Chapter 17
Kael
“Dance with you?” she said. I felt Fern pull against my grip and gods help me, I couldn’t help but hold her tighter.
Only an act of will stopped my fingers digging deep into her wrists, leaving their imprint on her bones.
Something about her awakened something hungry, grasping in me, and it had my teeth grinding together even as I grinned down at her. “I’d rather die.”
“No chance of that happening, little bird.” I let go of one hand and spun her around. The way she moved, the wide legs of her pants flaring out as she twirled, I couldn’t understand how she didn’t feel it. We would be so perfect together. “Nothing and no one will harm you while I draw breath.”
“Except for you.” Her feet came to an abrupt stop, her arm straining as she stood as far away from me as my grip would allow. “First, you grab me like a sack of potatoes in front of every single person in the keep.”
I frowned at that. Did I hurt her? I sent a query to Slate, asking him to probe her mind and see if this was the case.
Just her pride, he assured me.
“And now what?” She glanced at the dance floor and that’s when I saw my in. There was longing there, mixed up with irritation. “You want to stomp all over my feet as well as my personal boundaries?”
I shouldn’t want that. My birth was the consequence of a man ignoring a woman when she said no, but perhaps there was more of my father in me than I had hoped.
“I want to take you out onto that dance floor.” With a step closer, I released the tension in our arms. Fern didn’t pull away, which gave me hope.
Just stared up at me with those big blue eyes, fear and anger strange bedfellows within them.
“Don’t know how you don’t have a line of men fighting to ask you to dance…
” That flinch, it told me a lot, but I wasn’t sure what.
The urge to instruct Slate to dig deeper rode me hard, but I wanted to discover my girl’s secrets for myself.
“But in my experience, men are the stronger sex, but not the smarter one.”
With a spin of my arm, she was curled back against me and as I looked down, I watched her breathing pick up.
Interesting. It seemed she wasn’t as repelled by me as she made out.
Of course, that was the moment that damn lieutenant had to interrupt again.
A muffled shout had us both turning around to see him slamming his glass down on the bar and then march over, hand on his sword hilt.
“One dance?” Fern was bargaining with me, which was a step up from open hostility. I grinned as I put two and two together. If trying to keep the lieutenant from raging at me was what got her on the dance floor, I’d take it. “One dance and you’ll leave me be after that?”
“If you can bring yourself to walk away from me after a dance, know that I’ll let you go,” I replied.
Make Fern understand her place was with me, us, that was my new directive.
“Fine,” she ground out, making a move to pull away, but I was never going to surrender my hold on her, not until the dance was done, so we walked over to the dance floor, my arm around her waist. The way she felt, tucked up against my body, it had my senses going into a riot.
Small, soft, yielding. I didn’t have enough experience to say what sex would be like, but my mind was starting to fill in the blanks.
As we passed the lieutenant, I shot him a rakish smile as we took our place amongst the other dancers.
Now I had to work out how the hell highborns danced and try not to embarrass myself in front of the one woman that mattered.
The first few notes of the violin had me grinning, because they were playing a waltz I knew well.
One hand took hers, holding it up as the other slid down, wanting to cup that soft peach of an arse, but she spluttered in protest. My hand was dragged up to settle on her waist, and that was fine by me.
“Try not to grope me in front of the entire keep,” she hissed.
“Save that for later then?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Got it.”
“No, you—”
Fern had a lot of things to say, I just knew it, but the song had begun and it was time to start moving.
It made sense that she would fight me. Her grip on my hand was tight, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as if she was biting back her commentary.
I felt it though, with some instinct I didn’t understand.
That if Fern just let out a breath, her body would soften into mine and I’d have her swirling around the floor in effortless circles.
Instead, my boots stamped down on the hem of her pants, forcing her to stumble.
“Gods, if this is your idea of wooing a woman,” she hissed, “I’d hate to see what you do to one you dislike.”
“So you admit that this is all part of our courtship?” I said, finding my feet and correcting our course.
“I admit nothing except that I suspect I’ll be forced to ice bruised toes by the end of this dance.”
