Andi couldn’t believe that she’d asked Damian for help. But then maybe she was fated to? Why the hell not? Everything in her life had apparently always been a lie.
She’d never had a choice.
Right down to her relationship with Damian.
After Danny dropped her off, she’d come upstairs to read her mother’s notes, sitting on the couch after she tossed her keys on the kitchen counter.
It wasn’t until the first few pages were done that she realized she was sitting like she did when she and Sammy watched something particularly awful on TV. She was curled up in a defensive ball, her hands tight on the papers, her eyes squinting as if not seeing well could somehow help the horror.
First off, her mother was completely unapologetic. She knew exactly what she’d done, and was proud of it, even. There were formulas of medication in there, things that Andi knew were poisonous, lists of applications, injections, bitter things Danny’d had to hold for hours underneath his tongue before spitting out, stinging insects that her mother had left cupped against him. Her mother wrote down what didn’t work, striking them through with a precise line, and then underlined the things that seemed to have—treating Danny like he was a test subject the whole time.
He was never “Danny” in her notes. He was hardly even there. Just a series of dates, trials, outcomes. Was she trying to avoid judgment, by not calling her brother “the child” or even “the patient?” Trying to divorce herself of the familiarity of their bond?
Or trying to deny that bond entirely?
Because what kind of mother would boil up homemade medicines and inject them between her child’s toes where authorities would never see? Or confess to tying him down to put eye drops in his eyes? Cupping scorpions against his skin? Cutting him afterward to see how fast he would heal—or if he’d suddenly somehow gained scales underneath to protect him.
As he grew, her notes got stranger and more urgent—and Danny finally became the boy.
The boy is moody.
Yeah, no shit, Mom, you’re torturing him.
The boy fought again and won. The scorpions are working.
The boy tried to start a fire at school, but does he have the fire we need inside?
And then the notes reached the point where Danny broke off to do his own thing when their mom’s cancer hit her, and Andi knew she started in on chemo. Her handwriting got a little more loopy. Her thoughts were more scattered and she turned her eye on her legacy and the notes became more like her diary.
Have I done enough to prepare him?
Where is the dragon hiding?
Some days I swear I can sense it, just underneath!
And then there was a longer gap during which Andi knew the cancer had been winning.
Close to the end now. My flesh is winding down. There’s no point in fighting, the doctors won’t even use Huang Qin Tang—although if they did, Andi would throw herself in front of me. She has such faith in the medicine she uses…little does she know what she could do if she knew more.
“Thanks, Mom,” Andi muttered, smoothing a creased page down, before reading the next.
All of this effort and I’m still not sure of the outcome of my life’s work. I feel sure I have changed something inside him, summoned some beastly part of him more near, but I do not think I will get to gaze upon a dragon again in this lifetime. I can only hope I’ve done enough.
And then, the last page:
I am, and have been, the luckiest mother alive.
I have raised two spectacular children, each in their own way: Andrea to be a creature of empathy, and Daniel to be a creature of action. My heart and my liver, and I love them both.
I have the same dream every night now, as the end grows near, and I have dealt in magicks long enough to know it means something. It is a vision of the future, of Danny and Andi fighting together, protecting one another. And while I am dismayed that they must fight, I know that I have done everything within my power to prepare them for the battles yet to come.
Most importantly, I’m leaving them each other.
Andi howled without thinking. It was something guttural inside her, like a scream she’d been holding back for months—maybe years. Maybe ever since she first realized she was going to lose her mother and that she was going to have to stay strong because nobody else in her family could fucking be trusted to—not her brother who was running off to God-knows-where or her uncle who was off doing God-knew-what. That first scream that she’d entirely swallowed when she realized that she was abso-fucking-positively alone. It came out of her now from someplace in her soul, for the span of an entire breath, and then when it was over, she inhaled and did it again, and again, because fuck this and fuck everything and how could she hurt so bad again? Why didn’t it ever stop? Would it ever stop? Had her mother really thought she could just point and shoot Danny off, like a wind-up-soldier, and her find out about it, and that she’d be the same? That she’d be okay?
She loved her mom. She missed her mom.
What the fuck had her mom done?
When Andi next caught her breath, between screams and sobs, she realized that just because Sammy was out again didn’t mean she’d stay that way. She grabbed up all the sheets of paper quickly and ran to her room.
