“Avery, are you okay?” Anthony asked as Riel asked another question she couldn’t make out because of the blood rushing in her ears.
It was too much. Everything was just…too much.
Swallowing hard, she nodded. Today she did not have it in her to be okay, to pretend like she had it all together, to be the strong one. Nope. “I just need a minute,” she rasped out before turning and hurrying down the hallway. Instead of stopping in the kitchen, she opened the back door and kept going. She wasn’t sure what she was doing or where she was going, she just knew she needed space, to get away right now before she broke down in tears.
That monster didn’t deserve her tears, but she was afraid all her repressed emotions were going to bubble up in one awful cry-fest where she ended up looking like a puffer fish. If that happened, she definitely didn’t want Mikael to see it.
She shoved the back gate open and stepped out onto the little brick herringbone path that led to a nearby sidewalk. The sun had set now and she could hear some of her neighbors laughing and talking outside. She wrapped her cardigan tighter around herself and picked up her pace.
She nearly jolted when she realized Mikael had slipped up next to her, as quiet as a wraith.
“Where are we going?” he asked in that quiet way of his. He wore simple jeans and a gray T-shirt that stretched across broad shoulders, pulling at his muscular biceps. Everything about the dark-haired male with the strong jaw and sharp cheekbones was honed to perfection, as if he was a weapon himself. Which, she supposed, he was.
She didn’t want to admit it, but she was glad he was with her, this quiet dragon with smoky gray eyes who made her feel way too many things. Things she wanted no part of. She’d seen what a lifetime of giving yourself to someone, dedicating yourself to their needs, got you.
A shattered heart.
And she’d only known him a few months—ever since King had asked her to take him and his brothers in. They were dragons living in a city where supernaturals had been outed to humans, and King had thought they needed someone to keep an eye on them. The very thought of her human self “keeping an eye” on Mikael, Cas, and Ivyn was ridiculous. Or it had been, because they listened to her, looked out for her, were…all sort of wonderfully weird.
“I don’t know where we’re going,” she answered.
“Should I bring him back so you can yell at him? Perhaps punch him?”
She snorted as they took a left at the next four-way. Her feet had a mind of their own—and she knew where she was going now. “He’s not worth the energy.”
“He made you cry.” There was a low rumble in his tone, an undercurrent of…something dark.
“I’m not crying,” she said petulantly, even as she swept away tears from her cheeks. Damn it, she hated that she was crying. “Fine, I am crying, but these tears aren’t for him. They’re for my mother. For a lot of things.” Like the fact that the world had changed forever a couple months ago. Change being such a pathetic description for the complete seismic shift of the entire planet.
“Here,” he said as they reached one of her jobsites.
This wasn’t one of the condo complexes she was working on for King, it was a house she’d bought before everything happened, and she, her brothers, Mikael’s brothers and Mikael had all been working on this home when they could. It wasn’t a priority, just a project she enjoyed that gave her something to do when she didn’t want to think about anything else.
Like right now. Though she wasn’t going to do any work tonight. She was too keyed up. She strode up to the front porch with him and sat on the top step.
He sat with her, taking up more space than her with his broad shoulders and presence in general. He was quiet, not pushing her about her sperm donor, and she appreciated that. But she also figured he deserved to know. She wasn’t even sure why, but she wanted to tell Mikael.
“My father left my mother when she was dying of cancer,” she blurted out. She’d only ever told him that her parents were divorced and that her mother had died. She’d never given him any details because it was too painful to talk about. And she never, ever thought about her father anymore. She couldn’t imagine that he would come back after his reception tonight, so at least there was that.
Her quiet dragon shifted slightly, looking down at her with piercing eyes, the animal back again, peering out at her. His head tilted to the side slightly as if he was confused. “He left his mate when she needed him?”
She nodded once. “He left her for…another woman. A girl I was in college with. My roommate, a woman I thought I was friends with.” She let out a bitter laugh, but cut it off abruptly.
Avery looked away from him, staring out at the overgrown grass of the small yard.
“It was surreal, so unbelievable. He’d never been the best father. Don’t get me wrong, he showed up to some things, but my mom was there for everything. She was like this big bright light of goodness. He never deserved her and I honestly have no idea what she saw in him. And everyone loved her. I’m not exaggerating either. Even my father’s stuffy asshole country club-type friends adored her. She was just the kind of person you simply wanted to be around so you could bask in her sunshine. When she got sick…”
Avery cleared her throat.
“The doctors found her cancer too late. There was no help for it, just a way to ease her suffering basically. My brothers were seventeen and eighteen, and I was just finishing up college. My roommate came home with me one weekend… That’s how my father met her.”
She swallowed hard, knowing that if she shed another tear, she wouldn’t be able to finish.
“My father comes from a lot of money. Not that he ever did anything to earn it.” She made a scoffing sound. “He likes to pretend that he works hard, that he started from nothing.” She let out another laugh because the thought was so ridiculous. “In reality he had a few vanity projects that he worked on, but he lived off his inheritance. Don’t get me wrong, I had my school paid for, so did my brothers, and I’m grateful and well aware of my own privilege. We were given so much. But that was from a trust from my grandparents. Am I making sense?” she asked because she realized she was just rambling and that he might not get some references, like the country club thing.
Mikael, steady and strong, nodded. “I understand the majority of what you are saying.”
“You sure you want to hear all this?” She had diarrhea of the mouth and God, there was no way he could want to hear her pity party story.
“I want to hear every single thing you have to say.” The deep rumble of his voice was all-consuming.
A strange flutter started in her belly but she squashed it. He was nothing but her self-appointed protector. He wasn’t interested in her romantically, and she didn’t want him to be. That would just complicate things. “So anyway, I guess the short story is my mother was dying, my father cheated on her, and instead of waiting a couple more months for her to die in peace with absolutely no knowledge of his betrayal and infidelity, he decided to leave her. He married a twenty-two-year-old, someone the same age as his daughter, while his wife of twenty-five years was dying. He…he actually lost a lot of friends. Something that surprised me, given the vipers in their social circle. But I guess he underestimated even his circle’s adoration for my mom. That was the only justice, I guess, even though I don’t think that’s the right word. Because there was no justice, just pain. But he did lose some contacts, and in effect, he lost money, which I know bothered him.