Free Dragon Soul by Jaida Jones Page B

stupid.
    “Do you really think that’s wise?” he asked finally.
    “No,” I answered.
    He frowned. “If you would take just a moment to—”
    “The Ke-Han hate me,” I said, “and they have every right to. I hate them, too. I’m not going there thinking it’d be easy. But if they’re selling off pieces of her, then I’m going to be there, plain and simple. I’lltrack down every last rat bastard who thinks they can do something like that and live, and I’ll teach them all the lessons their mamas didn’t.” I grinned, but I didn’t feel like I was smiling. “And I’ll finally see a little piece of the place I’ve been fighting all my fucking life too. Pretty funny, isn’t it?”
    “But what do you hope to
accomplish?”
Thom asked miserably.
    “I’m taking what’s mine,” I told him. It was as simple as that. “She deserves to rest the same as anyone when they’re dead and gone. And no one
else
out there has any right to touch her.”
    We were quiet after that, though I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d won the argument. I wasn’t the sort to hold by any kind of tradition, so maybe I’d just stunned him silent by telling him I wanted to lay Have to rest, but this definitely wasn’t over. There was no winning with some people, no matter how fast you talked.
    From outside in the hall, where I’d tossed Ginger after I’d finished with him, I heard a low groan, which meant he was waking up. He’d have to explain how he’d ruined his breeches to his wife, if he had one, and I tried to think about that instead of whatever was happening on the other side of the mountains. It was bad enough she’d been busted to pieces, but the other thoughts I was having were even worse. I had to start moving to stop thinking them.
    “I’ll go with you,” Thom said, a little too loudly, like he’d forgotten how to control the volume of his voice.
    “Who said I wanted you to come?” I asked. It couldn’t be that easy.
    “Well, it’s like this,” Thom said. “You’re going to need someone who has…connections. I could write—right now, right here—to the people I know at the ’Versity. The dragons weren’t my specialty, but I know a few students who
did
study them, and—more important—I know their professors. I know a man who studied the black market. There’s so much I could do to help you, and…you’re going to need
help
, Rook,” he said at last. There was pleading in his eyes, in his voice, in the stubborn set of his mouth.
    I clenched my fists, but he was right. I wasn’t used to working alone.
    That didn’t mean I could work with just anybody, either.
    “In any case, we obviously can’t stay here tonight,” Thom said. “So we’re just going to have to finish up our business and leave.”
    “You mean sneak out before we pay for fucking this place up?” Iasked. I didn’t believe it. My baby brother, suggesting we skip town? Never. He was too fucking self-righteous for that.
    Thom flushed. “That’s hardly what I—I would
never
in a thousand—Rook, such behavior is downright wrong, and we—”
    “I sure as shit don’t have the money,” I said.
    Thom wilted like a daisy. “Neither do I. I suppose there’s always…” He turned his back on me to fish around in his pack. It took him a while to find whatever he was looking for, since the bag was stuffed with papers and reading material and that bastion-damned quill collection—all of which he was gonna have to ditch if he really planned on coming with me—but finally he must’ve found what he was looking for, because I saw his shoulders slump. “Here,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m just as much to blame for the…
position
as you are, and it’s time I started paying for myself in these situations.”
    He looked too damn much like a kid—so much that I didn’t even move to take whatever it was he was holding out for me. It was like he’d found a ha’penny on the street and he was proud of himself;