Imdalind 01 - Kiss of Fire

first time we came up here. I was ten and you were twelve, right?” I asked Ryland who swallowed his bit of pie to answer.
    “Yep. Two days after your tenth birthday. We stole Father’s Vanquish and came up here. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that – it was the only time I have ever been able to beat you.”
    “You stole a car?” Wyn shrieked with her mouth full of pie.
    I couldn’t help but laugh.
    “Yep.” Ryland puffed his chest out proudly. “I had to sit on a phone book and could barely see out the window, so Joclyn had to steer most of the way.”
    I shook my head in irritation. I knew why Ryland was exaggerating. While I had driven most of the way (and been terrified, I might add), it wasn’t because he couldn’t see out the windshield - it was because he was crying. That day had been one of the first days that Edmund had ordered Ryland to leave me alone. They had gotten in a fight and his father had hit him. He had run into the kitchen and pulled me with him into the large garage. We had left before anyone had even realized we were both missing. I still remember the bright red hand print on his cheek. Without thinking I reached out and ran my fingers through his dark curls near the base of his neck, wanting to wipe the memory from both our minds. He turned towards me and smiled, his gaze piercing into me.
    “And you didn’t crash the car?” Wyn asked, oblivious to our exchange.
    “Well, we did,” I provided, “but not that time. They didn’t know we were taking the car for about a year.”
    “Jake was very nice to keep that secret for us.” Ryland forced a laugh.
    “Jake?”
    “The butler,” I provided.
    “So… when you crashed the car…?” Wyn prompted.
    “We more like, cruised into a field…”
    “And hit a cow,” Ryland finished for me. We both laughed at saying it out loud.
    “And you didn’t get in trouble?”
    “Oh, we got in trouble,” Ryland said. “I was confined to my room for a week.”
    It probably wasn’t even worth mentioning that I had been grounded to school, my house, or the kitchen for a month. Even after Ryland was ‘released’ I was still doomed to play fort under the staff table.
    “Your father doesn’t seem to be very hard on you, a week for crashing a car. I wish I was so lucky. My brother is ruthless.”
    “Oh, he punishes me, just not in the regular sense. He always expects me to be perfect, and accomplished, and make no mistakes.” Ryland sounded so bitter and hurt. His father had always put him under so much pressure; I was constantly amazed he handled it so well.
    “I guess it makes sense, seeing as he is raising you to run an empire.” Wyn’s logic made sense, but it was something we had talked through many times before. As much as Ryland wished to live up to his father’s expectations, as much as he wished to meet his father’s approval, Ryland still struggled.
    “I don’t want to run his company,” Ryland said dejectedly.
    “What?” I flipped around to look at him, but he took another bite of pie, keeping his gaze down. He had never made mention of this to me before; it was always how he looked forward to becoming like his father. I looked up at Wyn who had a strange look of shock and surprise plastered on her face.
    “I don’t want to run his empire. I don’t want to go to Oxford. I don’t want to take his lessons. I don’t want to be anything like him.” He had turned to me, speaking only to me. I am sure Wyn heard him, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
    “Ryland?” I asked.
    “But I don’t have a choice; I have to be everything he wants, and nothing that I wish.” He looked so sad, so dejected; my heart broke in half for him.
    I lunged at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face into the sweet smell of his skin. He held me against him, his large hands spreading their warmth throughout my back where they pressed against me. I tangled my hands through his curls as he held me tighter.
    Right in that moment, I was grateful to have Wyn there, her eyes boring into us. Because, right then, I would have been the one to kiss him first.

Eleven

    I stood about fifteen feet away from the fire. Wyn had assured me it was enough space to give me a running start. That was part of the problem. After Wyn had displayed her running feat and heroic jump over the fire, she and Ryland had spent the next twenty minutes taking turns leaping over the flames with decreasing running distances. They now insisted it