The Lightning-Struck Heart (18 page)

It was almost nice.

Company excluded, of course.

Because he said, “No magic.”

I said, “What?”

He stretched his neck from side to side. “No magic. It isn’t fair.”

I snorted. “I’ve never used a sword. Let’s talk about
fair
—”

“We could always use our fists,” he said, and there was a sour tang to the air now. His jaw had tightened and there was a flash of something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“What is this?” I asked him quietly.

“A lesson,” he said, brandishing the sword again

“In?”

“Humility. You see, Sam. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t know your place.”

“You’d think wrong.”

He took a step toward me. I took an answering step back. “Is that right?”

“Yes.”

He raised his sword. Settled into a defensive position. “Sword up, Sam. It’s time to begin.”

I brought the sword up, holding the handle with two hands. It was awkward. The blade shook slightly.

“Now,” he said. “Most think it’s about brute attacks. Quick and heavy. Bashing down your opponent. Skin split and blood spilled.”

He swung his sword out in a flat horizontal arc. I managed to jump back. Barely.

I said, “Justin.”

He said, “But unless your opponent is weak, sheer brute force will only result in exhaustion. And that could lead to mistakes. Mistakes not normally made.”

He brought the sword up and over his head, bringing it down toward me. I raised my own sword defensively over my head. The blades clashed. The vibrations from the impact rolled down my arm into my shoulder. The metal scraped as he pulled his sword back and away.

“It’s better to dance,” Justin said, taking a step back. “Waiting for your opponent to attack and attack and attack. Eventually, he’ll tire until he can barely stand and that’s when you move in for the kill.”

There was green, flicking off out of the corner of my eyes. It felt heady and strong, and I knew just how easy it would be to hold on to it, sink down under it and just
push
.

Instead, I said, “I’m not doing this. Whatever this is.”

I dropped the sword. It fell to the ground.

Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Pick it up.”

“No.”

He brought the flat end of the sword up and before I could move, slapped me across the thigh with it. There was a flare of pain as the muscle seized, but I kept my face blank.

“Pick it
up
,” he snarled.

So much green. It was everywhere.

“What do you want?” I asked him. “I’ve never done anything to you. In fact, I’ve done everything I could to stay out of your way.”

“And yet I find you there again and again,” he said. “My father. The King’s Court. The castle, the city, the country. Everyone knows of Sam of Wilds. The little boy from the slums who
by accident
found himself a spot in royalty though he’d done
nothing
to deserve it.”

“And you have?” I asked him, cocking my head. This felt hard. Dangerous. I didn’t care. “What exactly did you do? You were
born
and it was given to you. That’s all. That’s all you’ve
ever
done, and you’re in line to be King. And a king I don’t know if I could serve.”

He took a step back. “You don’t have a choice.”

I smiled at him. “There’s always a choice. I am not bound to you. Not yet. I haven’t taken my oaths. I haven’t been through the Trials. You don’t own me, Justin. I could walk away from you and never come back.”

A king without a wizard to advise him was frowned upon. A prince whose wizard apprentice had walked away was unheard of. There weren’t many of us. He needed me more than I needed him.

There was a false bravado that pushed itself through the real fear I saw on his face. “You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.”

“Your parents,” he said. “You’d never see them again.”

And that… well. That didn’t sit right. “Are you threatening my parents?” I asked him, my voice low.

“You’re the one that said he’d walk away.” He took a defensive stance.

“What is this?” I asked him again. “Why all the theatrics? What do you want?”

“Stay away from Ryan,” he said. “I don’t care what has happened between you. I don’t care what you think he is to you. You stay away from him.”

Ah. Because that makes sense. Unless he knew about Ryan’s position as my cornerstone, which would mean Morgan told him or someone else. Which frankly didn’t fly. Morgan was a man of secrets. Cornerstones were private business.

So the only thing that remained was my ridiculous crush on a man I would never have. And that I hadn’t been as subtle as I thought I’d been. Not-that-subtle and I were more than passing acquaintances.

“It’s not like that,” I said quietly.

“Bullshit,” Justin snarled. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. The way he looks at you.”

I laughed bitterly. “I assure you he sees me as nothing more than an annoyance. I didn’t even know he knew my name until the day I got back from the Dark Woods.”

“Trust me,” Justin said. “He’s known who you are for far longer than that.”

And before I could even begin to process what
that
meant, I said, “I’m leaving. For at least six months. You won’t have to see me.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve had to see the look on his face ever since you told him.”

“He’s my friend,” I said. “Nothing more.”

“He’s
mine
.”

“I know. Trust me.
Everyone
knows.”

He raised the sword again and I said, “
Don’t
.”

I thought
fier
and my fingers twitched and flexed and there was red and orange and I thought to push and push hard, but I pulled most of it back.

Justin gasped as the sword in his hand grew scalding. It fell to the ground, charring the grass underneath.

He said, “I’ll see you in the
dungeon
for this—” and I ignored him because the sheep began to bleat loudly among a low rumble.

I turned toward the hill where they’d been grazing.

They were running toward us, frantically calling out. I didn’t see a shepherd, unless he was on the other side of the hill.

Birds called out overhead. I looked up and they too were heading the direction of the sheep.

I felt the first ripple of
something
in my chest, like a pinprick of magic, dancing along my skin.

“What the hell?” Justin said, coming to stand next to me.

“Do you feel that?” I asked him, because the ground felt like it was shaking, almost like an earthquake.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It looks like—”

Then great wings appeared over the hill, rising up and falling down.

“It looks like a motherfucking dragon,” I said weakly. “We should probably run.”

And so we did.

