Dragonbound(21)

“For the record,” Amelrik says, “she kidnapped me.”
“Shut up.” Torrin puts more pressure on his sword, showing he means business. “I ought to cut out your heart right now.”
“Don’t!” I scramble to my feet, wishing I could put myself between them, but it’s too late for that. Way too late.
Torrin gives me a look full of disgust. And pity. “What were you thinking, Vee? Letting a dragon out of prison? Helping him escape? I don’t know what lies he told you, but I know this isn’t you. You wouldn’t do something like this. Not unless—”
“Unless what? Unless someone tricked me into it?”
“You hate dragons.”
But I don’t hate this one. The thought flashes through my head, and I realize it’s true. “I can think for myself. I don’t need you or Father”—or even Celeste—“doing it for me. Just because I’m doing something you don’t like doesn’t mean it wasn’t my choice.”
“He told you Celeste is still alive. And you wanted to believe it so badly, you’d do anything he said. I wanted to believe, too, but it’s a lie he told to manipulate you. Go on, dragon.” Torrin slides the tip of his sword up to Amelrik’s neck, angling it just below the dragon ring. “Tell her the truth so we can go home.”
Go home? Is he serious? I didn’t leave the barracks for the first time in four and a half years and tromp through the wilderness until I was ready to collapse yesterday just to turn around and go home.
Amelrik’s eyes find mine, searching for something. “She doesn’t want to leave with you, paladin.”
Torrin grimaces at that and pushes on the sword point until blood trickles down Amelrik’s neck. “The truth. Now.”
“Torrin, stop!”
Amelrik gives him a defiant look. “What does it matter? You’re going to kill me no matter what I say.”
“Torrin!” I try to shove him back a step, away from Amelrik, but Torrin’s a lot stronger than I am, and he resists. “Let him go—I need him!”
That gets his attention. He actually looks over at me.
“To find Celeste, I mean.”
“Celeste is dead. And if you go after her, you’re going to get yourself killed, too.”
“At least it’ll be my choice! Father had my whole life laid out for me. If I go back, I’m going to have to get married. And maybe that doesn’t sound so horrible to you, but it’s not okay with me. Having someone I don’t care about, that I despise, force himself on me every night?!”
Torrin winces at the words “force himself.”
“To have to spend the rest of my life with someone like that?” Or, in Lord Varrens’ case, the rest of his. “Trapped and unhappy and . . .” Unloved. “What part of that sounds even remotely okay to you?”Torrin steps back from Amelrik, lowering his sword. “I know it’s horrible, Vee. You think I don’t know that? That I actually want that for you? But you’re not a paladin, and there’s nothing to . . . I don’t know what you expect.”
I fold my arms across my chest and turn away, refusing to look at him. “I have to find Celeste. If there’s even a chance that she—”
“He’s lying to you!”
I glance over at Amelrik. He meets my gaze and holds it, like he has nothing to hide. “I can’t go home. Not yet.”
“I should kill him. You know that.” Torrin points his sword in Amelrik’s direction.
Amelrik’s on his feet now, and he takes a step back, putting more distance between them. And I’m pretty sure he also hisses at him. Which, under other circumstances, I might find funny.
I stand in front of Torrin’s sword. “No.”
“We’ll go home, and I’ll say he kidnapped you. We won’t tell anyone what you did. It’ll be okay. And maybe I can talk to your father, convince him to wait a little while for the wedding. You’ve been through some trauma, and—”
“I said no. I’m not an idiot. I know you and the whole barracks think that I am, that you need to protect me all the time, but that stops now. I don’t need your help—I just need you to leave us alone.” Ugh. The words sound so cruel, and they taste bitter in my mouth. But I can’t let him kill Amelrik, and I can’t let him drag me back home.
Torrin opens his mouth, then closes it, too shocked to speak. Hurt twitches across his face. “What is he to you? That you would choose him, a dragon, over me?”
