Chapter 10
Kael
My dragon, Slate, had made clear to me when we reached maturity that there would only be one woman, one female dragon, for the six of us.
The way my mother had been treated was enough to keep me out of whorehouses and the arms of amorous barmaids.
The fact he would not tolerate any female within ten feet of any of us helped consolidate that decision.
So the minute I stepped into the hall of the bloody keep, it felt like destiny’s hand was on my back, propelling my feet forward.
Towards her.
Gods, how could a woman be so damn beautiful?
Too pale, eyes too wide, I registered that she was scared.
Trying to ignore the way that magnificent bosom heaved, my eyes found hers.
Blue as the sky we ride, blue as the ocean, I’d drown in them willingly.
My feet took the steps two at a time, needing to get closer to her.
“Kael…” Dain growled. When he put a hand on my shoulder, I shook him off. He had to know what this was more than any of us. His visions of the future, they had to begin and end with her, because I knew mine did. “We need—”
“Her,” I said, moving quicker, leaving my brothers to keep up or be left behind, because Slate showed me what was happening with him.
The woman’s queen dragon was defiant. My lips twitched at that, knowing the fight would just make the surrender sweeter when it came.
Hopefully soon, because all of a sudden, my body fucking ached for her.
Maybe that’s why I pushed past the people clogging the stairs, ignoring the woman at my girl’s side.
Grab her, some impulse beat hard in my chest. Take her! Make her yours!
That’s why my hands clapped down on her arms. “There you are.” I couldn’t keep the reverence out of my voice, didn’t want to. “Woman, you belong to us.”
Glorying in the feel of how soft she was beneath my fingers, I tugged her close, her gasp every thing I didn’t know I needed.
Towering over her, that body of hers was pressed against mine, and I damn near lost control right there.
My hand rose, my focus entirely on a strand of light brown hair that fell over her face.
Lips parting, it was as if she was opening herself to me already.
“So this is our woman?” Lorien appeared beside me, looking the girl up and down. “Well, the gods have been kind to us.” His leering look had me gritting my teeth. “Because what a woman she is.”
“Excuse me?” Her hands went to my chest, trying to shove me, but that just had my muscles locking tight. I wasn’t going anywhere, not unless I wanted to. “You must have me mistaken for someone else.”
“No mistake.”
Dain took the words out of my mouth, but he said them in a hollow, desolate way I never would’ve used.
“You must be…” She struggled against me, which just had my grin widening. The girl’s dragon was putting up a similar fight, though with considerably more noise. “Because I have no idea who the hell you three are.”
“Kael.” When I pointed to my chest, she pulled free. The colour was back in her cheeks and her eyes flashed like polished sapphires. “This idiot is Lorien.”
“Milady…” He swept a bow on automatic, then shot me a dark look when he realised what I’d said.
“Dain.” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the last of my brothers. “We’re yours and you—”
I was pulling her right back where she belonged when some other bloke cut me off.
“Get. Your hands. Off the lady.”
For a moment, I thought the stranger was some foppish sort.
The sword he was wielding was fine enough for him to be a lordling.
The way he held it though, perfectly balanced, right before the tip scored a light trail up my throat, forcing my head up so I stared into his eyes.
One eyebrow cocked upwards, making clear what he’d do if I moved, and that had me grinning.
This was no lord’s son.
“Fern, are you all right?”
Then the lad with the sword made his first mistake.
Not pulling a weapon on me. He got the drop on me because mine was still in the scabbard by my side, but drawing my woman into the circle of his free arm, not letting the sword lower for a second.
I growled against the blade, right as Slate roared out his own cry.
“I’m fine,” she replied. My eyes followed the path of her hands as she smoothed down her dress.
Probably because I was imagining the moment when mine would do the same.
Tracing every damn one of those curves? My mouth watered at the thought of it.
Gods, I knew when Slate rose to mate with his queen I’d be thrown into the throes of rut, but I already felt half-mad right now.
I’d never thought to manhandle a woman like this before now, but when I saw Fern…
“This has to be a mistake. These… men have me confused with another woman.”
“No confusion.” Lorien grinned. “You’re ours and we’re—”
“Why the hell have people got swords drawn in my keep?” I knew the sound of authority.
Nobs used to bark in the same tones, just assuming their wishes would be acceded to when me and the boys were living on the streets of Blackreach.
A man with way too much shiny metal on his uniform, as well as some kind of medals, came striding down the stairs.
He took the scene in with one glance. “And since when did we have silver dragons?”
“Ahh, there hasn’t been reference in the archives for many, many hundreds of years,” a neatly dressed man said. “Even then, the accounts were all secondhand.”
“Not now, Christian.” The man with the medals stepped forward. “Lance? Good to see you back here, lad, but you can put the weapon down.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at the lot of us. “Whatever happened here, it’s done with now.”
“Keep the hell away from Fern and I’ll have no reason to draw it,” Lance said, not sparing the other man a second look.
No, his focus was entirely on mine, as my eyes went to his hand. The way he rubbed my girl’s arm had my teeth baring, a snarl forming.
“Sword in scabbard,” the man barked, then stepped between us.
“General Rex of His Majesty’s Royal Riders.
” He thrust out his hand, finally looking into my eyes, and something he saw in them had him faltering.
Pale as milk, the man went, right before his mouth fell open.
“Why the hell do you look like the dead Duke of Harlston?”
