44. Aurora
AURORA
As it turned out, the answer to my question was much harder—it was much harder to keep my secret once I moved into the North Wing Leader’s room.
It wasn’t like Ryse suddenly turned predatory—he didn’t. If anything, he gave me more space and privacy than he really had to.
He didn’t say a word when I ducked into the bathroom to take off my clothes and put on my towels before we left for the Cook-pot together.
He didn’t change in front of me, either, so it wasn’t like I suddenly had to see him naked.
Well, unless I wasn’t careful where I looked once we got to the indoor lake.
But once we got there, I went off by myself, as usual, and though Ryse followed me with his eyes, he didn’t say anything or come after me.
I got back to his room—our room now, I supposed—before he did and had time to change into my nightshirt—which I buttoned up to my chin.
When Ryse came back, he was wearing his towel low on his hips and his hair was slicked back, making the dragon scales around his golden eyes even more prominent. Water beaded on his broad chest and bare shoulders, and I had to force myself to look away.
He considerately kept his back to me as he toweled off and then changed into his flight leathers. Once he was dressed, he turned around and looked at me for a long moment, his golden eyes studying my face so intently that I started to blush.
“What are you looking at?” I asked finally. “Did you move me into your room just to stare at me?”
“No, sorry.” He shook his head and looked away. “I’m going flying. I need to clear my head.”
I was a little hurt that he hadn’t asked me if I wanted to come. But we flew together every day during Battlefield Signaling, and I supposed he probably wanted some time alone with M’alex—especially after the Mating Flight the night before.
“All right, have fun,” I said lamely. “Er…can I borrow one of your books?” I nodded at his well-stocked bookshelf, which was in the corner beside his desk.
“Of course—help yourself.”
He seemed to be about to say something else, but then he just nodded and left.
I wandered around his room aimlessly for a while.
I looked in his closet and saw my own small uniforms hanging neatly beside his much larger ones.
He had even arranged our boots side-by-side—his were twice as big as mine.
He had cleared out one of the drawers in his dresser and my underthings were folded and stacked neatly inside.
I didn’t see any sign of the bandages I’d used to bind my breasts though—I wondered where they were.
Maybe he’d assumed they were trash and thrown them away.
I’d had them wadded up and hidden under a stack of shirts back in the dorm.
I couldn’t really ask about them now—it might make him suspicious. I just hoped I never needed them again.
Ryse had brought all my school supplies as well as my clothes. My study materials were stacked on the corner of his desk, beside some ancient, dusty tomes he must have borrowed from the library.
The Times of Ver Feloth, read one cracked spine. Ver Feloth meant “Fire Mountain” in the Ancient Tongue. It was the formal name for the Old Drake—the dormant volcano the Academy was located in.
Another book seemed to be a ledger that told how many dragons and riders there were during a certain year, and which types of dragons were being hatched and how much they all ate. So basically, it was an old accounting book, I supposed.
The third book, I couldn’t read at all. It was written in the Root Tongue—the language that had evolved into the Ancient Tongue centuries ago.
But it drew my eyes anyway because on the cover of the ancient leather-bound book, was a golden dragon.
And riding it was someone who looked very much like a woman—at least, if her long hair flying out behind her was any indication.
But what did I know? Maybe the male riders were just prettier back then.
Being extremely careful, I opened the book and turned the pages, which were vellum that had yellowed with age. There were marvelous paintings of dragons of all kinds—many more than we had now, I saw with interest. Despite the book’s age, the colors were still surprisingly vivid.
It looked like there used to be more common dragons—instead of just Blue, Green, and Brown, I saw what looked like drawings of a common Red, a common Orange, and even a common Yellow.
There were more Noble dragons too—many more Gold-wings especially.
I also saw more pictures of the mythical Pure Gold dragons and this time I was sure their riders were women. They had fierce, proud expressions on their faces and their dragons flew higher than all the others.
I frowned—what could it mean? Had there been female dragon riders in the past or was the illustrator just being fanciful?
Probably the latter. Everyone knew there had never really been a Pure Gold dragon, just like there had never been female dragon riders.
Maybe the author of the book just liked to tell stories and draw pretty pictures.
I wished that I could read the book, but my grasp of the Root tongue was weak. I did manage to find a few words I understood—but only because they were so much like the words that they had evolved into, in the Ancient Tongue.
