Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Cara
Inside the room I shared with Fear, I stripped off my tunic and contemplated the armor in my undergarments. The Bismyth shifters always commanded respect and envy in their fitted and unapologetically sexy armor.
I understood now. Mortals felt safe and awed in equal measure.
There was a knock at the door. “Who is it?” I called, pulling the tunic back on as I crossed to the door. I didn’t want Fear to catch me in the armor. He had tricked me plenty of times. Rather than try to argue him into bringing Maura back, I intended a little gentle trickery of my own.
“Are you confused about how to put it on yet?” Maura called.
“No,” I lied, swinging the door open anyway.
She was smirking. “This is why you need me.”
You need me more, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
“You should say it,” Lightbringer urged.
Apparently, my dragon was always happy to start a fight.
“It’s a good idea to wear it, given the threats you face.” Maura swung the door closed. “Here’s hoping that Kami got your measurements right, because it should fit you close as a corset.”
She tossed a shirt my way, the material thin and silky but padded in certain places. I turned my back to her and pulled it on immediately.
“It will keep you from chafing,” she promised. “Here, let me help.”
I submitted to being dressed like a child, and as she helped me, she frowned and cursed in roughly equal measure. I wasn’t sure if she was cursing at me or at herself, the forger.
Then she grabbed my shoulders and spun me around bodily to face the mirror. I started to object, but then I caught a glimpse of myself.
Shimmering scales covered more of my skin than the armor the shifters wore; they even edged up my throat.
My shoulders seemed broader, my waist defined, and an awful lot of that padding on the shirt had ended up over my chest. I shrugged, rolled my shoulders, turned my head from side to side.
It was amazing how easy it was to move. The armor was incredibly light.
“It seems anyone would want to wear armor like this,” I admitted.
“Everyone does. If I fail and you do die, I’m taking it back and selling it for a fortune.”
She leaned her elbow on my shoulder, studying both our reflections in the mirror. She wore her usual corset and bracers, showing far more skin than I did, but my scaled armor was sexy in its own way.
An awful realization struck me. “How often do dragons give up scales for armor for their shifters?”
“It’s rare.” She delivered the words curtly, no invitation to continue the line of conversation.
She was already turning away. “Where are your knives? I know you’re rather hopeless with them, but you really should carry your knives.
Perhaps you can slow down an enemy until someone with skill can intervene. ”
“Did it hurt Starfire?”
She turned to me, flicking an exasperated look over her shoulder. “Yes. But so did the fact I wanted to die after being cast out of Bismyth.”
She tossed my belt, with its pair of scabbards, at me with more force than necessary, and I caught it against my chest. This time, I accepted that she didn’t want to talk.
I studied myself in the mirror one more time. “We should go find Fear.”
Might as well get this over with. Knowing Fear, he was going to pick up the thread of my little deception effortlessly and charmingly.
Walking in with Maura and her dragon’s armor on my body was a statement, and when I made it clear she was my bodyguard in front of the clans, he would either have to show the cracks between us or play along. I knew what he would choose.
It was the conversation afterward that I dreaded. I felt a slight stir of worry because so much was already complicated between Fear and me.
“He misses you,” I said because that was true, at least.
I wanted to remind myself of it. His hardheartedness toward Maura had been for my sake. It was a sacrifice neither of them had needed to make. Given some of the decisions I had made, I was eager to leave the past in the past.
“He doesn’t need anyone,” she said dismissively.
“I’m sure he wishes that were true,” I answered. “Don’t we all?”
Maura was too stoic for anything to show on her face, but her gaze flickered toward me, betraying the faintest hint of surprise.
As I was walking, Lightbringer murmured, “Quite the choice for someone who has her own dragon.”
“You won’t even give me wings,” I reminded her sternly. “It’s the choice of someone whose dragon is being horrible and stubborn.”
“We do choose mortals like ourselves,” Lightbringer said airily.
I wasn’t sure if that was an insult or a compliment.
“When you’re older, you’ll understand that something can be both.”
We entered the command center, where Bismyth, Amber and Obsidian planned how to protect the eastern wall. A map showed the rips they had already mapped and sealed.
Fear had his back to us. He was deep in conversation with Seine.
Dairen was standing with them, and he saw Maura first. Unguarded delight came over his face, and he grinned. “Maura!”
As he came to us both, I caught Fear starting to turn. I couldn’t even be bothered to look at Fear’s reaction; Dairen’s joy told me I had made the right choice.
Dairen grabbed Maura’s shoulder, clasping it the way Bismyth did so often with each other, and then he gave in to his first impulse and hugged her.
The next thing I knew, his hug had encompassed me as well, and I found myself colliding with Maura, both of us trapped by his thick arms. I laughed, as weird as it was.
When we had disentangled ourselves, Maura made disgruntled noises, even though she also looked as happy as she would allow herself to be seen.
Slightly discombobulated and still grinning, I found myself facing Fear. His gaze was fixed on me, and Dairen’s voice faded even as he was asking, “Is this what I think—?”
Fear studied me. “You look beautiful, wife. As always.”
“I look safe.” I brushed imaginary specks of dust from the glittering armor. “I feel safe.”
“I imagine that is not because of the armor, but because of the company.” His gaze went from me to Maura. He smiled at her. “I’m grateful to see my wife so well protected.”
He sounded so sincere, so warm and charming. Maura’s face shifted, and for a split second, there was a flash of vulnerability. She did not trust what he said, and yet she wanted it to be true.
“I am grateful to her,” Maura said, and it sounded stilted, but that also seemed right for her.
“Well, I am glad you’re here.”
Fear settled his hand on her shoulder, clasping it briefly, giving her his full warm attention. Anyone would have thought he had always been in on our plot. Anyone would have thought he had given his approval.
“Finally,” Dairen said cheerfully.
It was only later that Fear wrapped his arm around my waist, hugging me into his side. I went to him a little more eagerly than I would have liked to, sliding my hand across the lean small of his back and hooking it above his hip. He pressed a kiss to my temple, then murmured, “Well played, wife.”
The way he called me wife always seemed barbed.
He used to call me Never. I shouldn’t have missed it.
“I learned from the best,” I reminded him, rising to my tiptoes so I could press a kiss to his jaw.
“Are you sure that you know what you’re doing?” he asked me quietly.
“You don’t trust her?”
“I thought you didn’t trust her. That was enough for me.”
“I want to leave the past in the past.” I studied him, wondering if he was glad to have Maura back in Bismyth. “Did you only keep her out for my sake? Did you want her to come home?”
“I want no one in my life who I cannot trust with my wife,” he said.
I glanced around, but there was no one to hear our conversation. Who was he performing for? “You are maddening.”
Lightbringer helpfully interjected. “You are a pair.”
“Still,” he said. “She saved my life. Not far from here, on the east wall. Starfire was injured saving me. If you trust her, that’s enough for me.”
“So you’re not annoyed with me?”
“Cara, I am sometimes furious with you, sometimes gutted. But never anything as petty as annoyed.”
I had no idea what to say to that. It reminded me of the words he had said when he admitted how badly he had been hurt that I had betrayed him.
Starfire’s armor and Maura’s promise hadn’t been enough for me to entirely forgive, but it had certainly been enough to begin.
Feared owed me apologies—and much more—for what he had done to me.
And I owed him as well. Whether we were to be mates or not, we certainly would be allies. The best of allies.
When I apologized to Fear, I wanted him to hear me.
Maura had shown me there was already a language. I just had to learn it.