Chapter 14
Fern
If only the ladies back home could see me now.
Lance stared down at me, his lips twitching into a smile.
Days ago I’d hoped to be engaged, but it felt like something far better, far grander was in progress and that all I needed to do was step forward and let destiny take its course.
We did that right now as we approached the doorway that led out to a massive open-air courtyard beyond the keep walls.
“The dragons are attending to feast as well?” I asked, scanning the area. It wasn’t the numerous tables and chairs that caught my attention, but the dragons stationed at the edges. Auren was easy to find, a bright note of gold in amongst all the other jewelled colours.
Viridian’s rider found you again? she asked, her tone arch. That is no surprise. That male wants to mate you.
What?
I glanced up at Lance involuntarily, my eyes wide.
Viridian and his rider are determined to make us their mates, Auren continued. He imagines that he needs to protect me from the silver dragons’ predations, she replied. The concern is sweet, if misplaced.
Just because Viridian wants to mate with you, I said, does not mean that Lance feels the same way. Humans are different to dragons.
So standing outside your room, imagining himself in your bath, smoothing his hands over your body as he cleans you is not a human mating urge? Auren replied. Strange.
He—
“Lance!” Before I could continue the conversation and interrogate my dragon on exactly what she knew, a rider wearing an officer’s insignia got to his feet and waved Lance over. “Come and sit with us.”
This was the moment he pulled free of me, left me to me to Sparrow’s tender care.
Lance was obviously well known at the keep and would have many people he’d prefer to be dining with.
My hand moved, ready to slide free of his arm, but his grabbed at my wrist, then gently set it back where it was.
I blinked as his smile widened, right before he turned to the officer.
“Why the hell would I sit down to eat with you lot, when I could be dining with two beautiful ladies?”
“Beautiful ladies?” Sparrow said what I was thinking, but her impish smile made clear she was far more comfortable with the idea. “Oh, he’s smooth, this one. How about this table then, noble rider?”
She went to pull a chair out, but Lance got there before her.
“Allow me.”
He tucked Sparrow’s chair underneath her, then moved around the table, holding out one for me.
I knew what to do, having been schooled on dining room etiquette by Mother, but this felt different somehow.
Rehearsing the movement with my sister or my mother didn’t have my whole body stiffening, a curious mixture of anticipation and excitement coursing through me.
My eyes didn’t drop to my plate as I felt the backs of his hands graze my arms, there and gone again.
I didn’t feel the absence of their touch ever.
Definitely wants to mate with you, Auren insisted. He’s taking far too long to tend to your chair, staring down at your hair. He wants to pull the pins free and—
Auren.
My cheeks were flushing bright red, declaring to one and all what I was feeling, and even I knew that was unacceptable.
I blinked and forced myself to take one long breath, then another in a vain attempt to slow my frantically beating heart.
Was my dragon reading the gallant rider’s mind?
That’s what they did, wasn’t it, so what she said had to be true?
My mind strove to answer me, reminding me of the spot on my neck, the curl of hair Lance had pushed back, and it felt like I could feel the ghost of that touch keenly.
When I finally dared to look up, Sparrow’s eyes danced, following Lance as he pulled away and then took his own seat, but she wasn’t the only one grinning.
A harsh tinkle of laughter had the three of us looking across the floor to where Seraphina sat with her two friends.
Apparently, she found something terribly amusing, throwing her head back and laughing with a kind of abandon I frankly envied. At me, it became clear, as she shot me a vicious look over her shoulder. Her eyes took me in with the same slowness Lance had, though considerably less kindly.
That one thinks far too much of herself, Auren observed and I was grateful for the excuse to meet my dragon’s eyes across the floor, not the woman’s.
She won’t find a queen to bond with. The poison inside her?
No dragon would want to bind themselves to that.
Her wings ruffled. I feel the need to take a dip in the sea after a brief look at her mind.
My dragon’s disgusted tone had me snorting in amusement and even though I tried to stifle my smile, Seraphina saw it. Those bright red lips thinned down into a straight line as her eyes narrowed.
“Fern?”
My head whipped around to see Lance looking at me expectantly.
“Sorry, did you say something?”
He smiled as he twisted his hand, drawing my attention to the bottle he was holding.
“Did you want some wine?”
“Please.”
I sighed that out, watching him pour the golden liquid into the flute, then took a sip before nodding gratefully. Lance’s smile faded as he watched the process with undue interest, and that had me setting the flute down abruptly.
