A Queen of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 4)

My heart sped up, and adrenaline started to dump into my middle.

“We are the protectors, Hannon. I am the killer. You are the healer. We were born for a purpose. For a duty.”

“I know that. I am getting ready to do my duty.”

Calm down, my phoenix urged me. It’s not time yet.

“You are getting ready to protect your family and your kingdom,” Dessia said. “That’s noble, but it’s not enough. You need to think bigger.”

Anger flared within me and I rolled my shoulders, trying to shrug off her words. Ever since I met her, something about her had always rankled. Usually I didn’t mind women looking at me for prolonged periods of time, but she wasn’t like most women. She wasn’t just looking at my shoulders, arms, chest—whatever. She wasn’t admiring my surface attributes. That piercing gaze cut right through me. It seemed like she was stripping away my outer layers, one at a time, and looking deeper. Much deeper, uncovering all the things I preferred to hide.

I’d tried to stay away from her, and she hadn’t ever sought me out, but her presence always seemed to overshadow everyone else’s until it felt like I couldn’t breathe. And not in that good way. No, it made me feel suffocated, cornered, or like I was being buried alive. It felt like she was constantly challenging me, even with her glances, and the only way I could thwart the effect was to answer the challenge.

Except I wasn’t a fucking dragon, and challenges and rage weren’t something I reveled in. At least until I met her. She drove me fucking nuts. It would just be so good to punch her right in the mouth. Or…pitch her overboard. Something like that, without a threat to my family, would’ve horrified me before my phoenix, before her.

It was even more annoying that she was absolutely gorgeous, and my body seemed to respond to her in ways that were mostly uncomfortable. My dreams had turned downright filthy. It wasn’t natural.

Silence stretched in the wake of her words. I felt the weight of her expectation pressing heavily on my shoulders. My chest tightened, and suddenly I couldn’t stand still. I couldn’t pretend to feel composed.

I turned to her in a rush. “I need to think bigger than that? What are you doing besides standing on the deck of a boat, watching a battle you have no desire to take part in, while hiding the magic that could potentially save the most important people in the kingdom? Instead you stayed hidden to protect yourself. Your lectures aren’t going to stave off the demons, Dessia. Your selfishness and the cowardice of your king are fooling no one. You have the ability to help me, and yet you stand there and run your mouth, wasting my valuable resources on fear, worry, annoyance, and anger.”

She tore her eyes away from the castle for a moment to lift her eyebrows at me. A little smile tugged at her perfectly sculpted lips, as though a master carver had etched them out of marble.

“Hmm,” she said. “I wondered if you had any fire under that calm exterior.”

“My beast is literally known for its fire. Of course I do.”

“Having it and giving in to it are two different things, Hannon.” She wrapped her fingers around the railing. “Well, since you asked so politely, I will tell you what I am doing. I am bringing a naïve boy, who has lived in the shadow of his fierce dragon sister, up to speed on what is actually expected of him. I am trying to help the world by incensing the phoenix. You don’t need to hoard stolen resources. Those are for healing, not battle. That light you shed around you? That’s essentially the magical fumes of the deep well of power within you. I shed various shades of shadow, some so dark they swallow the light. You need to tap into that well to reach your full potential. It’s there, waiting for you. You need to grab your fire, soak in it, become it, and then expel it.”

“Is that what you do?”

“No, Hannon. It is not. We have different beasts. I’d dearly love to switch. As it is, I grab something much viler than fire, and I learned how to do it from the worst sort of people.”

I tilted my head, willing Finley to give me something. Needing a reason to go help and also to get out of this troubling conversation with someone who was supposed to be my arch-nemesis.

The itch that was her presence flared. It wouldn’t be ignored.

“You had everyone fooled,” I blurted. “We all thought you were sweet and troubled and broken.”

She laughed as her eyes swung back to the castle. “I am definitely troubled and broken. But sweet? In my youth, maybe. Sweet won’t help someone like me, Hannon. Of the pair of us, my job isn’t to be sweet. Far from it. And neither is yours, really. Not when it matters.”