Page 65 of Claim the Dragon
“We’re going in fully loaded?”Ziva asked.
“Yes, we are.Because whatever or whoever she wants to raise must be one powerful vampire if she’d come all this way to get the tools to bring him up.I won’t risk that happening, especially not on this realm.The humans will be no match for that type of uprising.”Theo stood and reached out a hand to Shola.His wife stood too, clasping her fingers in his.
“Bleu, Aiken, you’re with me.Magnum and Reese, you’re with Steele and...Ravyn.Ziva, deal with that situation you’ve got going and be focused in time to roll with us.As always, Isla will keep us posted on any outside interference from her control boards upstairs.Let’s get this done.”
The leader had spoken and he left in a very ceremonial type way that might’ve left Ravyn in awe if she wasn’t certain her body was revolting against her.When the others began to get up from their chairs and move out of the room she remained still, her arms shaking, breathing coming in quick pants.
Steele was beside her in seconds.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her throat raw.“I think I need...some air.Or something to drink.”
He shook his head and she knew she was going to freak out if he was getting ready to deny her either.
“I know what you need,” he said and took her hand, waiting until she stood to join him.
They walked through that secret door that Bleu had come through, stepping into a hallway with stark white walls and bright lights.
“Hold onto me,” he said, and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
Ravyn shook her head.As much as she did enjoy being in his strong arms, there was something else besides lust going on here.Something that was making her nervous.
“Steele,” she whispered.
“Hold on,” he said once more and then there was only blackness.
Steele thought there’d be an immediate barrage of questions the moment they came through the fade in his bedroom at the Office.Instead, Ravyn had stumbled away from him, looking around as if she recalled the space but was trying to get a grip on how they’d gotten here so fast and without the help of a vehicle.
He was prepared to tell her.Whatever she asked he would answer because she needed to know.All the cards needed to be on the table at this point because, as it turned out, she was an integral part in a very dangerous game.Temptra didn’t seem like the type to keep anyone in her employ, as witnessed by the way she’d ripped Robles’s throat out.Vertis was probably on his way to the same end before they intervened.Now the guy was sitting tight in a magically locked steel-enclosed office at the Towers.He’d remain there until this was over and Theo figured out what he wanted to do with him.
Even if Ravyn were to do what Temptra wanted, there was no guarantee she would live.And yeah, Steele had entertained that idea as he’d sat there in that meeting while everyone gave information and made summations, planning what would happen without considering the most important thing to him—Ravyn’s life.
“From the time I was four years old, because that’s as far back as I can remember, my father has always said I was nothing and I’d never be anything.”
She was talking so quietly Steele almost didn’t hear her.He’d been standing a few feet away, still leaning against the doorjamb as she’d walked farther into the bedroom, but all he had to do was look up and he could see her lips moving.
“I could never figure it out,” she said as she plopped down onto the bed, shaking her head.“It was just me and him.My mother died giving me life.But he hated me from the start.I used to think maybe it was because I wasn’t a boy, or maybe he just loved my mother so much that I was a constant reminder that she wasn’t coming back.”She dropped her head, shaking it from side to side before looking straight ahead.
“But it wasn’t that at all.He knew what I was or what I’d come from.”
“You don’t know that,” Steele said, hating that she was talking like her father may have been right about her.“Whatever he felt for or about you was his, Ravyn.You had nothing to do with it and you shouldn’t sit here trying to figure it out now.”
“Shouldn’t I?”She turned to look at him then.“Shouldn’t I know how I came to be and what price people had to pay for me being here?My mother died, maybe because of what I was.”
“Stop talking like you’re some kind of bad seed.That’s not what Enes said.”
“She said my mother was a descendant of a witch from Africa—a crazy witch, to be exact.Considering the one we came face-to-face with a few hours ago, I’d say that wasn’t a good thing.”
“Temptra’s not a good thing.That has nothing to do with you.”He was grateful the sweatpants had pockets and he stuck his hands in them because he wanted desperately to go to her and touch her.To hold her in his arms and promise her that everything was going to be alright, but he knew that was the last thing she needed right now.
Ravyn was a lot like him in that regard.She needed to work through her mad on her own first, before she could really listen or accept help from anyone else.He was giving her the space she needed at the moment, but he didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep from going to her.
“You can be so calm about this because you’re one of them,” she said.“I mean, you’re something other than human.You were born this way and you learned to be exactly what you are.I didn’t get that chance, Steele!Nobody gave me the chance to be whatever it is I’m supposed to be and that sucks!”
She was right, it did suck.He’d been born a Noble Drakon and had been trained to fight alongside the warriors of the throne keeping the peace on the Far Realm, but circumstances moved him from his home to a place where they became enemies to their own kind and before he knew it, he was changing into something he hadn’t prepared to be—a killer.
“You can handle this, Ravyn.You’ve proven you’re strong and resilient.You’re a leader that people have come to depend on.You can do whatever is required of you and do it well,” he told her, the same words his mother had told him after Opal’s death.
