Chapter Nine #2
The band playing reached the end of their song just as he finished speaking. For a few seconds, the air was full of applause; then silence drifted softly down upon them as the band left the stage for the next group.
“Your brother did that? The demon lord Bael?” Shock was evident in Becket’s expression, but that quickly melted to one of sympathy as she carefully leaned to the side and gave him what he considered a far too impersonal hug.
“What happened to your wife ... er ... mate? Regardless, I’m so sorry.
I know this was a long time ago, but it’s still a horrific tragedy.
No wonder you want vengeance against Bael. ”
“I don’t want vengeance. I want him destroyed so that he cannot harm anyone else,” he answered, the familiar sense of being encased in ice creeping over him .
.. at least it did until she leaned in closer, her breast pressed against him in a manner that threatened to end in another erection and circle of dragon fire.
“Amice bound herself to Kashi after the death of the sept. He killed her, of course, and dragged her mutilated corpse to lay at my feet. I took her into the griefscape along with all the members of my sept whom I failed. I could do no less. She wasn’t to blame, not really.
Kashi wanted to destroy me just as he wanted to destroy our siblings, but they were still under the protection of the First Dragon, so he struck at me, instead. ”
“Jesus tap-dancing Christ,” she swore, her upper body now pressed against him in a manner that left him in profound admiration for her curves.
“Like it couldn’t get any worse? Yrian, I may not have known you for long, but I can tell you are a protector, someone who clearly devotes himself to the care of others.
You aren’t to blame for your sadistic brother’s actions.
And I’m sorry, but your dad was an asshat for not protecting you, too. ”
He mulled that over for the time it took Becket to release him, his body mourning her removal. “The First Dragon is many things, but I do not think asshat is fitting.”
“You just said he let your insanely homicidal brother kill off your sept and wife while protecting the rest of your family. That’s asshat territory right there,” she insisted, her expression dark with sorrow.
“My siblings were still young, and I had just formed the weyr. Kashi was furious with the First Dragon because he wasn’t allowed to form a sept of his own.
It was needful that they—my two brothers and sister—were protected from his wrath.
The First Dragon knew I could stand against Kashi, while they could not.
” His gaze dropped to the grass, regret swamping him just as it had for every day of the last sixteen hundred years.
“He was proven wrong when I went to help my sister, not knowing that Kashi had lured me away in order to destroy my sept. It’s why I will not allow the same to happen again. ”
“You think Bael is behind this Xavier dude attacking Aisling and Drake’s sept?” she asked, but he was pleased when she scooted over until her hip was pressed against him, one hand now rubbing his back in an obvious attempt to drive him to the very limits of sexual need.
“No, I meant that I will not abandon your protection by being diverted to ending the threat of Xa—” He stopped, her words penetrating the miasma of guilt that rose with his explanation of the past.
“What is it?” she asked softly, her breath brushing his ear in a manner that had him instantly hard and wishing that they were in her bedroom with the massive bed. “Do you see Candy and Andy?”
“No. It’s what you said.” He was silent for a moment. “I hadn’t considered that Kashi may be behind the distraction of Xavier, but you may have seen through the deception my brother always wrapped around his actions. For what purpose would he do so?”
“Obviously, he knows you’re back, and he’s being a jerkwad,” Becket answered.
Yrian’s mind was still dealing with the new idea regarding Kashi. “The green wyvern said his guards were arriving to help protect you. Would you be able to make six or seven glamours quickly?”
She looked curious, but rather than asking why, she thought for a few seconds, glanced around, then turned her body toward him, leaning against his shoulder as if she was cuddling.
But hidden by their bodies, her hands started weaving in the air, little glints of light flashing briefly as the energy she used was formed into glamours.
It took her only five minutes before she sat back, a small stack of the flattened disks that were glamours on her lap before she handed them to him.
Her phone device chimed a bell at her just as she did so.
“I hope these help. I’ve got to run and get dressed.
Our set is in forty minutes—are you going to watch? ”
He dragged his mind from the dark thoughts concerning what Kashi could possibly want with the dragon Xavier, and instead rose when Becket got to her feet, feeling a blossom of warmth in his chest at the shy smile she offered.
On impulse, he took her arms, pulled her up to his chest, and kissed her.
She stiffened for a few seconds, then relaxed against him, her lips parting under his, allowing him to dip into the sweetness of her mouth.
