~ 13 ~
“Why didn’t you tell me the dragon was awake enough to shake the castle?” I demanded for the third time, bolting the delicious, if lukewarm, meal as fast as possible. Ami had pleaded hunger and pointed out that I’d be more reasonable with a full belly. Since I knew I was feeling far from reasonable, and some time to cool my wildly stirred emotions couldn’t hurt, I’d agreed. I had to admit, food helped a great deal to take that edge of desperation away.
“What could you have done about it, Ash?” Ami replied with some impatience. It took me a moment to realize she meant the dragon. “Up until last night, you were on the verge of dying.”
“You should have told me the moment I was lucid.” I should have figured out before now that the howling and muttering in my thoughts came from outside my nightmares. If I weren’t so fucked in the head, I might have realized sooner. Some warrior I was, unable to discern the shrieking of his inner demons from the outer ones.
“Arguably I’m still waiting for that moment to come,” she replied sweetly.
“Cute.” I pushed back my chair and checked the draw of my short blade.
“What are you doing?” She frowned at me suspiciously.
“I’ve eaten, as directed, and now I’m going down to check out the tunnels.”
“Oh no, you are not, mister. You’re going back to bed.”
I raised a brow at her. It would be better to have my sword, though I couldn’t wield it well with that hand. Not as well as the short blade, but having the extra length might be worth the tradeoff in loss of dexterity. Dragons were big, so precision might not be as important as a bit more distance. I’d better get the sword.
Ami had stood, wrapping her hand in my belt and yanking me to her by the hips before I took a step. “Did you hear me?”
“I’m not Astar to be sent off to my room. Have Graves or any of the men gone to investigate?”
She looked aside and released me. Then followed when I kept walking. “No, I ordered them not to.”
“Ami.” I tried to keep my voice gentle, much as I wanted to shout at her for her foolishness. “Danger doesn’t disappear just because you ignore it.”
She snorted inelegantly. “This from the king of denial.”
“What does that mean?”
“Give it a little thought.” She leveled me with a fierce glare. “Come back when you want to have an actual conversation about your feelings.”
I wasn’t at all sure how we’d gone from discussing an awakening dragon making the stones of Windroven shake beneath our feet to something as irrelevant as my feelings. Having no reply, I said nothing.
“Well, I guess that non-response says everything,” Ami commented. “At least take Graves with you. Maybe Skunk and some of the other men.”
“I’ll do better on my own. Faster.” Plus I’d learned a few mind-tricks in Annfwn about hiding my presence. The skilled practitioners could shield a whole group, but I was far from skilled. Ami followed me into her rooms. “Where did you put my sword?”
She pointed to one of the side chambers, where I found my leathers and other equipment, cleaned and neatly stacked. I eyed the leathers dubiously. Better to wear those, but I doubted I could get into them on my own. Glancing at Ami, I found she stood with arms folded, a stubborn tilt to her chin. “I’m not helping you with this fool’s errand,” she informed me.
“I understand. The leathers would protect me better, but I can do without.”
She gave me the look of complete exasperation normally reserved for Willy and Nilly at their most impossible. Then threw up her hands and looked to the sky. “Why did you have to make me love this man?” It seemed Glorianna gave her no good answer because Ami leveled a defiant glare on me again. “Fine, I’ll help you into your leathers, after I put on mine. I’m going with you.”
“You absolutely are not.”
“I’m not Stella, to be told what to do,” she neatly threw my words back at me.
“Stella listens about as well as you do,” I muttered.
Ami was already digging her leathers out of a cabinet in the next room. I’d never noticed there was a series of chambers, one leading into the next, with storage and another room with a bed in it. “Is this where you’ve been sleeping?”
“Mostly I’ve been sleeping in that chair next to the bed. But last night, once your fever broke, yes, I came in here, so I wouldn’t disturb you.”
“I’ll sleep in here tonight. You should have your own bed back.”
She gave me an opaque look, but didn’t reply directly. She simply turned around, lifted her hair and presented me with her back. “Laces, please.”
It wasn’t easy, one-handed, but she stood patiently as I plucked at them. Though I’d just had her, emptied myself in her in spectacular fashion, the familiar sight of her flawless skin through the parting velvet affected me as always. Perhaps because she’d torn down some of the walls between us, or because I’d lost some essential strength of will battling the nightmares and fever, this time I gave in to the crippling need to touch her.
I traced the line of her spine from the nape of her neck down between her winged shoulder blades, into the valley of the small of her back, and just to the top of her sweetly curved buttocks. Then yanked my hand away, lest I be tempted to do more. She looked over her shoulder at me, just as she had at Lianore. “I’ve missed you, Ash,” she said, her voice throaty.
“I’ve been right here.”
She shook her head. “No, you haven’t. You were physically here, but you withdrew deep inside. You’ve been pulling further and further away from me since we left Annfwn. Do you miss it that much?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
I shook my head. “We’ve talked this to death already.”
I expected a flare of anger, but she only studied me. “That’s the thing. You think we have, but we’ve only talked around it.”
“Well, we’re not having some heart-to-heart conversation now. I’m going to assess the situation in the tunnels.”
“Fine, fine.” She dropped the gown, leaving it in a puddle on the floor, and stretched, gloriously naked. Then bent over to pull on the leather pants, knowing full well what the sight would do to me. Cursing her and Glorianna both, I turned away to at least get my own pants on without her help, lest she see the evidence of my helpless need for her, and use it to distract me again.
We went through the silent kitchens, lit only by the fires under the baking ovens, the air warm and full of sugary spices. Cakes and other delights were arrayed on the counters, in various stages of assembly and decoration.
“Are you expecting an army for the Feast of Moranu?” I asked Ami.
She rolled her eyes at me. “When I say Windroven is virtually empty, that means only a hundred or so people are on the mountain. So, yes, we’ll need a lot of cakes for the party tomorrow night. I invited everyone.”
“Everyone?” I lifted a brow at her.
“Everyone,” she repeated firmly. “The Three belong to us all equally, queen or milkmaid.” She gave me an arch look. “Or Tala part-blood ex-convict.”
I didn’t rise to her bait, simply allowed her to lead the way through the cellar storerooms and into the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the castle. She hadn’t worn her fighting leathers, acquired for our journey to rescue Stella from her abductors, since we’d left Annfwn. Besides the fact that they hugged her figure adorably, highlighting the sway of her hips and the play of muscle in her curving thighs and tight ass, they brought back a wealth of memories of those weeks together. Riding and camping. Me teaching her to use a knife. Ami in the firelight. Fierce. Exhausted. Weeping over her injured sister but working to save her life with practiced determination.
A lot of that time we’d been alone but for Astar, and he’d been much younger, a sleeping infant. It seemed so long ago in a strange way. So much had happened since. But we’d been united in our mission, newly reunited and flush with the joy of it. With her dusty from riding, wearing her leathers with her knife on her hip, none of us bathing for days on end, she’d become only a woman to me. My woman.
For long stretches of time, I’d forgotten entirely that she was a princess, daughter of the High King and soon to be queen in her own right. Then we’d left Annfwn and returned to the world—her world of castles, elaborate gowns, and holding court—and it had all come crashing back.
She said I’d withdrawn, and perhaps I had. Some of it, yes, had been to prepare myself for when we’d part again. The rest—
Something howled in me, scraping over my nerves, hollowing my heart. Though it still sounded like my own pleas, begging for a mercy that never came—enough that I nearly staggered from the onslaught of memories—I could separate it this time. Not me. Not my thoughts and pained memories. The dragon.