“I’m not choosing anyone.” I stare at my feet, hating myself for hurting him. For not making him understand. But maybe I can’t, because I don’t even understand. Freeing Amelrik, leaving the barracks . . . It’s about finding Celeste, but it’s about something more than that, too.
“Like hell you’re not. Is this really what you want, Vee? You’re going to get yourself killed, and I’m just supposed to stand here and let that happen?! It’s like I don’t even know you! I should take you back home, but you know what? I’m not sure I could lie about what you’ve done. Not when you’re acting so crazy. And your father’s been through enough already.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it would be less shameful for him to think a dragon kidnapped you than to know the truth.”
His words are like a slap in the face, harsh and stinging. My mouth slips open, and then I glare at him. “I think you’d better leave now.” 
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Well, we’ll see about that.”
16
I DON’T TRUST ANYONE
“This is seriously supposed to work?” I’m standing in the middle of a stream. A fish slips past me, lightning fast, swimming with the current. I don’t know how Amelrik thinks we’re going to catch any of these things.
He’s standing a little farther downstream. He glances over his shoulder at me. “You’ve got a better idea?”
Nope. And my stomach is growling for, like, the millionth time today, so I guess we’re catching fish. Or at least attempting to. With our bare hands. “This isn’t doing much to dispel the idea that you’re a wild animal, you know.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never done this before.” His hands dive under the water as he lunges at a fish. He doesn’t catch it, though he does manage to splash himself in the face.
“It doesn’t.” In fact, it makes me feel like we’re going to starve to death. Another fish races by, and I make a grab for it. I touch some scales—which are really slippery—but that’s as close as I get. “If you’ve never done this before, how do you know it will work?”
“I”—he tries for another one, only succeeding in splashing a bunch of water around—“don’t.”
Well, if I don’t get to eat, at least I get to watch him make a fool of himself.
I have my pant legs hiked up to my knees, though the bottom edges are already wet. The cold from the water seeps into my feet and my shins, making my bones ache and my flesh go numb. I think about how cold I was last night, and about how warm I was when I woke up. You know, with Amelrik’s arm wrapped around me and his body pressed against mine.
I didn’t have much chance to process it, what with Torrin trying to kill him and take me back home. But we’re alone now, just us and these stupid, overly slippery fish. And Amelrik’s facing the other direction. So if I stop to think about what happened, and maybe even that it felt pretty good, he won’t see it on my face.
Not that I’m saying it felt good to be that close to him. I mean, it did, but I’m not officially saying that. And, to be fair, I only felt that way when I wasn’t awake enough to really know what the situation was. I’ve never slept in the same bed—or, in this case, on the same dirt—as a boy before. Not that Amelrik counts as “a boy.” I mean, he is, technically, but he’s also a dragon, and I don’t think of him that way.
But my point is, it felt nice to be held so tight, to feel wanted, and that could have happened with anybody. Plus, whatever feelings it gave me, it wasn’t real. Amelrik doesn’t care about me. Maybe he doesn’t hate me, but I’m just a way to get that dragon ring off of him. There is no wanting.
Just because I can’t picture this ever happening with any of the guys at the barracks—who would never be caught dead sleeping so close to me, let alone actually touching me—doesn’t mean it means something.
And spending what was supposed to be my wedding night curled up in Amelrik’s arms doesn’t mean anything, either.
I will absolutely not bring this up or ask him about it in any way. We’ll just never mention it, and pretend that nothing happened, because nothing did.
End of story.
I clear my throat. Part of my brain is telling me to stop, even as the words leave my mouth, but that part apparently gets outvoted. “So, about how we woke up this morning.”
I say that right as Amelrik lunges at a fish. His foot slips, and he falls in the stream, getting completely soaked.I laugh. I can’t help it.
He picks himself up, dripping wet, and glares at me. “I was asleep. I didn’t . . . I didn’t know what I was doing. It wasn’t on purpose.”