I was not a fan of the Prince. He was cocky, arrogant, rude, and apparently had brought me out here to beat a lesson into me about wanting to secretly bone his boyfriend. (My
life
.) I had no reason to care for him aside from the fact that he would be my King one day.

But that’s all it took.

Because he
would
be my King one day. Even if I walked away, even if I left the City of Lockes, I would always be a part of Verania, and he would be my King.

So my only thoughts were to keep him safe.

I glanced over my shoulder.

I really wished I hadn’t.

Because the dragon had crested the hill. It wasn’t as big as I’d thought it’d be, which meant it was still young. However, it was still the size of a house, which meant it was much bigger than Justin and me.

The dragon was black, its scales mottled with stretches of red almost the color of the King’s crest. Two horns grew out the top of its head that looked to be as big as I was. The wings were translucent, light filtering through.

They were a rarity in the world, and the sightings of them even rarer. They were intelligent, fierce creatures who killed and took for the sheer sake of doing so.

I’d thought them all named. I thought I knew them all, the ones that resided in Verania. Two lived in the north, a mated pair that lived high in the mountains where snow never melted. There was one to the west, a desert dragon that burrowed extensive tunnels underneath the sand. There were rumors of a fourth that lived in the Dark Woods, but it’d been at least a century since it’d been seen. That dragon had been old and white, and the woods were deep. It was possible it’d died years before, its bones resting where no man had stood for decades.

But this. This one was new.

And I knew the moment it spotted us, dark eyes glittering.

Justin must have felt it too, because he said, “Oh
shit
.”

And all I could say was “
Faster
.”

The weapons shed. It wasn’t ideal, but maybe I could—

The dragon roared behind us.

And if that wasn’t a sound to make you shit yourself, I didn’t know what was.

I hazarded a look over my shoulder.

The dragon was
right there
.

And it was rearing back and I could smell the gases from the flammable liquid filling its throat from a gland near the back of its tongue.

Fire.

I most certainly didn’t want to die right now.

Especially not with Justin.

We weren’t going to make it to the shed.

I grabbed him by the arm.

I thought
ies
and
clo
, twisting my right hand in a circle over my head. The air around us froze in a snap as the moisture solidified downward, cocooning Justin and I in a circle of thick ice. I grabbed him and pulled him, covering him with myself.

And it came then. The fire. There was a low
mmmmm
that turned into a blast of hot air and orange-red light. It shone through the fractals of ice, and if we weren’t mere inches away from getting burned to nothing, it would have been beautiful. But being that close to death really takes away from pretty fire-ice lights.

The fire died.

Justin said, “
Oh
.”

I gathered my magic.

The ice shattered around us with a swipe of the dragon’s claws. Like giants, they were magical creatures in their own right and could counter most types of magic.

Which sucked.

Because that was just
lame
.

And it became even worse when the dragon lowered its massive head toward me and said in a loud, rumbling voice, “I really hate wizards.”

I blinked. Because dragons weren’t supposed to talk. “Um. What?”

“Cocky shits,” he said. “With your whizbangs and pretty sparkles. Too bad too. I’d really have liked to wined you, dined you, then fucked you stupid.”

“
What
?”

And then it brought a massive arm back, and before I could move, it brought it forward, and I managed to think
This is going to hurt
before I was flying through the air. I smashed into the side of the weapons shed, my breath knocked from my chest as I crashed through the wood. My head struck something metal and I saw
stars
, more than I’d ever seen before in my life. I landed awkwardly under a shelf in the far corner as the shed collapsed around me. As darkness started to fall, I heard Justin shouting.

“Get the fuck away from me!”

“You on the other hand,” the dragon said. “You are
darling
. I think I’d like to hoard
you
.”

“
Hoard
? You can’t—”

Then Justin yelled again, but honestly, I couldn’t be bothered because the stars were growing brighter and brighter until they were all I could see. And as I heard the snap of those great wings taking flight, I followed the stars into the dark.

You Mad, Bro?

I
WOKE
up in the labs. “Ow,” I said. “Motherfucking
ow
.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when a building falls down on top of you.”

I opened my eyes. Morgan, Gary, Mom, Dad, Tiggy, Ryan, and the King all stared down at me.

“Were you all staring at me while I was passed out?”

They all nodded slowly.

“You’re so creepy.”

“Your beautiful face,” Gary said, sniffing, big eyes wet with tears. “It’s
gone
. The
burns
. All the
burns
.”

“What?” I yelped, sitting up. “
What
?” I was not vain by any means but it was my
face
, and I was
so fucking vain because it was my
face. “I’ll never be a
model
—”

“Just kidding,” Gary said, eyes suddenly dry. “Now you know how I felt when Knight Delicious Face pulled your unconscious body from a
pile of rubble
,
you arrogant bastard
!”

And then he started wailing and put his head on my shoulder. I rolled my eyes but hugged him anyways because I could. And also because I still had my face.

“Knight Delicious Face?” Ryan asked. “What’s he talking—?”

“How long was I out?” I interrupted. Because now was not the time to discuss nicknames that should never be discussed. Even if they were true.

“A few hours,” Mom said with a frown. “You’ve got a bump on your head and some bruising on your back and face. You were very lucky.”

“Luck is my middle name,” I said.

“Your middle name is—” Dad said.

“Of no real importance,” I said with a glare because it was a family name and it was
awful
. So many
X
s and
Q
s and it
still
sounded feminine.

“What’s his middle name?” the King asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Morgan said.

“Bastards,” I muttered. “All of you.”

“Dark wizards and dragons,” Morgan reminded me. “All in the space of two weeks. You are becoming a pain in my ass.”

I rolled my eyes as I stretched. I had aches and pains all over, but nothing felt broken or split. My right hand was red hot from where I’d held up the ice spell, but it hadn’t blistered. It was a good thing Justin—