where the thorns grow

CHAPTER SEVEN,

CHAPTER SEVEN | WHERE THE THORNS GROW

"YOU DON'T TELL me anything," he said, "I can't help you with anything. Even if you don't trust anyone else, why not me? I won't tell anyone else, you know that. And I can help. You know I'm capable of being helpful, Rhys."

She raised her chin, stalking away from his chair. "This is my problem. You don't need to be involved. Pulling more people in would only make it messier. It'll be fine."

"You always say that. Anything happens, good, bad, horrible, it'll be fine. Sometimes I want to slap you when you say that. Things are clearly not fine right now, so why don't you ask for help? This is why we exist, you know, the Iron Wolves. To help people."

"Some matters," she said softly, "are better off left small. You say I don't trust you, but clearly you don't trust me much either. If you did, you'd believe me right now and stop being a pain in the ass."

"I'm trying to be a good friend."

"Well right now you're only giving me a headache." Her room was clean now, there was nothing else she could move around. So she spun and gave him her full attention again, which was far more than he deserved. "Dom. Please."

He muttered, "Fine." Silence, finally, but he still didn't move. After a few minutes he asked, "What are you doing tonight? Mission's done, daren promised we won't be getting anything else until the engagement party."

"I'm going to Rong'en and Najun's," Rhys replied. "We're having dinner together. I'll be back by ten, probably."

He made a "cluck-cluck" sound with his tongue. "Abandoning us boys, eh?"

"They make far greater company."

"Ronan not going? For Najun?"

Rhys rolled her eyes. "He's not that down bad. Ronan's a logical person." It was doomed anyways, if any sparks did exist there. Ronan, most likely, would be out of the country by the end of the month.

"Could have fooled me," Dom admitted. "Well. Young love, first love, it turns even the most rational people irrational."

Humorously she asked, "Who's yours?"

To her surprise he admitted, "Haven't met her yet."

Rhys blinked, nonplussed. "Wait, what? You're not a bloody monk, Dom. I've met some of your lovers before."

"What," he muttered, "you'd consider yours your first love?"

No. Rhys' first love had been given to someone who'd completely and utterly destroyed it. Who used her as a puppet, who twisted her and manipulated her until she could no longer recognise herself in the mirror.

Yes. It had made her irrational. He'd used her craving for affection, for love to turn her into his personal plaything, his beloved little doll.

That period of time almost felt like a dream. Her mind was clear but it always felt as if she had no control over her body. Years later Rhys thought she must have tried to disassociate herself from the events. Tried to disconnect herself from that period of her life. But some things couldn't be forgotten.

So she remembered.

Rhys shrugged. "Yeah. First love isn't always... love, you know. More often than not it's just youthful fancy and infatuation. It doesn't last long."

"Sometimes it does," Dom shrugged. "My parents. Love at first sight."

"That's sweet." Her parents' marriage, from what she recalled, had started off political. Something had grown between them but it was never quite love either. More like mutual respect and a civil understanding. If she ever got married, that was what she would have asked for as well. But chances of that seemed quite dim these days, didn't it?