A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(83)

“I got good face,” Tiggy said. And he was certainly right about that.

“I’ll start,” Gary said. “Randall and Morgan are both idiots. Vadoma can’t be trusted. Ruv is hot, and if you were single, I’d tell you to stick your dick in his butt, but you have Ryan, and he’s your cornerstone, and you love him and his asshole.”

“Preach,” Tiggy said. “Also, people be cray-cray.”

“Exactly,” Gary said. “People be cray-cray. This whole prophecy thing, which, do we even need to discuss why Tiggy and I weren’t mentioned? We’re not sidekicks.”

“Nope,” Tiggy said. “Tiggy no sidekick.”

“You’re my sidekick,” Gary said.

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

“Anyway,” Gary said. “This whole prophecy thing. Maybe it’s made up. Maybe it’s not. Maybe a star dragon did come out of the sky and tell your crazy grandma that you were going to be born and do some shit, or whatever it said.”

“Save the world from falling into darkness?” I said, trying not to be amused but failing miserably.

“Right,” Gary said dismissively. “Saving the world and stuff. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t. But you know what is true?”

“What?”

He looked right at me, eyes impossibly wide and glistening. “You’ll always have us by your side,” he whispered.

And no, no I would not break—

He fluttered his eyelashes.

“Damn you!” I cried at him, breath hitching in my chest. “Why must you do that to me?”

“I’m sorry!” he wailed. “We just need you to know you mean something to us!”

“Yeah,” Tiggy said, great globular tears on his cheeks. “Mean something and stuff.”

“You’re so manipulative! The both of you.”

“Yes, well,” Gary said, suddenly dry-eyed. “It’s necessary for the next part.”

I groaned as I put my face in my hands. “I don’t even want to know, do I?”

“Knight Delicious Face,” Tiggy said.

I groaned even louder.

“We thought…,” Gary started before trailing off. And there was something in his voice that made me think he was being serious now. “We thought you already knew.”

I dropped my hands. “About what?” But I knew where this was going, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Mortality,” Tiggy said. “Everyone’s mortal. Some more than others.”

“Can we not do this now?” I asked gruffly. “We don’t have time to—”

“Sam,” Gary said. “You need to talk about this.”

“I don’t,” I retorted. “I don’t need to think about it at all. Because nothing is going to happen to him. Not now. Not ever.”

“Sam,” Gary said. “That’s not how this works. You know that. Maybe nothing happens to him from the man in shadows. We’ll all be there together, and we’ll do our best to protect him, even if that’s going to piss him off. But what happens later?”

“Don’t.”

“He’s going to age, Sam. And you won’t. Your magic won’t let you. Not like a normal human.”

“I said don’t.”

“It part of you,” Tiggy said. “Inside. It big. Felt it first day.”

“We both did,” Gary said. “It’s connected to you. It’s what you’re made of. Sam, I’m magic because of what I am, even if I don’t have my horn anymore. Tiggy’s magic because his blood is literally made of the stuff. You? You’re more than both of us combined.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be magic, then!”

The sound of my voice rolled down the dunes in front of us.

In the distance, Kevin and Ryan turned around.

Gary and Tiggy were staring at me in shock.

“Did you ever think that?” I said to them, voice lowered. “Everything I am, every part of me, this magic, has been manipulated, guided. Vadoma knew about me. Randall knew about me. Morgan knew about me. What part of me is actually me if they all had a hand in it? Why would I want any part of something that will take me away from him, or him from me?”

“Without it,” Gary said quietly, “you wouldn’t have been with him—”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “You can’t know that. Life is supposed to be about random chances. About choices. I randomly found the both of you. I got to choose the both of you.”

“And you got to choose him,” Gary said slowly. “Even if Vadoma had other plans for you.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to him,” I said. “I will stop this, whatever it is. And then I’ll figure out the rest. I’d rather be with him without my magic than be with him and have it. Some things are important. Other things are more important.”

“And what of the kingdom?” Gary asked. “Isn’t that the most important of all?”

I didn’t respond, which was an answer in and of itself.

I didn’t miss the look exchanged between them.

But I was good at ignoring things until I had to.