and pushed open the door.
The deck was quiet.
Not the heavy, oppressive silence of grief, though grief was certainly there. This was something different. Something that reminded me of Rhidian himself. A solid presence in the air.Reassurance, almost. Like he was here with us one last time, standing watch over everyone the way he always had, making sure they were all right before he could finally rest.
My magic stirred inside me, reaching for that presence. Reaching for something just beyond my perception, something warm and familiar that hovered at the edge of my senses like a voice calling from the next room.
Then I saw him.
Rhidian’s body lay on a platform near the ship’s railing, wrapped in white cloth that seemed to glow against the grey sky. Someone had placed wildflowers across his chest. Small purple ones that grew wild along the coastline. I didn’t know who had gathered them, but the gesture made my vision blur.
The water beyond the ship was glass-still. Not a ripple disturbed its surface, stretching out in every direction like a mirror of polished silver. The sails hung limp, the air motionless. Even Fizzle had gone quiet, perched high on the mast with his wings tucked tight against his body, watching the deck below with an expression I’d never seen on him before. He and Rhidian had worked together long before I’d come back to Nymeria. Whatever their relationship had been, the owl griffin was here to say goodbye.
But more than that, It was as if the realm held its breath, like it had stopped to pay tribute.
My mates arranged themselves around me without needing to be told. Dean at my right, Tank at my left, Ryder and Maddox close behind. I could feel their support through the bond, four steady flames burning in my chest.