And three steps inside her room she tripped on her rug and fell sprawling to the ground, her mother’s notes fluttering down like butterflies, knocking the wind from herself.
She lay on the floor for a long moment. It was easier to feel like there was ground when you were on it—a lesson every drunk person inherently knew.
Her mom…and her brother…and her mom….
She twisted her head to get away from her past and saw the pile of things she’d shoved under her bed in her Ambien haze weeks ago—her stuffed animals, her mother’s photo album, and the case for her old pool cue, the one given to her by her father.
She reached out for the leather case and tugged it away from all the other stuff. At least playing pool was pure. Their dad may have been an abandoning asshole, yes, a disappointment, absolutely, but he hadn’t had an ulterior motive during their childhood. There was something clean in that. Because very-sarcastic-HOORAY. She was empathetic? Wow, what’s that get you these days, a Diet Coke if you toss in a buck fifty? Thanks, Mom, for helping me to meet the basic minimum standards of participating in society. I get to be a good person and you turned my freaking twin brother into a KILLING MACHINE?
Andi slowly got up, pulling the case out with her. If she’d had her own pool cue with her tonight, she’d have dispatched those Hunters even faster. Ironically, in hindsight, the only times she’d ever been really “bad” was with Danny—participating in the hustling, witnessing the fights, drinking on their fake IDs. She wondered what, if anything, her mother knew about their escapades, or if her mother chose to turn a blind-eye toward the only brother-sister bonding they ever got to do, seeing as there was a gulf between them in every other way.
She’d moved around to the front of her bed, pulling the cue and the papers with her, preparing to show them to Damian whenever it was he got back, arranging them into timeline order again in front of her as best she could, and then she opened up the case for old time’s sake.
Her cue—the last treasured memory of her father—was gone, and her first instinct would’ve been to assume that Danny’d stolen and sold it, were there not even more tightly rolled papers in its place. She pulled them out and carefully unfurled them to read, her heart dropping as she realized what the words meant.
She texted Damian in a panic, trying to hold on to the world she thought she had, while knowing it was too late.
The destiny she’d been fighting all along had still caught up with her.
And no wonder Damian had fallen for her, and she for him.
She’d been a fool to think she’d ever had a choice.
“Andi?”
She heard a rustling from her bathroom just as Damian emerged. By then she’d picked up all the notes and had them in order again, and she knew she’d done the wrong thing.
“Go back,” she said, running for him, pushing him back into the bathroom. “None of this is real, Damian. Just go back.”
He stood firm, looking down at her with stern concern. “What happened?”
“It’s not safe—”
“I’m not leaving you,” he growled.
Andi stopped shoving him. “No. Of course you’re not.” She gave a bitter laugh.
“Princess,” he began.
“You want to check me for strings, Damian?” She spun around in front of him. “Or maybe you can insert a rail somewhere to whip me off of, like those little race cars Danny used to have. Just shoot me off at a preordained target, like a fucking missile.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“It doesn’t matter if I make sense. In fact, nothing fucking matters at all.” Andi ran her fingers through her hair, sitting in front of her bed by the piles of notes as Damian looked worriedly down at her.
“Did they poison you at that bar?” He put a hand on her forehead and she slapped it back.
“No. That was the best part of the night. For a moment, I felt vaguely free.”
“I don’t understand….”
She picked up the nearest pile and shook them at him. “You don’t need to. Someone wrote everything out for me, years ago. You ever wanted an Andrea Ngo instruction manual? Well, here it is.” It was one thing to be trapped—and another yet to know it. Why wouldn’t the room stop spinning? Her whole life had been leading up to now!
Damian slowly sat down beside her. “I saw your texts, Andi,” he said, his voice a bass rumble. “I’m sorry your mother is not who you thought she was. I understand that that’s traumatic.”
“Yes, but,” she said, finding the last note in particular. “You didn’t see this.” She held it over to him and rocked back, to read it in reverse as her nightlight shone through the thin page.
Andi.
This is just for you.
I know you will find it when the time is right.
So much in this world is predestined, whether we know enough to understand it or not. And if it is your destiny to throw this case away without opening it, I am willing to take that chance.
I am sure I succeeded where your brother is concerned. It’s only a matter of time now. I know he will continue, although I no longer have any time left.
I know you will feel betrayed, reading this without me. Knowing what you likely do now about me and my people.
