23. Ask Me Anything
~ GRACE ~
The three days that followed were the most exhausting of my life.
Voski was less angry, and obviously trying to teach me. But he held himself so tight that I felt his tension like a weight on my shoulders.
And the few moments he wasn’t wound up like a lyre-string, I’d catch his gaze on me, and those sparks in my blood that had appeared when Koa was in heat, would spring to life and start a fire behind my navel.
Voski always tore his gaze away when I caught him. But he held himself on such a short leash, I worried he might actually explode.
Then again, we were both exhausted. The travel was never ending. We didn’t keep a schedule—we flew until our bodies needed to get off dragonback. We ate and rested, then immediately flew again. Morning. Night. Afternoon. None of it mattered.
And even though my body complained, I loved flying. Couldn’t wait until I could mount Koa on my own and we could fly together, without his heat burning at my back.
But that thought made me cold, too.
By the end of the fourth day since leaving Fyrehold, I was so tired, I didn’t have the energy to care if he wanted me, hated me, or planned to kill me. I stumbled through every instruction, ate what he placed in my hands. Slept the moment I could lie down. And then started the whole process again.
How Voski did it all, and slept less, I didn’t know.
Every time we stopped, the moment we’d eaten, I rolled into my cloak, or the crook of Koa’s leg. Yet, while my eyes dragged closed the moment I stopped moving, he left the fire to spend time with his dragon.
I asked Koa about it the second day.
‘Are we supposed to do as they do and talk at this time?’
‘No. Sleep, Firebird. The mate holds burden. Rest. Your body depletes.’
I hated that she could tell that, but I knew it was true. I’d tucked myself into the crook of her leg, while she laid her wing over me to keep the warmth in, and promptly fell asleep before I could finish the thought that I should ask Voski if he needed help.
That evening—because we’d slept during the day—I was woken by Koa and when she lifted her wing, Voski stared down at me from beyond the curl of her leg and tail.
There were dark smudges under his eyes. His hair fell in stringy strands, and his high cheekbones seemed even more hollow than usual.
“Are you losing weight?” I blurted before I’d properly woken up.
He frowned, but didn’t respond. “Go wash and ready. We slept long. We need to get moving.”
I nodded and pushed to my feet, thanking Koa for keeping me warm in the dark shadows here, and stumbled off to relieve my body, and use the little creek to wash my face and hands, and the back of my neck.
The moment I returned, Voski put himself at Kham’s side, fingers laced to help boost me up the mounting strap.
We didn’t even speak.
I took a deep breath and prayed my strength would hold out long enough to get to Kham’s back.
When I lost my grip halfway up, it didn’t matter, because Voski was directly behind me.
He caught my weight and steadied me until I could find my grip and start climbing again.
Then, with quiet, calm instructions, showed me how to lean out against him, bracing both feet on Kham’s shoulder, to give my arms a rest for a moment.
Then he used his hand as a seat to push me up onto his dragon’s withers.
When I straddled Kham’s back, arms trembling and heart pounding, Voski hauled himself up behind me, barely breathing quickly.
That moment when he hooked an arm around me to grasp the strap on the other side, pinning me as he used it to heave himself into place never failed to make my chest flutter.
But even though I watched him, he never looked at me. And when Kham started moving, we had to focus on the launch.
I knew I was weak when Kham took one slightly jarring step just before that powerful down-flap to get airborne.
I squawked and yanked up on the neck strap as they’d had taught me, but my weight had shifted in the bounce, and I started sliding off sideways.
Voski, unflustered, hooked an arm around my waist and stopped my inexorable slide.
But the sheer force needed to keep Kham pushing away from the earth and into the sky meant it was everything I could do to merely cling on.
I couldn’t pull myself back up to my seat against the fierce pull of gravity and the dragon’s bulk pushing up underneath me.
I dangled off his neck. At any moment I might topple, and I was terrified I wouldn’t have the strength to remount in the air.
I gasped and clung, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.” Voski had leaned forward, curling his arm around me, his jaw brushing my ear as I sank to the side. “Once he’s leveled out, I’ll get you back up. Just breathe.”
The words were reassuring, and delivered in a low gravel that made goosebumps prickle under my ear and down my back.
I was always aware of him, but keenly aware when he touched me. And for those minutes while we waited for Kham to climb, he held me. The flames in my blood that had been so demanding during Koa’s heat, flickered to life again.