“Not if you stop fighting me.” Her eyes snapped up to stare into mine, her mouth a mutinous line. “And stop getting so angry. Your eyes shine like sapphires… No, something harder, brighter. Makes me want to piss you off more just to see the colour in your cheeks.”
I watched her brows crease, some of the heat going from her expression. Replaced by wonder, I realised.
“I can’t be the first to tell you that.” She just stared, all the fight going out of her body.
Finally, I could move us smoothly, swiftly around the dance floor.
The swirl of the waltz had my head spinning, or was it just Fern?
“Has no one ever told you how beautiful you are?” Her lips thinned, then relaxed again, her tongue flicking over the bottom lip, and I followed its path obsessively.
“Men are stupid creatures, that I know, but so dumb they let your beauty go unremarked? Don’t worry, little bird, I’ll make up for their lack. ”
“If this is some kind of cruel joke,” she growled and it was then I saw why a queen dragon chose Fern to become her rider. Her spine snapped straight and finally, she held herself like a queen. “You need to find another form of sport.”
“You think I’m joking?” I didn’t stumble when I stomped on her pants, but I nearly did then.
“People say a lot about me, but being of good humour isn’t one of them.
” The hand at her waist slid to her spine, rubbing small circles at its base.
What would it be like to do so, skin to skin?
I needed to know. “There is no subterfuge in me.”
With a press on her hips, her body shifted closer to mine and even though those voluminous pants, she had to feel me.
“Destiny has laid its hand on me only twice. The first when I found my dragon, the second.” I tilted my head, leaning down.
“When I saw you. Every fibre of my being knew you were the one woman in the world for me and I thanked the gods themselves for that gift. Men lie all the time, that I know, but our bodies…”
Fern gasped then as my hips rolled against hers, providing evidence to support my assertion. Pretty words meant nothing, but my cock? It strained like a hound on a leash, baying with need for her.
“Mind if I cut in?”
That masculine voice had a snarl rising in my throat and, sure enough, the lieutenant had appeared at Fern’s shoulder. Step away, that was the habitual response, but I fought it.
“You don’t have to go with him,” I said, knowing that we three were standing still on the dance floor as everyone else moved around us. “A man that leaves you wondering about your appeal isn’t worth your time.”
“Lady Fern.”
Lance ignored me entirely, holding out a hand for my girl and if I heard the need in his voice, so did she.
My fingers spasmed as I forced myself to relinquish my grip.
Grab her, my instincts demanded. Hold her tight and never let go, and maybe she’d come to accept that.
A woman isn’t a bag of gold, I reasoned, and my days of scrabbling on the streets of Blackreach were long gone. I stepped back smartly and then bowed.
“Thank you for the dance, Lady Fern. The pleasure was entirely mine.”
I didn’t watch them waltz off. Turning on my heel, marching off the dance floor was the only thing I could focus on right now as my blood began to surge. Lorien and Dain appeared in my path, stopping me in my tracks.
“How the hell did you manage to get our girl to dance with you?” Lorien asked. “And why did you let the lieutenant interrupt?”
I sucked in a breath to answer, but Dain got there before me.
“Because that’s the way that dance floors work, idiot.” He spared Lorien one scathing look before focussing back on me. “Men cut in to get close to a woman. She’s the one who decides whether he’s successful or not.”
“If that’s the way it works.” Lorien flexed his fingers, then rolled his shoulders. “I’ll go and interrupt the bastard…”
But as he spoke the song came to an end and we all turned to face the dance floor in time to see Fern bow to the lieutenant. They talked for a moment, then he offered her his arm, escorting her from the courtyard.
“He’s walking Fern home?” Lorien slapped my shoulder. “Seems like we should chaperone that. Wouldn’t want an officer taking liberties.”
“No.” We all turned when Dain spoke and he just shook his head as he watched them leave. “You know Lance isn’t going to hurt her. Horning in on that will just piss her off more than we already have. I’m for bed and you should be too.”
“You head for the dorm,” I instructed Lorien. “I’ll make sure our girl gets home in one piece.”
