A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(32)

“Sam,” Ryan chided gently, but I’m sure everyone in the room could see the smile quirking along his lips. I might have exasperated him and been more than frustrating, but for some reason, he loved me. And I would have done anything for him. We were kind of disgusting that way. “Maybe not tell that to your grandmother who you’re meeting for the first time.”

I sighed the sigh of the weary. “Whatever you say, babe.”

“And don’t call me that when I’m working.”

“Whatever you say, Knight Commander.”

He squeaked a little at that and started coughing, because he liked it as much as I did.

“Ugh,” Gary said, his nose wrinkling. “It’s like watching your mentally incapacitated great-aunt eating nothing but a jar of mayonnaise.”

“That’s…,” I said. “Huh. I don’t know quite how to take that.”

“Badly,” Gary said. “Preferably. Stop being so disgustingly precious in front of me. I’m going to vomit in the throne room, and no one wants to see that again.”

“It look like rainbows,” Tiggy said.

“Most things that come out of me look like rainbows,” Gary said.

“Seriously,” Kevin said. “By the time we finish our rigorous bouts of athletically tantric lovemaking, I look like the end result of a paint-by-numbers avant-garde tragedy done by a toddler.”

“And he says we’re gross,” I said, trying not to gag.

It was then that Vadoma addressed Morgan for the first time. But her tone had changed into something fiery, something angry. “And you allowed this, wizard?”

That irked me because I was standing right there. “Hey,” I snapped. “He doesn’t have to allow me to do—”

“Sam,” Morgan said, cutting me off. “That was not a question for you.”

“But she—”

“Sam.”

I knew that voice. That voice said I’d better shut my mouth before I was in trouble. I’d heard it more than I probably should have.

He waited just a beat more to make sure I’d heard him. Then he turned back to Vadoma. “He’s more than capable of making his own choices, Vadoma. If they lead to mistakes, I can only hope that he learns from them. The Knight Commander was his own choice in the end. And I believe there was never a mistake in that.”

She scoffed. “Foolish man. You know nothing. We had a deal.”

Wait. What. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I misheard you. You had a what now?”

“A deal,” Vadoma said. “Tell him, Wizard. Tell him how you know of him from the moment of birth. Tell him what the satarma called out the night he came to this world. You knew him as I did. And you agreed to be his mentor until the day I came for him.”

The room was ominously silent after that.

And it couldn’t be— “Morgan?”

He looked stricken. “It’s not as you’re thinking, Sam. Anything I have done, anything I agreed to was only to protect you. You are not bound by the promises of a foolish old man.”

That memory. That godsdamned memory.

Ah. I see. Your mamia was Vadoma, then.

Yes, my lord. You’ve heard of her?

Perhaps.

“You knew me,” I breathed. “That day in the alley. The first time. You knew who I was.”

“Yes,” Morgan of Shadows said. “I knew you.”

I couldn’t form my thoughts in a proper order. All I could think about were the times I’d felt Morgan was holding something back from me, was keeping his secrets held close to his heart. Wizarding is always about secrets, but hadn’t some part of me known that Morgan knew more than he had always said? I’d written it off as just him being Morgan. I’d trusted him when he said he’d tell me the things I needed to know when I needed to know them.

“What about him?” I snapped, jerking my head toward Ryan. “Did you know it was him too, then?”

Everyone looked confused. “Sam,” Morgan said slowly. “Ryan wasn’t in the alley that day. How could I have known him?”

I laughed bitterly. “Of course he was there. He was—” And I stopped myself because holy fuck was I an asshole. I closed my eyes. “Shit.”

Because Ryan Foxheart wasn’t always Ryan Foxheart.

Once upon a time, Ryan Foxheart had been a teenage douchebag named Nox with a penchant for kicking my ass whenever he could. There were only a handful of people in this world who knew Ryan had come from the slums, and I had effectively just outed him. It wasn’t as if he was ashamed of it, it was just that in the history of the Veranian Knights, no one had ever risen to the position of Knight Commander after having come from the slums.

So imagine my surprise when, instead of being rightly furious with me, he squeezed my hand gently and said, “Sam.”

I opened my eyes, shame burning on my face. He didn’t look angry, just concerned. “I didn’t mean—” I managed to choke out.

But he was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and he meant it. “We’re in this together, yeah?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Then that’s how we’ll do it,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed my cheek, a lingering thing, warm and dry. When he pulled back, I could see the resolve in his eyes and knew immediately where this was going to go. “Together.”