I just wanted you to have a choice, my sweet heart. I have protected you all this time. I just wanted to give you a chance to live your life. To see where it would take you.
But if you have opened this case now, and you are reading this with full knowledge of what I mean, then it is time to choose.
You and your brother are one of a kind, born of a woman who ingested dragon magic for centuries. The circumstances surrounding your birth are utterly irreplicable—there is no point in trying.
But because of that, both have dragons in you. Daniel, I experimented on. Whereas I left you my blank slate. My formula to summon yours is on the next page.
It will never work on anyone else but you.
Tell no one this formula exists. I will take my secret to my grave, and you might very well take yours, too. I have no judgment for or against that—the world doesn’t need you to protect it. I have already given it Daniel. Isn’t offering up one child to destiny enough?
I just thought that you should know. My heritage did not skip you, my gentle girl, nor did I leave you without power. Protect yourself—with or without using it. Pass on my legacy. Make a family, have a home, fill them all with love, and remember me fondly.
Your mother,
Mei Li
Damian knew Andi was watching him read, and he also knew she’d say something the second he was done. Fate, or familiarity? He didn’t dare smile as he set the page down.
“This is why you love me, isn’t it?” she challenged him.
One of his eyebrows rose. “I haven’t even said it yet.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not an idiot.”
“Well, if I say it now, you’ll say it was predestined. And if I don’t, you’ll say that was predestined too.” His brow furrowed. “This is why I hate prognosticators.”
“We didn’t meet by accident, Damian,” she protested. “It wasn’t a meet-cute, you hiring me. You knew, or fate knew, and all this time you’ve only wanted me because I’m part-dragon. Even if you didn’t know until you read that page. You didn’t get a choice, either.”
He watched her get all worked up. “Even if that were true—which it isn’t—would it be so bad?” he asked, trying to calm her.
“Yes! Because if this nonsense is all true, then the thing with me fighting by my brother’s side is probably especially true, right? Don’t deny it.”
Damian nodded slowly, with a sigh. “I saw your brother tonight as well.”
“Did you kill him?” she asked, although she could already read the answer on his face. “No. Of course not. You couldn’t. We still have destiny. So it’s not allowed.” She put her head in her hands and he knew he was watching her second-guess every decision she’d ever made.
Damian put one hand on her shoulder and used the other to lift up her chin. “I don’t give a damn about destiny anymore, princess. I just want you.”
Her expression was haunted. “Even if it’s all a lie?”
“If you’re a lie, then you’re the sexiest lie I’ve ever seen.” He slid the hand on her chin up against her cheek. She fought the temptation for a moment because his mate was a fighter. That’s what she did. Then she leaned into it and he knew that everything would be all right. “I know what it’s like to run from destiny. I’m a prince of a place I hate, remember? But now, knowing that you and I are mated, did I hate it because it was the right thing to do, or because hating it brought me here? Who can say?”
“You’ve told me enough stories,” she said. “It was the right thing to do.”
“I agree,” he said softly. “Especially after meeting you.” He reached for her and she let him pull her to nestle safely against his side. “The more I have to deal with all this Andi, the less convinced of anything I become,” he admitted. “I’m inclined now to think that what we do becomes our destiny. And all I want to do is be with you.”
“But don’t you get it, dragon? All of this is just a game. None of it is real,” she said, looking up.
He kissed her forehead and willed it to flow through to her overheated mind and then chucked her chin over so that she was looking at the mirror they were reflected in, showing him wrapped around her. “This is real, princess. I don’t care if I’m fate’s plaything, as long as I’m at your side.”
He saw her give him a bittersweet smile in their reflection, and then she looked up with a gasp. “Damian…all those people my brother has in cages…they’re in there for nothing! It’s never going to work!” She paused and her eyes went wide. “And they’re skinning my brother for nothing, too,” she whispered, horror at the thought of it racing across her face.
“You don’t owe those Hunters or your brother anything, Andi,” he said, squeezing her protectively. “They made their choices, and so be it.”
“That’s heartless,” she complained with a frown.
“Guess you’re still more human than dragon, it seems,” he said, nuzzling against her. “And thank goodness for that. Someone has to be the beautiful one without scales.” He gently kissed her forehead again, then pulled back. “It’s really not safe for me to be here, Andi. If I were a Hunter with any kind of sense, I’d be watching this building with heat vision right now, and as we both know, I am very hot,” he teased, and she punched him lightly as she groaned. He chuckled, stroking her arms with both hands, happy to feel her against him once more. How had he ever gotten so lucky as to win her love? “Really, princess, are you going to be all right?” he asked. Her eyes were still puffy from crying, and he could scent her past tears in the air.