He grinned at me, teeth glittering in the moonlight.
“Let me know how that goes.”
Dain was already walking off, so Lorien was left to scramble to catch up with his long strides. I followed at a more sedate pace because, despite the surge of my heart, I needed to size this officer up and see what we were up against.
I found out as I reached her room.
A couple of coppers slipped to a chambermaid, and I’d found out where Fern was rooming. I’d traced the route on the map and memorised the path.
“Thank you for the dance tonight, Lady Fern.”
Pressing myself against the wall, I peered around the corner.
Watching him lean closer to my girl had something dark and terrible rising in my heart.
It demanded that I stride forward, shove him away from Fern and clasp her to my body, but I didn’t need to do any of that.
He kept a respectful distance, placing a kiss on her knuckles that lingered long enough to have my teeth grinding together.
Before I could act, he pulled away with a bow and then turned on his heel, marching away.
Leaving me to slip from my hiding spot and stroll over.
“He didn’t even try to kiss you?” Fern’s brows drew down as she caught sight of me. “Pretty sure you let the wrong man walk you home.”
My hand slapped down on the wall above her head. Watching those pupils expand as she stared up at me satisfied something deep inside me. Her lips parted, and that had my thumb pressing down on the bottom one, wanting, needing to feel the softness of it.
“If you’d have stuck with me, I’d have kissed you breathless, sucking down every gasp, every moan before going back for more.”
That seemed to wake her up from whatever spell she was under. Her head jerked back, and she knocked my hand away.
“What about every groan of revulsion?”
“You think you wouldn’t enjoy it?” I leaned in, that mouth of hers getting closer by the second. “Only one way for us to find out, and that’s with a practical experiment.” The sound of her rapid breaths was music to my ears. “A few tests and then we can evaluate the results.”
Fern would taste so sweet, somehow I knew. My mouth watered for her in a way that all the fancy foods in the world couldn’t replicate. Her hands went to my chest, but rather than shove me away, they smoothed over the wall of it and I barely suppressed a growl of satisfaction.
“What do you say, little bird? Care to find out which one of us has the right of it?”
“Fern?”
My eyes closed, but not because my mouth had landed on my girl’s.
It was to bite back a curse as yet another person interrupted us.
Not the lieutenant this time, the voice was decidedly feminine and as I pulled away, I saw the blonde-haired woman that had been standing by Fern.
She blinked at the sight of us and, without being told, I knew the moment was gone.
With a snap, I pushed myself away from the wall and my girl.
“To be continued, little bird.”
I winked and then walked away while I still had the will, keeping on going until I made it back to the dorm.
“How’d it go?” Lorien was bouncing off the bed and walking over the minute I made it into the dorm. Dain’s back was all I saw of our brother, the blankets pulled tight around him. “Did you kiss her? Was it amazing?”
“I didn’t.” Dain’s body shifted slightly, making me wonder if he was actually sleeping.
Lorien’s face fell as I forged on. “But neither did the lieutenant. Too busy being a gentleman or some bullshit, but…” With a shake of my head, I tried to process what I’d discovered.
“When I made clear how beautiful I found the Lady Fern, she seemed to think it was some kind of cruel joke.”
“Joke? If she walked through the tavern on payday.” Lorien frowned. “She’d have men falling all over themselves ready to spend their earnings just to see her smile.”
“Lordlings like their women as small as possible.” The blanket was pulled down and Dain rolled over to face us.
“Whatever it takes to make the men feel bigger, stronger than their females, of everyone around them. Highborn women get an education, are taught to become accomplished in the arts and literature. Making sure they are focussed on every morsel that goes into their mouth helps stifle any thought of demanding a share of the family estates.”
“So the toffs wouldn’t know a beautiful woman if she sauntered over and sat her plump arse in his lap?” I grinned. “Seemed that’s a service we can perform for our girl. Being married off to some idiot that doesn’t even appreciate her or…”
Being shared between three men who’d burn the world down just to see her smile.
Now you understand, Slate said as I pulled my armour off. Auren and her bondmate belong to us. We just have to prove that to them.