8. Blake
BLAKE
People in the Spires spoke too much.
Those were the kinds of people I was used to—the ones who spoke quickly and used barbed words to try and prove they were the cleverest in any given room.
I’d never been particularly skilled with cutting words, but I always had a strategy. No doubt it helped that I was a prince, and people were generally disinclined to speak over me, but I’d always approached those sorts of conversations with quantity over quality.
If quality meant being cruel, I wasn’t all that interested in it. Sometimes, I’d made people laugh, and while I was never entirely sure whether they were laughing along with me, or at me, it hardly mattered. I’d gotten attention and taken up air.
But there by the fire, when Andreas had just wrapped a fur around me, and with him holding my hands steady and staring into my eyes, I wasn’t sure what to say.
I had no idea what he was thinking.
Already, he’d said I should return to my people.
That wasn’t an option. I couldn’t return to the Spires.
Evander—he’d been dead serious when he’d threatened me.
I’d told myself all my life that we were brothers and that meant something, even if we didn’t get along, but he’d kill me.
I didn’t know how long he’d been looking for an excuse, or whether he’d accuse me of treason or have it done quickly under the cover of night.
He probably already thought I was dead, and it pained me to think that he was relieved by it. The thought alone made my fingers and toes feel stiff and cold.
I couldn’t return there and face that.
I wouldn’t.
Continuing to exist as Blake Cavendish anywhere in Llangard would only provoke my brother.
But it was more than just hesitance to return. There were times here when I didn’t question myself. The dragons spoke plainly, for the most part. They didn’t hide their emotions behind clever turns of phrase.
Even Andreas—he was befuddling and strange, sure, but he didn’t lie. He wasn’t cruel without reason.
It was merely driving me a little bit insane that he sat there, holding my hands and looking at me, without saying anything at all.
Should I?
I had no idea what to say. If I asked to stay, he very well might tell me I didn’t belong there, and I didn’t want to hear it.
Maybe another day, I could stomach it, but right then I felt raw, on the edge of something only partly realized, and I didn’t want to be told to let it go before I’d even figured out what it was.
I could apologize for getting so near the egg. I didn’t have permission, and clearly, he hadn’t wanted me anywhere near it unsupervised, but—well, he didn’t look angry either.
In fact, the stubborn set of his jaw had relaxed, and he was just .
. . looking. So I looked back and held my tongue and hoped that I was doing the right thing instead of listening to that impulse that’d gotten me stuck in the dunce corner during tutoring while my brother practiced his kingly graces.
I didn’t hate how Andreas looked at me, even though after a while, my cheeks started to turn red. This was . . . intimate.
Relief washed over me when he rose, pulling me up with him without releasing my hands. “Come on.”
He led me over to his bed, and when he sat me down on it, he pulled a blanket over my legs.
Fuck, it was sweet. Caring in a way I’d never expected.
I wished he’d stay.
“You could sleep in your own bed,” I blurted out, scooting back. “With me, I mean. There’s plenty of room.” Too much room, even for a prince, and I figured that had something to do with the other dragons, and whether they wanted to spend the night there or not.
Andreas hadn’t had anyone come spend the night since I’d been there, but obviously, it could happen. Probably had, not to go assuming, but what else were four men out in the middle of nowhere to do with themselves?
There was something about this arrangement that struck me as sweet—a kind of camaraderie entirely lacking from the affairs at court.
Marriages between the families of the mages who Athelstan had taken in and taught—the people who inherited land and raised militias to defend it—were rarely forged for love, so I couldn’t begrudge anyone for looking beyond the confines of their vows.
I’d been a willing participant in more than a few affairs, in fact.
But the way the dragons shared, without demand or possessiveness, struck me as generous and loving, rather than duplicitous and self-serving.
I liked it—liked the idea of the others crawling into bed. Waking up between Harri and Bran had felt warmer and cozier than anything I could remember.
I hoped, when I wasn’t here, Andreas had that too, and it was just my presence that’d thrown everything off for them.
Andreas didn’t respond right away, but he leaned in. The bridge of his nose pressed against my temple, and it wasn’t quite a kiss, but it had the feel of one.
It also had the same feel as a “no.”
“I should tend the egg,” he said quietly, right over my ear.
I sighed and settled in, but allowed myself the pleasure of watching him undress. Considering he’d had me naked in his lap earlier, it only seemed fair I get to appreciate his taut backside before he rolled his shoulders and transformed.
That night, Andreas didn’t curl around the egg so tightly.
It was still protected, of course. He shielded it from the outside world with his enormous dragon body, and now that I could see them both clearly, without him hiding the egg away from me, it struck me how similar in color the shell was to his scales.
They were beautiful, the both of them, and I slept a little easier knowing he wasn’t so set on defending it from me too.