His mind was flooded with need, want, desire, a smidgen of guilt, and a whole lot of lust. He tried to remember the last time he had even thought about having sexual congress, and realized he hadn’t .
.. not since Amice had turned against him.
She had been everything to him at the time, and even though her betrayal of him and the sept was a deep scar on his soul, he remembered the time when she held his heart.
And now here was Becket, her body deliciously soft against his, fitting into him in a way that did much to assuage the ever-present guilt.
“Holy cheese on toast,” she said when she managed to pry her mouth from his.
She panted, her eyes misty with emotion, and for a few seconds, he saw past her glamour to her true self.
Her freckled cheeks glowed with a blush, her pale-blue eyes sparkling like topazes in clear water, her breasts heaving in a manner that had him almost to the limits of his control.
“For someone who has been alone for sixteen hundred years, you sure as hell know how to kiss.”
“You are very good at it, too,” he said, feeling it only right to acknowledge her part in the proceedings. “I particularly enjoyed that wiggle you gave against my rod. Do you wish to engage in bedsport?”
She stepped back out of his arms, his body singing a dirge over that fact.
“Can I just say that I love the fact that you are such a fascinating mix of a modern man with a fine appreciation of cat videos, and someone who was around several thousand years ago. I assume bedsport is sex? If so, then of course I want to go to bed with you. Just look at you! You’re gorgeous!
Your eyes damn near glow, they’re so golden.
Your hair makes my knees weak, especially that white swash, and the rest of you is downright droolworthy.
But as I said earlier, I’m not the jump into bed with the first handsome dragon I meet sort of girl, so although right now I can’t think of anything more I’d like to do than kiss and touch and taste you, I’m not going to.
Maybe later, after we’ve had some time to get to know each other, but not now.
Besides, I really have to go, or Skye will have a hissy fit. I’ll see you after our set, yes?”
“Yes,” he said, flattered by her praise, while at the same time wanting to catalog everything he liked about her. He decided he’d save that for later, when she would be more receptive to such things.
She pressed a finger to his lips, her eyes sparkling at him under the setting sun; then she was off.
It took him a good ten minutes to will his erection to a state more conducive to comfort, at which point he handed over the glamours to one of the patrolling Dark Ones with instructions to give them to the dragonkin, then wandered over to a food tent where he purchased and consumed three cinnamon pastries before returning for a fourth, which he carefully wrapped in a napkin and placed in a pocket for Becket.
He was considering a stall that sold brightly colored dresses and skirts, trying to remember how much of the money that Baltic had given him he had remaining, when Gabriel approached. He looked different, but once he was near, Yrian could feel the nature of the dragon beneath the glamour.
“Is something wrong?” Gabriel asked, his now dark eyes wary as his gaze skittered along the streams of people; some were just arriving, while others took advantage of the break to utilize the toilets and various food stalls.
“That is an odd question. In what way is something wrong?” Yrian asked, studying the wyvern.
He’d learned how the black sept had been sheared in two by the once-mad Constantine, and that the silver dragons were, until recently, the youngest of the kin, but there was something about Gabriel that had him feeling the silver dragons were lucky in their wyvern.
“For one, you sent glamours in for us with the instructions to put them on before we left the castle. Is there someone you feel we need to hide from? The two wrath demons?” Gabriel answered slowly, his gaze still moving amongst the mortals.
Yrian noticed the green and blue dragons were no longer visible.
“I have not seen or felt the wrath demons, but there are blue and green dragons here,” he answered.
“Drake’s guards, yes ... although blue dragons?
Bastian didn’t mention having tribe members in the area.
” Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, still obviously searching the masses of people thronging past them.
“Something is definitely off. I’m prickly, like the air is full of static.
Since you are the Firstborn, I thought you might feel it, too.
Is that why you have us wearing glamours? ”
“Your mother is a shaman?” he asked, having a vague memory of his youngest brother explaining who were the current wyverns.
“Yes.” Gabriel’s back twitched, a gesture that had Yrian feeling oddly disconcerted. He didn’t feel the static mentioned, but now he was feeling a bit edgy.
“That is a form of earth elemental. My mother is a fire fury. They are not in tune with any element but their own, and thus, I do not have the awareness of the environment that your shaman mother gave to you. However, it is almost time for Becket to perform. I will ensure the others pose her no harm.”
Gabriel looked confused when Yrian caught the echo of the announcer mentioning the next set and hurried off to the stage area.
“What others?” Gabriel called after him, but he didn’t wait to explain. It was far more important that Becket be protected.