Chapter 10 Rurik #3
“Dance with me.” I hold out my hand. “I don’t know the steps, but I’m a fast learner.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she laughs—bright and surprised and real—and takes my hand.
“You’re going to be terrible at this.”
“Probably. Teach me anyway.”
She teaches me. I’m terrible. She laughs the entire time, guiding my feet through patterns I keep forgetting, catching me when I stumble.
“Left foot. Left foot. Rurik, that’s your right—“
“All feet look the same from up here.”
“That’s not how anatomy works.”
“I’m a dragon. Dragon anatomy is different.”
She snorts. “Dragon anatomy has nothing to do with—you know what, never mind. Just follow me.”
I follow her. Badly. But she’s laughing and I’m laughing and somewhere in the middle of it all, dancing becomes an excuse to hold her close.
The music ends. We’re both breathing hard. She’s still in my arms.
“That was terrible,” she says.
“The worst.”
“You stepped on my foot at least twelve times.”
“I lost count at eight.”
She grins up at me. “Same time tomorrow?”
“You want to do this again?”
“I want to see if you can actually learn.” Her fingers tighten on my shoulder. “Besides. It was fun.”
“Fun?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” She’s still smiling, still close, and when she finally pulls away, her hand drags slowly down my arm.
“Goodnight, Rurik.”
“Goodnight, Aisling.”
I stand in the storage room for a long time after she leaves, heart pounding, the ghost of her laughter echoing in my ears.
Progress, the dragon purrs. More tomorrow.
Selene finds us in the corridor outside the library, arguing loudly about whose turn it is.
“You got the last three activities!” I’m holding a piece of parchment above my head, well out of Aisling’s reach.
“Because you kept finding loopholes!” She jumps for the paper, laughing. “Swimming in the lake doesn’t count if you bring a flotation device!”
“The inflatable dragon was for safety!”
“The inflatable dragon was bright pink and shaped like Drayke! He saw it! He had questions!”
“What are you two doing?” Selene’s voice cuts through our chaos, but she’s grinning.
Aisling points at me, still laughing. “Rurik’s trying to kill me with cliff diving and haunted lakes.”
I point at her. “Aisling’s trying to bore me to death with silence and medical textbooks.”
Selene looks between us. Takes in the parchment, the argument, the fact that we’re standing close enough to share breath. Her grin widens.
“You’re ridiculous. Both of you.” She shakes her head. “Drayke asked me why the training yard has scorch marks that smell like lavender. I told him I didn’t want to know.”
“The lavender was therapeutic,” Aisling says.
“The lavender was an accident,” I counter.
“The lavender was definitely intentional and Rurik was the test subject.”
“Voluntary test subject.”
Selene’s laugh echoes off the stone walls. “Whatever you two are doing, keep doing it. I haven’t seen either of you this happy in weeks.”
She disappears down the corridor. Aisling and I look at each other.
“She has a point,” I say.
“She usually does.” Aisling reaches up and plucks the parchment from my hand—I let her, surprised by how close she’s gotten. “My turn. Stargazing.”
“That’s on my list.”
“Then we both win.” She tucks the paper into her pocket. “Meet me on the east ramparts at sunset?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
The grass is cold beneath my back.
We’re lying in the meadow beyond the eastern wall, staring up at a sky dense with stars. The stargazing session has devolved into comfortable silence—my astronomical knowledge was deemed “criminally fictional” after I named a constellation “Steve.”
“That one.” I point at a cluster near the horizon. “That’s the Dragon’s Revenge.”
“No.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“I didn’t need to.” She’s laughing softly, her shoulder pressed warm against mine. “Every constellation you’ve named has been made up.”
“How do you know ancient dragons didn’t name them?”
“Because you called one Bob’s Soup Bowl’ and claimed it was used for navigation to the best feeding grounds.”
“Bob was very hospitable.”
She snorts. Turns her head to look at me. In the starlight, her eyes are dark and warm and full of something I’m afraid to name.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
“The list. The cliff diving. The terrible dancing.” She smiles. “For making me remember that I’m allowed to enjoy things. That surviving isn’t the same as living.”
“You were always more than what happened to you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” I turn onto my side, propping my head on my hand. She mirrors the position, and suddenly we’re facing each other, close enough that I can count her freckles in the moonlight. “From the moment I saw you—terrified and furious and refusing to break—you were already more.”
Her breath catches. She doesn’t look away.
“Rurik.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think you’re terrible.” The corner of her mouth curves. “For the record.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” I reach out, brush a strand of hair from her face. She leans into the touch, just slightly. “Way too late.”
She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t tense. Just watches me with those green eyes, something warm and wanting flickering in their depths.
Then she leans forward and presses her lips to my cheek—not brief, not fleeting, but warm and deliberate. Lingering.
When she pulls back, she’s smiling. Soft and open and nothing like the guarded woman who arrived at this fortress.
“Same time tomorrow?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
We walk back together, shoulders bumping, hands brushing. At the door to her quarters, she pauses.
“Rurik?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time—“ She bites her lip, then grins. “Next time, I get to make up the constellation names. And they’re all going to be anatomically accurate.”
“That sounds deeply unsexy.”
“That’s the point.” She laughs. “Goodnight, Rurik.”
“Goodnight, Aisling.”
She slips inside. I stand in the corridor for a long time, hand pressed to my cheek where her lips touched my skin.
The dragon purrs with satisfaction. More tomorrow.
For once, I agree with it.