Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (45 page)

It could not be real; it had to be because of what I had done. And just like every dream, I had to wake up from this one before it consumed my life. I had worked so hard for so long on so many things. If I walked away now, from my sisters, from my mother, from my mission to bring down Senator Hale, I would have worked all this time for nothing.

If I had ceased to be a unique
person
with my very own family, what would happen with people who did not know me and did not care about me? I would be less than a door to get to Wyvern through for them; I would be a mere stepping stone.

As Wyvern parked at my house, I decided that I had to do it now, I would tell him what I had done and I would tell him I wanted to break the contract. If we went into my house we would start kissing and then I would change my mind.

His fingers brushed my cheek. “Hey,” he whispered.

I swallowed. “Wyvern, did you tell my grandfather that I’m going to New Anglo with you on Monday?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“But you did not say anything, you did not ask me,” I responded.

“I told you at the dinner at Braiden’s house, a couple of days ago,” he said.

“Yes and I said I wasn’t going,” I said.

“Look, if you don’t want to be gone from home long, we’ll just go for a month or so and then we can come back here to visit. There’s something very important I need to take care of in person at home next week. We’ll come back to Mabi often, once a month if you want to.”

“I’m not going,” I said. “I can’t.”

He stayed silent for a second and then sighed. “Alright. We can perhaps delay leaving for—”

“No you don’t get it,” I said. “You’re leaving and I’m staying, Wyvern. I’m not going to deny that there’s something between us, there is. But what’s between us isn’t real, what we have had was a break from reality. A vacation. Going with you to your life would make this something it’s not; going with you would make me into someone I don’t want to be. We had a crazy, intense and at times amazing week together but that’s all it’s ever going to be, a week, there’s no ‘long-term’ for us.”

“There is,” he said.

“No, there isn’t, this isn’t real,” I said.

“You’re saying that I’m not living in reality? That I don’t know what I feel? That I’m deluded?” he said, his eyes narrowing in anger.

“Yes, but it’s not your fault,” I said.

“You are a coward,” he said. “If you are so scared that you want to deny what you feel, fine. But don’t tell me that I’m suffering from some delusion.”

“But you are.” I said with my voice quavering, but I pushed on determined to tell him the truth. “That first time you were a dragon…your head was getting free, I could not paralyze you; I thought you were going to kill me. I coiled a part of your soul into me…usually that would work to paralyze you but it did not. You had too much soul. So I pushed a piece of my soul into you. I had never done that before so I did not know what would happen. But as a consequence a piece of your soul sunk into mine, as mine did into yours…We each have a piece of each other’s soul…”

He stared at me with an expression of utter shock on his face.

“I did it because I thought you were going to kill me,” I repeated.

He stayed silent. The tension felt like water filling up the car and we were just sitting there waiting to drown.

“You did that to me? And now you just want to walk away from me?” he said, sounding so betrayed.

I raised our still joined hands. “Maybe…” I cleared my throat hoping to also clear my voice of emotion, “Maybe I can fix it.”

“Don’t you dare.” He yanked his hand from mine.

I leaned away, startled by the cold fury in his voice.

“You’re not
fixing
me,” he leaned across the space between us and said in a cold voice, “You gave me that piece of your soul; you’re never going to cut it out of me.”

“But—”

“No. You want me to leave and you to stay? Fine. Go ahead and live like a coward. But you’re going to have to live with the piece of
my soul
you stole from me.”

I swallowed. “I’m going to go now,” I said and without looking back at him I walked into the house. Closing the door behind me, I walked up the stairs slowly.

I went inside my room, lay down on top of the covers and just stared at the wall. I had slept next to him only seven nights in a row, but for some awful pathetic reason, it did not feel natural to be sleeping alone. Breaking it off with him was the right decision; I had previously been so complete on my own and in such a short time, he had made me feel incomplete.

After a long time, I fell asleep.

“Morning Dakota,” said a woman’s voice.

I opened my eyes to see a woman I did not know sitting backwards in my desk chair that she had pulled next to the bed. Another woman leaned against the wall behind her.

I reached down to the hem of my dress opened my portal purse, pulled out Contingency and aimed.

“Whoa,” the woman said, raising her arms in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. She sounded more amused than scared, however, when she said, “Maybe you don’t need that much protection after all.” She had some sort of accent, Native New-Anglo maybe. She had eagle-like sharp features and a second soul, which was also an eagle. Were-eagle infection, that was rare.

“How did you get in here? Who sent you?” I asked.

“Your mom let us in but it was Wyvern who sent us,” she said.

I was taken so off guard that I lowered my aim. “Come again?”

“Wyvern, the dracon you’re in a contract with, he sent us,” the other woman who was standing against the wall said, she did not seem concerned about my gun either.

The two women could be twins, their only glaring difference was that one of them was infected and the other one was completely human.

“You’re my security team?” I asked.

“Sophie,” the woman in the backwards chair said.

“Sarah,” the woman leaning against the wall said.

“You must not have talked to him since last night,” I said with an apologetic shrug.

“We talked to him this morning right before he headed for the airport.”

“He’s leaving early?” I asked, feeling a stupid amount of hurt at the idea.

“He already left,” she said.

And he sent his goodbye by the ‘twin courier service,’ how thoughtful of him.

I stowed my gun back in the portal and gave them an apologetic smile. “Well, it was nice to meet you both. I’m sorry you had to make the whole trip out here for nothing.”

She blinked at me. “We need to work out some details about your security; it will only take a minute.”

“Come again?” I said, blinking right back at her.

“Your security, we are your security team,” she said.

“But the contract is over,” I said.

“No actually it’s not,” Sophie said. “Wyvern told me that whatever you say, the contract is not over. He told me to tell you that you’re still in danger from the humans you ‘drew the attention of’ while looking for Honua and possibly others; by the terms of your contract, he has the right to keep you in the contract and he plans to. He also told me to say to you: ‘you are a coward and you are in denial.’”

“Of course he did, the jerk,” I said. “I’ll just be right back.” Climbing off the bed, I walked out of the room as quickly as I could and closed the door.

I was still wearing my dress and heels from the night before. They would probably tell Wyvern that. I knew that if they saw the expression that crossed my face they would definitely tell their boss and I just could not have that.

But the expression was inevitable; there was nothing I could do to stop my lips from curving into a smile.

A Note from the Author

Thank you for reading
Henchgirl
, I hope you had as much fun reading this novel as I did writing it. Before concluding this novel there are a few matters I wish to clarify.

While the Mabiian Islands in this novel were inspired by the Hawaiian Islands’ land, history, mythology and culture, the Mabiian Islands were intended to be a completely separate and fictional location. I did not intend to make any political parallels or judgments; the people and political systems in this book only exist within its pages. I lived in Maui for two and a half years and fell in love with the islands’ land, rich history and culture; but in all ways I was an outsider looking in and I do not make any claims to be different than that. I did not in any way intend to faithfully represent Hawaii, Hawaiian culture or the Hawaiian people.

Another clarification I wish to make is that yes, this book was in some sections loosely inspired by Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
. I love
Pride and Prejudice
, it was my first ‘favorite novel’ and remains in my top ten list still. The parallels to
Pride and Prejudice
in this novel were written out of love for Jane Austen’s novel and were in no way intended to claim her ideas as my own.

Lastly, I will give you a small teaser. Yes, there is a sequel in the works for
Henchgirl
. I have tentatively titled it
Rex
.

Thank you for reading. Here are some links if you wish to give feedback:

Goodreads

Author Website

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