Page 63 of Ashborne Phoenix

Her smile dropped immediately. “Voski? What is it? What’s wrong? Why are you—”

“Grace,” I said quietly, clearing my throat. “There’s something we need to talk about. Something I have to tell you.”

Proud Heart, Humble Thyself

SOUNDTRACK: Bloom by Tommee Profitt

~ GRACE ~

I was taken aback, and a little bit panicked when he said we needed to talk. I braced myself, head spinning with the possibilities, and none of them good. Perhaps there was some dark plot afoot that he’d been waiting to tell me? Or that he’d changed his mind about keeping me out of his mother’s hands?

Any number of whirling anxieties spiraled through my head in those seconds he looked at me so earnestly.

I swallowed hard. “Very well… what is it?”

He cupped my face, held my eyes, and let me feel everything coursing through him—a confusing tumult of emotions. I could feel the storm brewing within him. When I realized he was feeling guilt over what had gone before, I ached for him. Regret was a bitter tonic.

“I need to ask you to forgive me.” His voice was dark, husky.

I slumped with relief. “Oh, Voski, you already said—”

“No, Grace.” He took my hands and stepped back, staring down at me. “I was wrong. And being here has made me see, I was even more wrong than I realized.”

It was instinct to reassure him, to push past the darkness and focus on this time we finally had together with each other and our dragons, but Koa nudged me through the link.

‘Kham says, the proud heart must humble. Love needs it.’

So, when Voski’s Adam’s apple leaped and he hoarsely asked me if we could walk, I agreed. He twined our fingers and led me away from the clearing—away from that cave where I’d tried to rest alone when he refused me.

As we passed between the trees, stepping slowly, his fingers tightened on mine, but it took him long moments before he spoke.

“I’m trying to remember,” he said quietly. “It’s such a blur.”

“Which part?”

He huffed. “Most of it,” he muttered, scratching the back of his neck. “But I’m trying to remember the first moment… the first…” He looked up, then aside, toward the dragons who’d sunk into the trees. Kham must have directed him, because he shifted the line we were walking and picked up his pace, pulling me with him… until we reached a place I wouldn’t have recognized, except for the massive, dead branch of a tree, already dried and sunken, ready to be reclaimed by the forest. But I recognized it—the branch the dragons had broken from the tree, that almost crushed us.

Voski stopped, staring at it. I stared at him, as his midnight-blue eyes flickered and darted, as if he were watching the events of that night unfold.

“I felt it, you know. The bond?” he said softly. “When it happened. I wanted you. I felt it take hold. It was so strong, at first all I wanted was you. Do you remember?”

Voski’s chest vibrating with a low, puttering groan. His breath heaving even more than mine. His body responding to mine. Hands trembling with want as he stroked me and sent flames roaring through my veins fit to start a forest fire…

I nodded, my heart pattering with the memory of that first thrill and joy. “I remember.”

He didn’t let go of my hand, but his eyes were distant, his jaw set. “Then I realized what was happening—or rather… I didn’t want to realize. And I fled.”

He held me against his chest, yet his gaze never left mine. The color of his eyes was difficult to decipher, his pupils were so large, and his eyes deeply set behind high cheekbones, shadowed by dark brows, and that hair.

I lifted my head intending to pull myself up and kiss him.

But as I leaned up, he jerked away.

I sucked in a breath as the bond sang with remembered pain and fear. Voski’s head snapped to look at me, but I shook mine. “I remember, but I understand now—”

“Grace, don’t make excuses for me. I’ve told you, over and over, I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve your loyalty, or your perseverance. I don’t deserve your unwavering want. I was so wrong. I just thank God that you didn’t walk away—and Koa that she didn’t flame me five times over,” he added dryly.

It should have been funny. Should have been a light moment. We should have enjoyed the joke of my dragon’s predatory aggression together. But I couldn’t laugh.