“Is the wine to your taste, milady?” Did his voice deepen, developing a growly edge? “If not, I can talk to the kitchens and see if they can find a better vintage.”
Sparrow’s eyes widened, fairly sparkling as she looked over the rim of her glass at me, fighting back a grin.
“The wine is excellent.” Why did my cheeks flush bright red as I said that? Perhaps because Lance looked like he was hanging on my every word. “So I’ve never been to anything as grand as a feast at the royal keep. How does the night typically proceed?”
Before Lance could reply, Sparrow sat forward, wine glass dangling from her fingers as she placed her elbows on the table.
“That’s a question I can answer,” she said. “Worked in the kitchens every feast since I was twelve.” With a lean backwards, she intercepted a serving woman toting several silver trays of little morsels of food. “Maggie, are those Mum’s cheese puffs?” she asked.
“You know they are,” the woman replied, looking around, then sliding the platter onto the table. “Fresh from the oven too, so tuck in, but don’t fill up on them. Not when there’s whole lambs roasting on the spit.”
“And honey carrots…” Sparrow groaned, popping a cheese puff into her mouth and sighing.
Having taste tested the food, she pushed the platter our way.
“And crunchy roast potatoes. Milk rolls and cauliflower and cheese sauce…” More cheese puffs were tossed in the air and she caught each one in her mouth expertly. “Dinner will be heavenly.”
“I’ll be back to take your orders as soon as the general has given his speech,” Maggie said. “Gotta look after our own.”
She ruffled Sparrow’s hair, pulling away to carry her remaining platters around to other tables.
“Well, if they’re the best, we better give them a try.”
Lance looked at me, nodding the platter, obviously not willing to partake until I had. With a shake of my head, I picked one up and then bit into it.
“Mm…!”
My eyes went wide at the explosion of taste in my mouth.
“See.” Sparrow looked triumphant, shifting a pile of cheese puffs onto her plate. “They use four different cheeses in the mix. The salty, the creamy and some created up in the hills where a lot of wild garlic grows. It flavours the milk and makes them so good.”
But Lance wasn’t listening to Sparrow discuss the various ingredients that went into the cheese puffs. Instead, he stared fixedly at my mouth, forcing me to grab my napkin and dab at my lips, lest I’d smeared grease across them.
That’s not what he’s focussed on, Auren informed me. His appetite cannot be satisfied by food alone. He’s imagining using his mouth in a way that seems very strange. Are human mating habits—
That’s enough, Auren, I shot back, my cheeks now flaming red.
For just a second I got a blurry glimpse at what she had gleaned from the rider’s mind and it did not seem to fit with any of the information we girls were given about fulfilling our wifely duties.
I wondered if Viridian was ferrying similar information to Lance because his lips parted, his brows twitching as he stared right into my eyes.
“Well, at that endorsement.” His voice was low and rumbly as I forced my focus down to the table, just in time to see those long, strong fingers pluck a puff from the platter. “I better try them myself,” Lance said.
Are all human women so coy about such things? my dragon asked. Viridian has made clear what he thinks he has to offer if I rise to mate, as has…
When her voice trailed away, I turned my head her way.
So did the rest of the hall, it appeared.
Three silver dragons landed one after the other, forcing the others around the perimeter of the courtyard to shuffle back and grant them space.
There were some huffs, some disgruntled grumbles and flaps of wings, but soon they were settled.
Staring across the flagstones, each beast was focussed entirely on the gold dragon.
Her neck arched imperiously, making Auren look every inch a queen.
My own back followed the same motion instinctively.
Perhaps because at that moment, the three strangers appeared in the doorway.
Swaggering across the flagstones, still dressed in their original armour, they had every eye upon them, but it wasn’t due to their clothing.
Like my dragon, it was their posture, the way they carried themselves that had all conversation dying away as people turned to stare.
Not one look was spared for their audience.
They strode past table after table, until they came to a stop at the one that was right across from mine.
Two cadets were glanced at briefly, Kael jerking his thumb.
Without a word, the cadets relocated, scurrying off to find a seat elsewhere as the three of them drew their chairs up into a line, sitting down to face me.
“What are those bastards playing at…?” Lance muttered and I wish I could answer him. Lorien put his elbows onto the table and shot a smile my way, red spots forming in the cheeks of the white haired one, but it was Kael who caught my attention.
That one… Auren said as his lips curved, his eyes glittering with a dangerous light as he looked me up and down. He wants—
I think I know exactly what he wants, I replied primly, then turned my attention to Sparrow.