Siya wanted very badly to have the ablution that Thad’s eyes offered her, a cessation of the guilt she felt for not going with Veti and getting him back. But she didn’t take it. She held onto the guilt even as she smiled at him as he walked away barking out about his hunger. He was a man of great appetites she knew from her long proximity to him, living just outside the light that he and Veti made. She knew she would cling to that guilt like cherished treasure because underneath it was a churning black morass of resentment. She did not want to swim in that mess, it would stain her and ruin things beyond repair. Guilt she could handle, the other she could not. So she let it stay, covered deep inside her and focused on that cherished guilt.

She knew that even burdened with guilt she could move on. She could begin to make her own life. She’d grown up living someone else’s dream and never measuring up and then she’d died just as she was figuring out her own dreams. It was time she lived for herself a little, maybe step out of the shadows cast by the fire of Max and Veti and figure out what she wanted. Maybe learn what the power inside her meant, what she could do with it and how she could control it. 
But only after they saved the world.

[i]Hadn’t they done that enough?[/i] She wondered idly thinking back to all they had gone through when they’d lost Max. Some of what happened after had been lost to her. She’d been in a daze, pain-filled and buzzing with power that was new after the oldest of her line had passed and she’d absorbed whatever it was she’d absorbed. When she’d come too herself she’d had to worry about Veti and keeping her alive. The thought made the darkness churn and she mentally pushed it away. 

She looked up at Atticus and quirked a half-smile at him that plumped one cheek and revealed one sweet dimple as she dabbed lightly at her cheeks with the backs of her fingers. She moved in close to him, finding a space at his side that fit her well, slipping under his arm and sliding a soft arm around his hard waist.

“We should get you something to eat, my Dragon” she said to him. “You will need protein, lots of red meat and iron. Scotch is good and we should have more of that but you need substance to make up for what I took from you.” 

She bit her lip and looked up at him with what she hoped was dark promise in her eyes, “what I will take from you.” She added. “And what I will give you, if we are given the time.”