She took a shuddering inhale. “I don’t know. I mean, technically, I guess I have to be, seeing as I still have a date with destiny.”
“Just as long as no one else cuts in line,” he said, with mock ferocity.
She boggled at him then laughed, shaking her head as her fears finally melted. “I just got so scared, Damian. You know how I am. I keep waiting for things to break. It’s hard enough to trust in other people when magic isn’t involved. And…I want to be my own person. Always.” She leaned even closer to him and held on. “So being with you, like this, it’s like standing on the edge of a cliff and knowing I’m going to jump. Oh, hell, I’ve already jumped, and now I’m just scared of the landing.”
“Princess, you don’t ever have to land when I have wings for us,” he told her, and meant it, holding her tightly back. “I would fly with you anywhere, and never let you fall.”
She gave a soft gasp and looked up at him, the dark brown of her eyes soft and inviting, like the richest fur. He couldn’t help but kiss her—nor she him, he knew, as he felt her leaning up.
Their lips met, tentatively at first, and it was such a bad idea, but when she pulled back to whisper, “Quickly?” how could he not respond? His hands went for her waist in answer, as her mouth came back for his. She kissed him deeply as he furiously worked the buttons and zippers of her jeans down, his hands chasing her hips, already rocking in invitation. He wrapped an arm around her and slowly lowered them both to the floor, holding himself above her, as her hands wound in his hair and against his scalp to hold him there, finally kissing her back, pressing his tongue into her mouth like it belonged there. One of his hands sank just below the denim of her jeans to stroke the soft cotton of her underwear against her and feel her wetness already soaking through.
“I want to taste you,” he moaned.
She curled up and grabbed his shirt, peeling it up his back and off. “There’s no time,” she said, as her hands chased down his naked chest to land on the waistband of his own jeans. “Hurry,” she pleaded. “I just need you in me. Now.”
He growled without thinking. Her words provoked a reaction in him—like he was a fuse, and she’d just lit a match. “Yes,” he agreed quickly, his voice rough, raising himself up to help push his own jeans down, as she shifted gears to wriggle out of her shirt beneath him, squirming her way out of her pants. His hard-on swung out just over the level of his jeans for her.
“I want to lick you and suck you and do all sorts of things, but….” she began.
“That’s my line, princess,” he said with a laugh, leaning over her, sliding his fingers underneath her underwear this time to push in. “But I think you can take me now,” he said appreciatively, then grinned. “I’ve trained you well,” he added, clearly teasing.
Andi laughed below him, trailing a hand down his chest. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I promise I never will,” he said, pulling his fingers out. He used her juices to slick his cock and then held himself over her, arching his hips to bring himself into position as she rose up on her own to take him in. The thick head of his cock pushed against her and he started stroking forward. “Andi,” he hissed, her heat enveloping him. She was his mate—now and always—and fucking her would always feel this good.
“Go faster, Damian,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and breathing in his ear as he landed. “I don’t need to come; I just need you to finish this time. I want to feel you so deep in me I know no one else could ever pull us apart.” Her hips moved in his time like proof of her words, and she moaned as he thrust again. “Fuck destiny, Damian…and fuck me.”
He made an inhumane sound and took her at her word. He needed her. He was her mate, and she needed him. He was risking everything right down to his life right now to fuck her, and if that wasn’t love—an insane and perverted kind of love, but love nonetheless—he didn’t know what it could possibly be.
“Oh, God, yes,” she whispered. Her breath was hot against his neck when he wasn’t devouring her with kisses. His hands cradled her head from the floor so that he could maul her shoulder and jaw, licking up her neck in broad stripes that made her shiver and her nipples ache. He knew because she reached between them to grab and pull them and everything was speeding up, and he was taking her faster still. He felt like a ticking bomb and he knew if he didn’t come in time he might explode. “Come for me,” she panted.
“Is that what you want?” he growled in her ear.
His mate nodded helplessly. He knew why she liked it, because feeling him lose himself, coming for her—those were the only times she knew she was in control. That somehow, she—a human girl still, who didn’t want to be anything else—had somehow tamed his beast.
