Liam Takes Manhattan (Elder Races #9.5)(5)

Without looking at him, Hugh asked quietly, “Feel like talking? Or do you have some place you’ve got to be?”

He knew his mom would be fretting about him, and probably his dad too, if Dragos fretted about anything. He needed to check in upstairs, but he wasn’t ready to face them yet. Not until he managed to put himself in some kind of order and had at least some idea of what he needed to say, if not what the end result of the conversation might be.

Blowing out a breath, he replied, “Sure. I mean, if you’ve got the time. You’re supposed to be off this week.”

Hugh’s rare smile appeared again, lighting up his face. “I always have time for you, sport. Come on.”

Walking out of the Starbucks, Hugh led the way to the large open food court area by an indoor fountain. Several tables were available. As they settled into chairs, Liam gulped at his coffee and looked around. He recognized several of the people at other tables, but nobody glanced at them or appeared to recognize him. By virtue of the acoustics and the noise of the fountain, the area was as good a place as any to have a private conversation.

Hugh removed the lid from his coffee and blew on it. “What’s going on?”

“My life is all knotted up,” Liam muttered. “And I don’t know how to untangle it.”

The gargoyle gave a slow, calm nod. “Why don’t you start with one piece and let’s see what happens.”

The cute girl walked by. Slouching in his seat, Liam watched her until she was out of sight. He said, “I feel so damn guilty.”

“What on earth do you have to feel guilty about?”

The surprised kindness in Hugh’s expression brought unexpected tears springing to his eyes. Shoving his fingers through his overlong hair, he blinked rapidly until they disappeared.

Sometimes things felt so raw that they were almost impossible to say out loud, no matter how much privacy one had. He forced the words out through gritted teeth. “I feel sick that Constantine is dead, but I feel even sicker about the fact that he was barely cremated before I took advantage of it.”

Hugh’s gray eyes sharpened, and his expression turned very serious. “Liam,” he said with quiet firmness. “There is no way on earth anybody believes that you took advantage of Con’s death.”

Hunching his shoulders, Liam wrapped his hands around his hot coffee cup and stared down at it. His hands seemed like they belonged to a stranger now, large and powerful. He clenched them into fists.

“As soon as he was cremated, I started pushing my dad to let me fight for the empty sentinel position,” he muttered. “And I didn’t stop until he said yes. It was all I could think about. It’s almost all I can think about right now too.”

Hugh took a small, thoughtful sip from his coffee before he replied. “The way I heard it told, the sentinels asked Dragos what he was going to do to fill the position. You joined in the conversation. Nothing wrong with that, Liam. And there was nothing wrong with getting your dad to take you seriously enough to promise to at least give you a chance.”

Every careful word Hugh said stung. But then everything stung these days. Liam rubbed his tired eyes and replied flatly, “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”

He shouldn’t be surprised. Nobody thought he could. Hell, even he wasn’t sure if he could.

Dragos’s seven sentinels were among the most deadly Wyr fighters in the world. They combined strength, cunning, ruthlessness and experience, and when they went after something, they did it with complete, unswerving dedication.

Liam had one huge asset in his favor—his dragon form. Because of it, he was faster and more powerful than any of the other sentinels, but that didn’t give him the experience he needed to win the empty position in a trial by combat. It didn’t give him investigative skills, honed by years of work, or tactical battle experience.

He had virtually nothing he could take to the position except for raw magical skills and brute strength. And if there was one thing he would bet on, it was that his father would not pull any punches when it came down to a trial by combat to fill the vacancy.

If anything, Dragos would probably be more ruthless than ever, because he had made it crystal clear: he would not give Liam the position. He would give Liam almost anything else Liam asked for, but not that. Liam would have to earn it, like every other sentinel had earned their place, or he would be out.

And if he was out, he truly had no idea what he would do with his life. He was too Powerful, too unique. There was no place for him in the Wyr demesne that felt genuine.

Dragos had offered him a starter position in one of his companies, but that felt fake and unsatisfying. He didn’t want to work for his father. As much as he loved him, he was very much aware that Dragos’s age, reputation and Power meant he cast a very long shadow, and Liam didn’t want to live under that. He wanted to fight, to claw his way to his own place in the world, and own it.

Searching his gaze, Hugh asked, “Do you even want the position? Because you should think long and hard about that. The sentinels live a hard life. Their lives are dangerous, and they’re always on call, always. Getting hurt would be a way of life. Loneliness might well be a way of life too. There’s a reason why none of them have mated until recently. It’s a rare person who can genuinely, wholeheartedly commit to having a Wyr sentinel as their mate.”

Liam’s gaze went to the fountain. He said, “I think so. I mean, I think I want it. Fighting for the position, and winning it, and facing those daily challenges sounds … satisfying. But how can I know for sure? The possibility didn’t even come up until this week. All I really know for sure is that I want the chance to try for it, even if it seems unlikely that I’ll get it.” The bitterness crept back into his voice. “Besides, what else am I going to do?”