Chapter 9
Zenevieve
As the snow falls on Maledin during my seventeenth year, my feelings for Stesha only grow stronger.
I’m around normal men for a while, and they’re nice.
Some of them even seem good-looking, kind, selfless, and strong.
Then I see Stesha with hatchlings in his strong arms, or coaching a dragonrider to bond more closely with their dragon, and everyone else just…
Fades away.
That winter, every time I catch sight of Stesha, it’s like I’m seeing him for the very first time.
I’ve always liked that he keeps other men away from me, but now I preen like a young dragon after her first flight whenever I catch him scowling at an Alpha or Beta who’s following me around.
I press my body into his when he carries me up onto Nilak, and I can feel something thrumming between us that was never there before.
His touches on the nape of my neck and the kisses he drops on my brow make me glow golden right down to my toes.
He must feel this too. These feelings are too strong to be all my own. They’re in the very air around us.
It’s a wickedly cold season this year, and the whole of Lenhale turns white. I wear black riding clothes and a heavy green cloak to keep warm, but I’m always chafing my fingers together.
“It’s cold enough to put out the flaming font in the temple,” I complain one day after a group flight, my teeth chattering.
Stesha takes off his gloves and mine to warm my hands between his large ones. He runs his eyes over me and smiles. “You have snowflakes in your hair.”
His long ponytail is flowing over his shoulder, and it’s flecked with white crystals. I smile up at him. “So do you.”
In stately fashion, Nilak paces over to us and spreads one of her wings over our heads to shelter us from the falling snow.
Minta trills, and she ducks under Nilak’s wing as well.
Well, her head and some of her neck, as much of her as will fit.
I laugh as she nestles into Nilak’s protection with us.
If she were any other dragon, she’d receive a nip from Nilak’s sharp teeth and a warning to stay back, but Minta is special.
Stesha must be thinking the same thing. “Do you know how happy it makes me that Nilak loves you both?”
“And I love her. Every day when I wake up, I look for Minta and Nilak among the flare. Have you noticed how often they’re together? One black dragon and one white.”
“Yes, I have.” Still gently rubbing my now warm fingers, he says, “It means everything to me that the four of us are close.”
“My heart is very full because of you,” I tell him.
He smiles and squeezes my fingers. “So is mine.”
My heart beats a little faster. The words we are exchanging are so close to the way Maledinni confess romantic love. Love for our mates is in our bodies and our dragons. We don’t say I love you to each other. We say a thousand other things.
“Stesha…”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that my heart is not only full because of him, it beats only for him. But I remember he’s an Alpha, and Alphas prefer to be the ones who move things forward. I have to be patient.
How I hate being patient.
When I’m alone with Nilak, I confess my feelings to her instead. “Your rider is the most wonderful man I have met or will ever meet.”
Nilak tilts her head quizzically to one side.
“I think about wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him on the mouth all the time. I dream about his teeth in my flesh. I want to be his.”
She can’t understand me, but she must hear something heartfelt in my words or scent, as she nuzzles my hair, clicking in sympathy.
Day by day, frustration gathers in my body and throbs between my thighs. Thinking about Stesha and looking at Stesha only makes the throbbing worse. When I talk to one of the Temple Mothers about the feeling, without mentioning Stesha by name, she looks surprised by my ignorance.
“This is the first time you’ve noticed this feeling? Has this frustration not driven you toward one of the young men or women of your acquaintance?”
“Well, no…”
“But why not?”
Because the man I want thinks he has to act like my father or my bodyguard, and I think I’m going to scream and burst into flames from sheer frustration.
Noticing my hesitation, Mother Linnea says, “I don’t mean to pry, dear. I just want to be sure that you have no need of deeper counseling. Fear, shame, and pain can be very destructive when it comes to the mating acts.”
“I’m not fearful or ashamed. There is someone, but I feel shy about speaking up to him about my, um, needs.
” It would be easier if I knew a little about Stesha and his own needs, but he keeps that strictly private.
I don’t have much idea about how the two of us would fit together, physically or emotionally. I only know I want it very badly.
“Shy? That’s unusual for a Beta,” Mother Linnea says.
I feel a prickle of apprehension, because it’s not the first time someone’s made me feel like I’m not living up to my designation.
A few of the Alphas I’ve turned down have grown irritated with me and said things like, What else is a Beta good for?
and, You’re pretty uptight for your designation.
Betas aren’t meant to feel shy or intimidated by Alphas and their sexuality.
They’re meant to love it, but I can’t help how I feel.
“The one I want is a little older than me,” I say, turning red.
“I understand. You’re only seventeen, aren’t you? You can seek relief by yourself instead.” The Temple Mother tells me how to use my fingers, which hadn’t occurred to me, and shows me an array of implements that I can try, should my frustration require them.
That night I touch myself experimentally, and the effect is spectacular.
My whole body explodes in stars, and I’m left panting on the mattress.
I try it again, and then once more, and each time it’s wonderful, but I quickly conclude that it would be better with someone else.
Not an implement. I don’t want an implement.
I roll over in bed and sigh, thinking about Stesha.
I want to point out to him that soon I’ll be eighteen.
I’ll be a full-fledged dragonrider and be given my first solo mission.
We never discussed what will happen to me after I gain my rank.
Some dragonriders move in with their mates.
Others go to the dragonriders’ barracks, or if they are unmated, some stay in their homes.
I live in fear that Stesha will tell me that it’s time for me to leave his home, and so I hold my tongue.
It turns out, I needn’t have worried.
On my eighteenth birthday, he presents me with a pair of beautiful black leather riding gloves and says not one word about me living anywhere but with him.
I stare at his mouth, wishing I were brave enough to ask for a birthday kiss.