My cheeks heated and I started to sweat.
Voski’s breathing grew heavier, fluttering in my hair and across my cheek. The pebbling on my skin increased.
When Kham finally leveled out, Voski did help me back up to my secure seat without a fuss. But by then, my cheeks were beet red, my chest pounded, and my hands shook not just with weariness but with want?
What was wrong with me?
It was a stupid question. I knew precisely what was wrong. I wanted what Koa had with Kham. And I wanted it with Voski. I loved his dark good looks. His subversive humor. His skill. It seemed nothing could come against me that he wouldn’t simply defeat.
But Voski didn’t want me. And while that wasn’t shocking, it hurt.
Why did men never want me? I wasn’t ugly. I wasn’t petty. I tried not to be demanding. I was willing to listen to their stories and commend their strength.
What was it about me that they preferred solitude, to my company?
His words about my words, swam back to mind. You speak far too much, far too often.
And even though I told myself we didn’t know each other, that I had no claim on him, it made my stomach sink every time he turned from me.
I would gladly have spent every waking hour speaking with him. Listening. Hearing his stories, learning from him. I would have sat through dinner parties, or cleaning stables—anything. It hollowed me out that he couldn’t even stand to fly with me.
Because my body responded to every touch. Yet he, apparently, recoiled. I’d felt his arousal during Koa’s heat—and twice while we flew. But, when it happened he made Kham land, and fled away from me as quickly as he could, his face painted in disgust.
My cheeks blazed with shame.
The few moments he seemed to forget whatever made him so angry, even a flicker of his smile made my heart beat faster.
When he forgot to hate me, and focused on teaching me, preparing me, I deeply admired his skill and knowledge—and willingness to share it.
It was clear he was a gifted teacher and leader.
I had no doubt that other men listened to him—he carried himself in that quiet, certain way some men had, that made other men walk smaller near them.
I recognized that. I liked it.
If he hadn’t been so angry, I couldn’t think of any hands I would have felt safer within.
His body a wall behind which to defend myself.
Because if I’d learned anything in my almost twenty-four years, it was how to evaluate people.
And I knew that even in a room full of nobles, Voski wouldn’t waver.
And, whether he knew it or not, even the powerful among them would notice him.
I knew, because I did.
There was something darkly dangerous—and yet, keenly intelligent—about him. A presence that couldn’t be ignored. Not even by other men.
And then it occurred to me. “Do you prefer men?”
The words popped out of my mouth before I could shovel them back. I clapped a hand over my mouth, but I was too late. He’d heard me.
I felt his body tense. “What?!”
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t… I didn’t mean—”
“What are you asking me?” he sounded shocked.
I dropped my head, wishing I had fallen off after all. At least then I would have kept my mouth closed. “I meant nothing by it—”
“I think you meant a great deal.”
“I wasn’t… that is, there was a man among our servants. He was always very kind to me. But he could be cold. I learned… I’m only—”
“No, Grace,” he growled. “I do not prefer men.”
“I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t offend me, you shocked me. What is a young woman of your station doing, even knowing such things?”
I bristled. “I am twenty-three years old. I am not a na?ve child.”
He huffed. “You certainly aren’t if you’re asking questions like that. Dear God. Trust me, you need to keep those questions to yourself when we reach the Keep. There are Furyknights who prefer men. But that is none of your business. As a woman, especially a noble, it’s not appropriate to ask.”
I frowned. “I don’t make a habit of asking men such things! It was only—” then I snapped my teeth closed before I regretted more words.
But Voski chuckled. “Oh no, you don’t get to stop talking now. You tell me what thoughts were churning in that pretty mind of yours for that to be what came out.”
“Nothing. I meant nothing.”
“Grace—”
“It was a thoughtless thing to say, and I’m very sorry. I won’t—”
“—for God’s sake, just tell me. We’re alone here. I won’t judge. Do you prefer women?”
“No!”
He shrugged easily. “If you do, your dragon will know. You shouldn’t try to hide it. It’s much easier to live your life from a place of truth than—”
“I do not prefer women! I only wondered why you find me so repulsive! For a moment I simply hoped it might not be about me!”
He went quiet. Just sat there behind me, which was worse than anger. I was stiff and mortified, his arms around me, waiting for his words to fall on my head, each reason he didn’t like me tossed like a brick, to bruise and wound.