I thought of the overwhelming, never-ending, all-encompassing love I felt from the immense creature every time I touched him. He had claimed me and he wanted me to be happy to be his. So he probably would do awful things if I asked him to—not that I ever would, of course. But Ari’s mom didn’t know that—she didn’t know me at all. She might think I was just some opportunistic girl trying to lure Ari and his Drake to me for my own ends. What an awful thought!
“I don’t want any of those things,” I said, trying to reassure her. “I don’t want revenge or riches or anything but just, well…Ari and his Drake.”
As I spoke the words, I knew they were true. Though I had been reluctant to express my feelings to Ari as freely as he had expressed his to me, mine were definitely there—buried under a layer of self-doubt that I was good enough for him—but there just the same.
I thought some of the sadness left her large, dark eyes just for a moment.
“Ah, my dear,” she said softly. “If only you had a Drake heritage. I do not mind this…” She reached up and patted my scarred cheek gently. “Though many of our people focus only on the outside, I have raised my son to love that which is within. But the fact that you two are breaking the Edict…” She shook her head sorrowfully. “I fear what will come of this—truly, I do.”
“Nothing will come of it, Mother,” Ari said firmly, stepping up to put an arm around me. “The people will come to love Kaitlyn as I and my Drake do, in time. “She has beauty, both inside and out. I and my Drake will teach them to see it.”
She nodded sadly.
“You may try, my son. And I pray you will succeed.”
Then she squeezed my hands lightly and left us, going back behind the pink, gauzy curtain she’d emerged from in the first place.
I couldn’t help feeling a sense of disquiet as I watched her go. Would the Drake people really hate me that much? I supposed if they did I could understand why. I was an outsider who was invading their territory—holding a powerful weapon over their heads in the form of Ari’s Drake.
What reason did they have to trust that I wouldn’t use that weapon against them? None. So they would hate me and fear me.
I had no idea if I could change their minds about me or not. But considering that I was an outsider and a Nocturne, and the fact that I was scarred all over, I was betting on not.
Crap. What a mess.
81
Kaitlyn
We had clearly been dismissed, so we left Ari’s mother’s chambers and went back down the long marble hallway which presumably led to where I would be staying. Ari held my hand but didn’t say anything and I was thinking too hard about what his mother had said to me to want to talk anyway.
Jalli chattered away like a little bird to Saint, who stalked down the hallway like a tall, dark shadow, only occasionally answering her running patter. Even Mr. Seahorse seemed subdued. He only chimed once and then settled himself quietly on my shoulder and looked alertly around without making another sound.
In my mind, I kept going over Ari’s mother’s words. I found myself in a much more difficult and dangerous position than I had ever imagined being in when Ari and his Drake asked to take me home with them. Then I had known that I was going into a situation where people most likely wouldn’t care for me, just because of who and what I was and what I looked like. But I hadn’t known that they would fear and distrust me or why they would feel that way.
Now I was beginning to understand the awesome power and responsibility I would hold as the person Ari’s Drake valued above everything else in the world. As the L’lorna to his Drake, I would be stronger than the strongest warlord I had ever learned about in my World History class—and more able to wreak havoc and destruction.
It was a sobering thought.
“Here we are at the guest rooms!” Jalli’s high, sweet voice drew me out of my thoughts and I looked up to see that we had turned down a short corridor which had a row of five or six wooden doors. Every one of them was bound in brass and covered in delicate carvings of vines and flowers and Drakes and other creatures, some of them so fantastical I wouldn’t have believed they were real if not for Mr. Seahorse sitting on my shoulder.
“This room is the perfect one for you, Kaitlyn,” Jalli said, pointing to a door which had many carvings of chimelings on it. “It has a window that opens onto the Scented Gardens,” she explained. “So Mr. Seahorse can go out and catch himself some dinner.”
“Thank you—that’s very thoughtful of you, Jalli.” I nodded and smiled at her before looking at Ari. “Where do you stay? I mean—where is your room, er, your chambers around here?”
He frowned. “Across the palace. But I don’t like leaving you alone here in the guest wing. I’ll come and stay with you.”
Saint raised his jet-black eyebrows.
“Stay in the same rooms before you are properly Joined? Don’t you think you’re pushing the boundaries a bit too far there, Cousin?