“All right,” he agreed, pulling himself out of her, moving up her body to kneel on his heels above her hips. He’d touched himself in front of her before, but he’d never used her solely for his pleasure quite like this. He crouched forward and wound his hand in her hair, bending her neck to make her look. “Watch me, princess,” he said, and started to stroke himself fast in front of her. “See just what you do to me.”
She flushed red beneath him, undoubtedly knowing what was coming. He knew it probably felt dirty, which was half the fun, but he wasn’t going to disrespect her without acknowledging it. “I wouldn’t do this if you hadn’t asked, princess.”
She was breathing hard between his thighs, her breasts rising and falling, and her jaw was dropped as her eyes flashed up at him in challenge. “But I did.”
He growled and leaned forward, so fucking close. No one else in his life had ever made him this hard.
Did she control him? Yes.
Was he hers?
Utterly.
He felt his orgasm surge up as his balls tightened. “Princess, I’m going to,” he warned her with a grunt, and then he was coming, lacing her neck and breasts with hot silvery ropes, again and again until he finished, stroking himself through the final twitches and dragging the head of his cock through the cum he’d spattered on her cleavage, before dismounting to her side with a groan.
She swallowed and looked up at him as he let go of her hair, her brown eyes wide, innocently horrified now. Yes, well, he was still a monster, he supposed, and then he watched her draw a finger through the mess he’d made and push it between her perfect pillowy lips. Fresh heat sank in him and he knew he could’ve taken her again in a moment, if only they had time.
“Goddamnit, princess,” he whispered. “Every fucking thing about you turns me on.”
“It should,” she said with a pretend pout. “Being that it’s destiny and all.”
“Now you believe?” he said with a snort, before pulling his jeans up, then he paused to look down at her disarray. “I feel like an asshole, leaving you like this, without making you come.”
“You can make it up to me later, as long as you stay alive.” Andi rolled up onto her knees and kissed his jaw. “Besides, someone got me all sorts of playthings to spend time with while they’re away.”
“Hmmm, yes, as long as you use some of them in front of your mirror.” He reached behind her for his shirt.
“No, leave it here.” She grabbed it on her side and tugged. “I want something that smells like you.”
He beamed at her then. It didn’t matter what kind of filthy things he did with her, her heart was always pure. “Andi…I—” he started, but then they both heard it, the sound of someone rushing up the stairs outside.
“Go!” she shouted, shoving him in the direction of her bathroom. He hesitated, wanting to protect her. She knew it too. “I’ll be fine—as long as you are,” she said, shoving him again.
He placed his hands beneath her chin and brought her up on her tiptoes to him, kissing her one more time, before releasing her and running backward, diving through her bathroom’s mirror glass.
Damian came through his mirror—shirtless and still high from the contact with Andi—and into his bedroom, where Mills, Jamison, and Ryana were waiting.
Mills took a quick step up and slapped him across the face. “Are you done being an idiot who works on his own?”
Damian cupped his cheek as Jamison gawked at the witch. Ryana looked between the two of them, vaguely horrified that someone had had the gall to put a hand on Realms royalty, and then her eyes narrowed and she asked Mills, “Should I hit him too?”
“Is everyone against me?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. He still smelled like Andi. He should’ve taken something of hers in return. Or just her, entirely, bringing her over here against her will.
“No,” Mills snapped. “We’re all with you. We’ve been with you this entire time. But you keep running over all our very reasonable boundaries, and for what?”
“I need her, Mills. You wouldn’t understand.”
Mills rose up to her full height in front of him and her braids began to ominously unwind. “You were there when Jamison and I got together. When I had to stand up against my entire coven. So, try me.”
“All right, maybe you do, stand down.” Damian glowered at her. The illicit thrill of being with Andi was fading under the witch’s judgment. “I feel like all I do these days is apologize,” he complained.
“Well, maybe if you acted in a more team-oriented fashion, you wouldn’t have to apologize so frequently,” Mills said, and Jamison wisely coughed instead of laughing.
Damian attempted to stare her down, but she didn’t retreat. As he was still in a good mood, he had to smile. “Fine. Is there a reason all three of you are standing in my bedroom?”
“Yeah, we needed Ryana to operate the mirrors, because we were fairly sure you were walking into a trap,” Jamison said.