I read “dragon” and “flight” and “rider” and “egg” but that was where my knowledge ran out.
The book ended with what looked like a poem or possibly a prophesy.
The illustrator had ringed the verses with pictures of dragons flying and flaming something from the sky that looked a little like huge black bats with long fangs and blood red eyes.
My stomach felt cold, and I had a feeling like my skin wanted to crawl right off my body and go hide somewhere. Were those…Madlings?
I had never seen one—no one had.
Except your father, whispered an ominous little voice in the back of my head. Or at least he’d claimed that he had—right before he and F’lorn had dived to their deaths together.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to see anymore. I closed the book quickly but carefully—so as not to damage its brittle pages—and went to wash my hands to get the dust off my fingers.
When I came back, Ryse was just stepping back into the room. He smelled like singed cinnamon—the smell of dragons—and his golden eyes were troubled.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“That was a short flight.”
“I wasn’t really flying,” he admitted. “I just wanted to be with M’alex for a while. I wanted to ask him…” He shook his head. “No—never mind.”
“Oh, all right.” I shrugged awkwardly, not sure what to say. “Well, I was just about to go to bed.”
“Fine.” He nodded. “I’m going to get changed and get some sleep too. You take the bed—I’ll take the floor.”
“What?” I protested. “But you can’t just give me the bed—the floor is stone—it’s hard and cold.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said shortly.
“No, you won’t!” I said. “You’ll never be able to sleep. If anything, I should take the floor.”
“You’d freeze to death,” he said dismissively. “You don’t have enough body heat to keep yourself warm.”
“I’m warm enough!” I said indignantly.
“You won’t be if you lay on the hard stone floor all night!” Ryse pointed out. “I brought you here to protect you—not kill you with hypothermia.”
“Look, I think we’re over thinking this.” I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to calm myself. “The bed is pretty big. Why don’t we just…share it?”
“Share it?” Ryse’s eyebrows shot up.
“Why not?” Walking to the edge of the bed, I sat on it and patted a spot beside me. “Come on—we did earlier today, when we took a nap before lunch.”
Ryse frowned, not budging.
“You’d trust me to sleep with you after what happened last night? I mean, in the same bed?” he demanded.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked. My heart was suddenly pounding. “I mean, you promised not to…to do anything.”
“Yes, but I already did do something.” He looked troubled. “I took advantage of you last night.”
“We were both overcome with the dragon lust,” I said. “You didn’t mean to…to kiss me. The same way I didn’t mean to, uh, kiss you back.”
“I was too rough.” He frowned but reluctantly sat beside me on the bed. “I was afraid I scared you, little one,” he murmured, looking at me.
“Well, it was a lot more, er, intense than I’d expected my first kiss to be,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks get hot with a blush. “But you didn’t scare me.”
“That was your first kiss?” Ryse’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
“Well…yes.” I nodded. “My home is up in the mountains. There aren’t many people around so I never really…I just…no one ever kissed me before,” I ended lamely.
Ryse stroked my cheek, which was burning hot by now.
“I’m sorry your first kiss was so rough, little one,” he said softly. “If I’d known, I would have been more gentle.”
I nibbled my lower lip, looking up at him.
“It’s not like I would…would know the difference,” I pointed out softly. “I mean, I don’t really know how to kiss one way or another.”
His golden eyes were suddenly half-lidded.
“Would you like me to teach you?” he asked. “I mean, in case you meet a girl you want to be with, you’ll need to know how to kiss her.”
My heart felt like it was trying to pound its way out of my chest.
No, bad idea—bad idea! a voice in my head was shouting.
But I didn’t want to listen to it.
“You…wouldn’t mind?” I asked. “I mean, I thought…you didn’t like other men.”
“I don’t,” he said quickly. “But this would be like anything else—like me training you in the weight room or teaching you to fly. It’s just another lesson.”
“Just another lesson,” I echoed, and I found I was leaning towards him.
“Do you want me to teach you how girls like to be kissed?” Ryse murmured.
“Have you kissed a lot of girls?” I asked, feeling a sudden stab of jealousy.
He rumbled laughter.
“Enough to know what I’m doing.”
“Oh…all right. Then yes—teach me.”
I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. He was so big and warm and he smelled so good. I felt like I was drowning in his golden eyes.
Ryse leaned over me, cupping my face in his hands.