26. Swordplay #4
“Because, historically, your kind has raided our minns and killed us for our treasure for centuries.” His gaze turns as hard as the mountain holding us.
“Tell me, did humans steal our jewels to support and feed the masses? Or did they use the gems they stole from us to decorate their castles and wear them about their throats and in their crowns?”
“Of course you have a point, but what do you do with them? You use them as decor—”
“They sustain us.” His voice bites into me. “It is not greed or because we find them pretty baubles. No, it is humans who place such superficial value upon them. These gemstones feed our magic, our very essence. They are as air to us.”
“Oh.” Shame washes over me to have misjudged him so harshly. “I—I did not realize.”
“You thought me shallow?” His head angles to the side as he peers at me with his oceans-deep gaze. “One more flaw to add to the list you’ve assigned to me, I suspect.”
“I . . .”
He shrugs. “How could you know? You know nothing of us. Of me. Nothing of the dragons we once were, nor what led us to evolve into”—he gestures vaguely to himself—“this.” His lips twist into a grimace. “You didn’t know we even existed anymore.”
He’s not wrong. Like everyone else, I believed in the fiction perpetuated so we would stop hunting them. I swallow as full understanding sweeps over me.
However it happened, it is a brilliant evolutionary tactic. Dragons still live . . . but now they can camouflage into the very thing that is the greatest threat to them. Humans. Me.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, apologizing for the wrongs of my kin . . . the sins of my forefathers.
“You’re not to blame. It’s merely the world you were born to. I can . . . relate to that.”
I think about the past he had shared with me, and I suppose he could relate to that.
“Is this where you sleep?” I ask, bending to dive my fingers into the glossy, dark pelt on the bed, imagining all the nights he spent wrapped up here in this den, first as a boy, then a man. All these years. Presumably . . . alone. Lonely? I feel a pinch at the center of my chest.
“Yes.” He nods and reaches for the back of his neck, rubbing there as if his flesh suddenly prickles.
It dawns on me then that I’m the first woman he’s ever had in this den.
Certainly, he’s never had a human here before.
Was there anyone—any dragon—before me though?
At times I think Danhy is interested in him in a way that is not strictly platonic, but I’ve never detected that interest reciprocated.
As novel as this experience is for me, it must be for him, too.
Reaching that conclusion, I hear myself say, “This can’t be comfortable for you.”
He looks at me steadily for a long moment before approaching and stopping directly in front of me.
It’s such a strange sensation . . . not only to be seen, but to be the focus of anyone when, for years, I’ve been nonexistent. It loosens something inside me that had grown hard and dead.
Instead of a reply, he reaches for the hem of his tunic and pulls it up and over his head in one fluid move that does something funny to my belly, makes it flip and twist as though I’m shooting out of control down a hill on a sled.
“Oh,” I say dumbly, my mouth drying at the proximity of his daunting chest. Maybe he is comfortable.
I don’t know why I’m so affected by the sight. I shouldn’t be. I’ve seen him dressed in far less clothing than this countless times.
But it has never been just the two of us. Alone. In his den. An odd sort of truce budding between us. One foot away from a bed. The heady smell of his skin swirling in my nose.
His voice spills through me like mulled wine, simmering hot. “Are you so concerned with my comfort, Arden?”
I swallow, wondering why that question sounds so laden with . . . things.
I don’t answer him. Instead, I back away, feigning interest with a particularly bright amethyst the size of my palm embedded in his wall.
Inside, I am shaking, waiting for him to say how this is going to work . . . how it will be with the two of us together in here for the night. For tomorrow night and all the future nights.
I hear a faint rustling behind me and I imagine he is disrobing further.
“Come to bed,” he invites.
Bracing myself with a fortifying breath, I turn. He’s beneath the furs, the lower half of him thankfully concealed. He pats the spot next to him.
My hands clench together in front of me, and I shake my head vigorously.
“I won’t bite. Come now.” I flinch at his choice of words. “Here.” He reaches for another nearby fur. “If it makes you feel better, you can sleep on top of this fur and cover yourself with this one.”
I glance around the den. There isn’t a great deal of space, and I really don’t relish the idea of spending the night on the hard ground at the foot of his bed.
Nodding, I reluctantly agree and accept the fur from him. “Very well. I will sleep on top of the furs.”
I don’t undress. Removing my shoes, I lower myself down beside him, keeping careful space between us. With my back to him, I listen as he settles his weight. Soon, the soft cadence of his breathing fills the air, rustling my hair.
Curled up on my side, I’m convinced sleep will never come so easily for me.
It’s the last thing I remember before my eyes close.