“Well, I didn’t.” He gave all of them a cocky grin. “Once again, I was successful. As I am at everything I do, by and large.”
“I can hit him just for fun, you know,” Ryana offered.
He rolled his eyes at her, still pleased. “What kind of trap?”
“Hunter activity has increased at the ports. They’ve gotten in more shipments of nets and harpoons,” Mills said and started pacing.
Damian groaned. “When will they give up?”
“Never, it seems,” Jamison said. “And all their weapons caches have become increasingly well-guarded, past that early night.”
“I assume we’re tracking helicopter flight paths now?”
“Of course. There’s been no movement on that front, though.”
Damian looked around his bedroom, now too small to pace in what with all the others present. “Everything’s going to have to come to a head eventually.” His current situation chafed intolerably. He didn’t just want to scent Andi when he was lucky enough to get the chance. He wanted her permanently by his side. “What if I lured them out? Exposing myself and then we handle them, once and for all?”
Mills shook her head. “I’m tracking two hundred separate Hunters right now, Damian. That’s a lot. Even for you.”
He suddenly understood why she’d been so stressed. “Time to call in reinforcements? Other wardens owe us favors.”
“This is true. I just hesitate…because what if the Conjunction happens while they’re here, and they’ve left their home territories undefended?” Mills chewed on the inside of her cheek in thought. “They’d never forgive us; most of them have strong local ties.” She stopped suddenly, deciding. “In any case, it’s not a problem we need to solve tonight. Now that you’re safe, we can see what paths the Hunters take and work on reasonable plans that aren’t you taking on two hundred of them all at once.”
He laughed. “All right.”
“But in the meantime, no more risking yourself, Damian.” The witch glared at him. “We are a team.”
Damian put a hand on both her shoulders. “I know.”
Damian watched them leave his bedroom, his sister turning back to give him a pretend uppercut with a snicker. As she was part dragon, it might actually hurt if she punched him—whereas Mills’s slap had just been a surprise. He’d been self-absorbed lately, yes, but after everything he’d been through with Andi, who could blame him? And she’d needed him tonight, even if she wanted to pretend she didn’t.
He sprawled out on his bed, thinking about Andi’s letter from her mother. It changed nothing about his feelings, of course. But Andi’s pain had been written all over her body when he’d gotten there. He supposed all his life he’d assumed he had a magical destiny. When you were royalty, almost everything felt preordained. But it must have been quite a surprise for her to find out that she had had one, too. One of her own, no less, not contingent on anything Damian or Danny could offer.
Is it true? his dragon asked him.
It’d been quiet when he’d been with her, surging forward only at the end when he was mounting her, then receding right after he’d come, but he knew it’d been paying attention the whole time.
Is there really a dragon trapped inside her? it pressed.
I don’t think her mother would lie to her. She knew she was dying and felt that Danny’s “experiment” had been successful, so…yes. He felt the creature grow pensive inside him, as if it were having a dream. What do you think about that?
It pleases me more than words can say, and Damian felt it, the deep rush of its pleasure, like there were a million extra nerves inside him and all of them were happy to be alive. But, it went on, if she were as we are…they would hound her as they hound us, would they not?
Damian exhaled. They would.
Then…I do not think that she should change. Damian felt the beast steeling itself, and all of the joy and feeling of expansion he’d been suffused with disappeared, like a full sail suddenly gone slack. Some skies are too dark for safe flight. Let the beast inside her slumber.
Damian agreed, of course, but he’d been given all his dreams with Andi. He realized his dragon’s decision came at a much higher cost. Thank you.
His dragon didn’t respond. He felt it disappear inside himself, to mourn its loss in silence, as his phone vibrated and he pulled it out, finding a text from Andi.
It was just Sammy, you know. Which means you could’ve stayed. Or…you could come back.
I can’t, princess. It’s not safe, and I’ve been informed that if I risk myself thoughtlessly again, Mills will kill me herself to save the Hunters the trouble.
Don’t let her! Andi texted back with a laughing emoji.
I won’t. But I do need to be more considerate. Apparently, the world is still an awful place.
Damian watched the dots on his phone twirl as she kept revising what she was sending, and then words flooded the screen. When will all of this be over, Damian? I don’t want you to do anything foolish, but I don’t know how much more I can take.
He stared at the screen, unsure how much more he could take, either, so he answered her truthfully. Soon, princess. Soon.