There’s a lot the general could’ve said, but that was the only thing to have me taking a step backwards.
Living out in the backwoods with Mum and Barry, people didn’t see it.
They wouldn’t have known the former duke from a hole in the ground, and I liked it that way.
People knew me from my reputation, not the idiot who managed to impregnate my mother.
If the crowd was on tenterhooks during the entire meeting, this was the moment that silence shattered.
The way people stared and started to twitter behind their hands, whispering some bullshit to each other, I’d borne it often enough, but not now.
Standing before the woman I’d spent my life waiting for, I didn’t want that monster mentioned in Fern’s presence.
“Look, your generalship…” More titters, because apparently I wasn’t saying that right.
Like I gave a single fuck. I held my hand out and Dain passed me the decree the rider who’d landed on our property had brought with him, asserting that he had been gifted our land.
“I’m just here to correct a misunderstanding. ”
With a shove, I pressed the paper into the general’s chest, something that got the idiots all excited, but they didn’t get it. They could all bow down before the man’s insignias, but I would never bend a knee to a man who hadn’t proved himself worthy of that honour.
“Someone here sent a dragon rider into our territory, saying our land belonged to him. Correct that and hand over our girl.” Now he had two free hands, Lance was holding Fern against his chest. Couldn’t say I blamed him. I’d be doing the same damn thing given the chance. “And we’ll be on our way.”
“Girl… Land…?” The general looked befuddled and I nearly burst out laughing right there and then. The sound of our dragons’ roars outside had him glancing out the window. “Lady Fern, you’re bound to one of Hadrian’s daughters?”
“Auren.” She tried to smile and failed.
Don’t worry, I told her silently. We’d get her smiling soon enough.
The decree was folded up and tucked under the general’s arm as they crossed his chest.
“So you three thought you’d march in here, demanding a gift of crown land and a lady of noble birth as what, your doxy?”
“Wife,” I snapped, my brows drawing down hard. “I’d never dishonour a woman like that.”
“Trust me when I say that we would never allow any woman of ours make her money on her back,” Lorien growled.
It took a lot to stop him smiling, but this was one of those things. His mother, his sisters, used to be pimped out by the men in his family, the bastards living off their womenfolk’s labour. He’d been forced to leave his home and live on the streets when they thought to do the same with Lorien.
“How reassuring.” The general stepped closer, and while he was an old prick, there was life in the old fox still. “Well, grants of land go to dragon riders who have proven their loyalty to the crown.”
“Need something signed?” I said. “Want us to swear to the king?” My smile was sardonic as I slapped my hand over my heart. “Consider it done.”
“The agreement forged in the embers of the war with the Duke of Harlston…” The fucking name again.
It had every muscle in my body tensing. “Between human and dragonkind is that all humans wishing to bond with a dragon, or having already established one, need to spend a year in the keep, proving that the bond is in the best interests of all parties. It’s either that, or face the collective might of the Royal Riders. ”
Well, well, look at these flyboys getting all cocky. The ones in the uniforms straightened up then, finding their balls. I grinned.
“You want to take on the silver dragons?” Lorien snapped, spoiling for a fight, but I wasn’t gonna play that game.
“You staying here, Fern?” I asked our girl, because while our dragons could lay waste to the entire city and still be fine to fly home for tea, she was what mattered. Every eye turned her way, and she didn’t look none too pleased about it.
“Ahh… yes?”
“It’s all right, Fern.” Lancey boy’s voice was all soft and reassuring. Probably because he was rubbing our girl’s arms like they belonged around him. “I won’t let any harm come to you.”
“Me neither.” I took a step closer and suddenly every uniform had his hand going to the hilt of his sword. My hands went up in the air and I grinned as I adopted an attitude of surrender. “We’ll sign up to become cadets.”
“We will…?” Lorien hissed.
Dain just sighed, his hands raking through his hair.
“As long as no one lays a fucking finger on the girl that belongs to us,” I finished, staring meaningfully at the general. “Call your dog off or—”
“Lance?”
So that was what it was like to wield that kind of power. At the general’s word, Lance stepped away from Fern and looked shocked that he’d obeyed.
“Good lad,” I said, my smile widening as I saw the other man’s expression grow dark.
“You need a sword master?” he said to the general, not me. “Count me in, but you’ll promote me to the rank of officer.”
“Done.” The general nodded. “Now, all cadets need to report to the requisite hall for intake. Cora, take Fern.” When the blonde went to escort our girl past, we turned to follow.
“Lance, I mean Lieutenant Axton, you can take these three cadets to the men’s intake hall.
Everyone else…” He scanned the crowd. “You either find something productive to do or I’ll have someone assign you to latrine duties.
” As people started to move, he turned to the neatly dressed man. “Christian, you’re with me.”
“This way, cadets.”
What Lance was up to was clear. He thought because the general had made him an officer that he could lord that shit over us. Well, he was about to get a rude shock if he thought that was the case.
“What the fuck…?” Dain hissed as we followed Lance down the stairs. “We came here to get our land back.”
“And to win our girl.” My stare matched his in intensity. “Who knows that more than you, brother?”
What we had with Fern, it was destiny, and no one knew the dictates of Lady Fate more than Dain. My brother had the gift of sight, so he had to have seen Fern in his dreams. That lack of communication was something we’d talk long and hard about.
After we signed up to become fucking cadets of the Royal Riders of Nevermere.