Page 87 of Firedrake Betrayal
I lower my arm and face the sun. “I’m figuring it out.”
He angles his head toward me. “I could offer guidance.”
“Would that guidance come at a cost?”
I’m stupid for refusing his help. I know it. But I can’t let him lie to me and lock me up in his hoard again.
And he would.
“Make a Kaida fall in love with you, and she will destroy the world for you,” he murmurs.
His comment provokes my curiosity. I guess that’s the point. He wants us to be friends, and he knows I want answers.
I snort. “Is that what you tried to do when you locked me in your hoard? Make me fall in love with you?”
Before I’m tempted to ask him to explain his strange comment, or if it relates to my mom who died when I was a baby, I turn to go inside.
“I’m an Alarik. A long time ago, we would have been a perfect pairing. An Alarik and a Kaida, two powerful houses joined. We still can be.”
I stop. “But the world doesn’t work like that. My mom and my dad loved each other and built a life for themselves.Together. Just because you think something was supposed to happen doesn’t mean it was.”
“I can make you happy.”
I swing around, hands tightening into fists. It’s getting very hard not to want to knock some sense into this blockheaded man. “You keep saying that. I don’t believe you. Do you want to know why?”
He looks at me. “Why?”
“Because you can’tmakesomeone feel a certain way. Or, I guess you can, but love is different. You don’t make someone love you by forcing a bond on them. It isn’t something you force. It’s something that happens.”
“So, you love those men?” He nods at the closed door behind me.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
How does a person know a thing they’ve never experienced before? What are the clues?
“You care about them?” Dominik’s expression is unreadable.
“Yes, I care about them.”
“I thought you just wanted to sleep with them.”
My god. How does he keep saying things that make me crazy?
“Did this have a point?” I bite out.
“Whydo you care about them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You hugged the vampire.” His gaze sharpens. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“Because you find them handsome?”
That’s it. I’ve had enough.
I walk away from a man who I preferred when he did nothing but growl like a wild animal.
