Oath Bound (Book 3) by M.A. Ray Read Free Book Online Page B

much
he loved him, or didn’t think about it. Dingus didn’t even need a thumb to
count the people who made him feel like he really mattered: Grandpa, Grandma,
Kessa—but she had her own growing up to do, and the four years between them
yawned wide as a gully—and Vandis. Cranky, crotchety, solid Vandis, who, even
when he was pissed off, shielded Dingus like a fortress. Now he was going away,
and he’d take everything certain with him. He was going to Dreamport alone
because he wanted them to be safe, he’d explained all that, but he didn’t
understand that when he was gone, there wouldn’t be anything safe in the whole
world. He didn’t understand how damn scared Dingus was over the idea of
something happening to him.
    He shuddered at the
thought and Vandis muttered in his sleep. His fingers flexed over Dingus’s
sternum. He sat up, letting Vandis’s hand fall to the mattress, and swung his
legs over the side of the bed, propping his forearms on his thighs.
    Vandis groaned, blinking
owlishly in the sullen light cast by the fire as it burned low. “S’matter, you
dreaming?”
    “No.”
    “Then—” he began,
sounding cranky as ever, but he let his thick body fall back and scrubbed at
his face. “Talk.”
    “What happens if you die?
In Dreamport, I mean.”
    “Evan’s coming. Told you
that.”
    “That wasn’t what I
meant,” Dingus said.
    “Oh, hell, now you
ask me this?”
    “Evan won’t—” He hung his
head. “He won’t—be like you.”
    “No. He’s not like me.”
Vandis shifted. “Look at me.”
    Dingus twisted to gaze at
him where he half sat, propped up on his elbows. His granite face, his sharp
eyes, looked almost soft.
    “If it comes to that? He
won’t be like me. He won’t—you won’t be to him what you are to me. To anyone
else, you cannot be what you are to me. Whatever happens, though, you will see
me again, and that is my solemn promise. However long you live, you’ll see me
again at the end of your road. In the Garden.”
    “Vandis—” he said, and
choked.
    Vandis cursed under his
breath. “Don’t,” he said, roughly. “Don’t. I won’t be gone long, I swear to
you. Don’t be afraid.”
    Dingus looked away.
People always said things like that, but they never said how to achieve it. It
seemed both spectacularly unhelpful and unfair. Was it really that easy? Vandis
laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed—Vandis’s idea of hugging him—tightly
enough for him to feel every callus.
    “Plenty of Juniors do
this. You know that, don’t you? You can handle—”
    “I know that!” Dingus bit
off, a lot louder than he’d meant to.
    Kessa grumbled and rolled
over, but a moment later she issued a gentle snore.
    “I’ll be fine,” he said,
lower. “But something bad is gonna happen to you , because you’re not
careful, and that’s what I can’t handle.” He lay down on his side, facing away
from Vandis, and shut his eyes.
    “We discussed this.”
    “Call that a discussion?”
Dingus muttered.
    “ I’m not careful?
You about gave me a heart attack with that stunt you pulled in the Practical!”
    “That’s different. I knew
what I was doing, and nobody was fixing to kill me. You got people out
for your blood and you don’t even look over your shoulder.”
    “Hey!” Vandis snapped. He
grabbed Dingus’s shoulder and yanked him over so their eyes met. In the other
bed, Kessa let out a theatrical moan and pulled a pillow over her head, but
Vandis ignored her. “I’ve been doing this dance thirty-five years, Squire and
Knight! I was Head before you were a twinkle in Angus’s eye, and you damn well
know I expect better from you than this swaggering big-balls bullshit! Get a
fucking grip!”
    The bed shook and the
cords holding the mattress creaked when Vandis flopped down. Dingus rolled back
onto his side and, somehow, fell asleep right away. Maybe it was because
everything felt—well— normal .
    Anyways, it might as well
have never happened, except for