“They didn’t have sex. They kissed, but that’s all it took for Henry to fall in love.”
Kinsey felt her stomach grow queasy from all the grease from the bacon. “Gotcha.”
“Henry has been searching for Rhi for months. He willna give up, and it’s only going to cause him more heartache in the end.”
Kinsey knew all about heartache. She’d spent months—years!—pining after Ryder. She understood all too well what he was feeling.
Kinsey had even tried to use her skills to find Ryder, just as Henry was searching the world over for Rhi. Oh yes, she could sympathize with him on everything.
“We can’t keep this from him,” Kinsey said. “He knows we’re looking into his sister. He’ll be here soon wanting an update.”
“It’ll likely do him in. I’d rather no’ do that to a friend.”
“And he’d rather have the truth,” she argued. “A lie will only prolong the pain. The truth is always better. Even if it’s difficult to say.”
Ryder released a long breath, his gaze going to the ground for a heartbeat. “I wanted to tell you who I was, Kins. I’m sure you doona believe me, but I did. I wanted you to know everything.”
“Then you should’ve told me.”
Regret filled his eyes. “I couldna.”
“You knew me, Ryder. You knew I’d never have shared such information.”
“It doesna matter. We have a code for a reason. It might seem senseless or trivial, but had you endured the war with the humans as we did, you’d understand.”
She leaned back in her chair as she stared at the picture of Esther North. Would they bring her to Dreagan if she was in danger? Henry was their friend, so they might very well do just that.
It made Kinsey think about her talk with Lexi and Thorn that morning. There were other women at the manor. Several, in fact.
“Tell me, did every Dragon King wait until they were mated to their women before they showed them who they really were?” she asked.
The silence lengthened between them. Kinsey didn’t look away from the monitor. She didn’t want to see Ryder’s face or any emotions that he might try to hide.
Her heart thumped in her chest, and her blood iced with nervousness. Because she knew the answer. She only wanted Ryder to admit it to her as well as himself.
Tears stung her eyes. She hastily blinked them away. Hadn’t she been good enough for him? Wasn’t their closeness enough?
The night she came home to find the note on the table she had been going to tell him she loved him. Kinsey could still feel the hollow ache in her chest from discovering he’d left her.
She had fallen to her knees, the paper crushed to her chest as she cried. Desolation, despair. Anguish. She’d been bombarded with those emotions, battering her until she was no longer strong enough to stand against them.
Her world turned gray and bleak. When, days later, she managed to pick herself up and try to find Ryder, she found no trace of him.
Ryder hadn’t been the first man to end a relationship with her, and Kinsey had ended her fair share as well. But it was the sheer depth of her love for him that affected her so deeply.
It wasn’t until that moment when she finished the letter and comprehended that he was gone that she realized how fragile a heart could be, how profoundly she could love.
How acutely she could hurt.
Three years later, that pain remained. It became a part of her, closing around her heart, blending with her muscle, sinking into bone.
It molded her, shaped her.
Changed her.
And yet it teased her from time to time in her dreams with memories of Ryder. Or worse—hints of what her future could have been with him.
How callous a heart that once loved could be. It hardened to keep anyone out, then cruelly opened the door in dreams to remind her how vulnerable she truly was.
Deep within her frozen heart was a tiny kernel of hope that continued to live. It was dying a slow, agonizing death though. When it was gone, Kinsey would finally be free of the heartache that lingered.
“No.”
She blinked and frowned when Ryder’s word reached her. It took her a moment to remember she’d asked him a question. So he finally admitted that the other Kings hadn’t waited to tell their women who they were.
It was a victory for her. Why then did it feel like the worst defeat?
“I doona want to lie to you anymore,” Ryder said.
Kinsey sat up in her chair and placed her fingers on the virtual keyboard. “That’s reassuring.”
“I’ve hurt you again.”
She snorted and shot him a flat look. “I knew the answer before I asked the question.”
“You wanted me to admit it.”
“Of course.” With a punch of a key, she moved her search to another monitor. There she began to dig into Kyvor’s servers. She might get lucky and find something in an e-mail, because people were just that stupid sometimes.
Ryder turned to face her. “You’ve changed.”
“Time changes everything.”
“I did this to you.”
Kinsey stopped typing. She then slowly turned her head to him. “Yes, you hurt me, leaving the way you did. But I’m not some broken thing you can claim and fix.”