CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tarquin’s morning was full of surprises on the day after he’d finally returned from a nearby town. He’d attended a meeting with Helias and his advisers and had learned that he would be resuming his role as a representative of the crown, speaking for their interests in foreign lands. He’d already been given a new assignment, one that would take him from the palace for nearly a month. He should have been looking forward to it, but all he could think about was the loss of a certain person’s presence, even if he’d seen her less and less of late.
When he left the council chambers, he stalked directly to Mira’s bedroom. He was being sent away, and he wasn’t going to leave without seeing her.
He heard a muffled “come in,” in response to his knock, and when he did he found her in the big chair he’d helped her move, with a book in her lap.
She blinked up at him. “You’re not Lily.”
He shut the door behind him and crossed to her. “That’s true,” he said, “but I can see how you would get us confused.”
She opened her mouth to say something, and then seemed to catch herself. A look of disdain came over her face. “She’s supposed to come by, you should leave so she doesn’t see you here.”
“I don’t care if she sees me here,” he said. “Do you care?”
She narrowed her eyes at him and then turned her attention to the book in her lap. “I’ve never cared.”
He wandered over to her glass cabinet while she ignored him, examining her collection of ridiculous trinkets that she’d pilfered from the dead. He turned to watch her, and he could see her book from where he stood, could see that it was a book for children, and could see from the way she used her finger to trace the words that she was struggling to read it. The sight made something bloom in his chest, hurting and solid and protective. He watched her as she glanced at him, then quickly returned her attention to her lap.
“I’m leaving,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Okay,” was her only response, not looking up from the book.
“I’ll be gone for a few weeks,” he said.
“I don’t care,” she said.
“You were looking for me while I was gone.”
She snapped her book together and glared at him. “That seems unlikely.”
“Come with me.”
Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
He shrugged. “You hate it here.”
“Only sometimes,” she said.
“Then come because I miss you.”
A look of loathing came over her face, a look that asked how he dared to declare that, how he could possibly tell her something like that when he’d wronged her over and over and over. He prepared for her awful, fake laugh, or for her to spit something hateful at him. He was entirely astounded when she said, “Okay.”
He stared at her for a moment, and couldn’t stop the words that came out. “Really?”
“I suppose,” she said. “When?”
Mira awoke early the next morning, before the sun had risen. Tarquin had informed her they would leave at sunrise, and although he’d invited her along she was afraid that if she slept too long he would leave without her. Although she didn’t necessarily look forward to all of the time they would spend together, she definitely looked forward to a change in her monotonous days.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they walked together from the breakfast room to her bedroom. She picked up the bag that she’d packed the night before, and didn’t protest when he took it from her.
“Amling,” he said. “It’s the closest city to the west.”
“How far is it?” she asked.
“A day and a half to fly there.”
“That far?” she asked. “The closest city? Why is the palace in the middle of nowhere?”
He shrugged. “There are no cities at all in Arnes. There really aren’t that many dragon shifters, certainly not enough to populate a city. We have a few reasonably sized towns, but mostly it’s just estates and households that make up the population.”
“We’re leaving Arnes, then?”
He nodded as they descended the stairs together. “But only just. Amling is on the border of several kingdoms, kind of a gathering place for people of all kinds.”
“So like… neutral?” she asked.
“In a way. Nothing is enforced but no one owns the land so it’s just held by whoever inhabits the city at the time. It’s a good place for negotiations.”
“Which is what you do?” she asked as they passed through the doors out into the gray day.
He nodded.
“So you just glare silently at people until they give you what you want?”
He smiled at that; she was more accurate than she realized. “Yes,” he said.
She watched him strangely for a minute, her face unreadable. He remembered then what Ingrid had warned him of the day before.
“Mira,” he said when they were out past the gardens, in the vast field by the lake where there was ample room to shift. “I’m unfamiliar with what… humans know. You know of humans and dragon shifters, obviously. Do you know of more?”
“More?” she asked, her eyes widening. “You mean like the mages or something? I heard they live to the west.”
“Yes, them,” he said, “but they’re human, in a way. I mean other races.”
“There are other races?” she asked, her eyes wide.
He smiled down at her again. “This will be enlightening for you.”
Tarquin still wasn’t sure what he hoped for. He just knew that he didn’t want to leave without her, especially with Berric sniffing after her. He didn’t know why the thought bothered him so much. She wasn’t his; he’d ensured that she never would be the first time they’d slept together. He tensed at the memory, regret flooding him as it did regularly since he’d breathed the wrong woman’s name.
He wanted Mira, but the damage had been done and he didn’t think that he could ever offer her all of him. He was Aurelia’s, still, he always would be. And the obnoxious, infuriating, lovely woman currently shivering on his back deserved more than the guilty husk of a man that he would remain. He resolved to stop stepping between her and her suitors; if Mira wanted one or both of them, that was none of his business.
He landed, later, in one of the towns he’d mentioned, and she rushed inside the closest building as soon as she climbed down from his back. He found her shivering in a chair close to the fire, so he strode to the counter and ordered something hot for both of them before he approached her.
“Alright?” he asked, taking the seat across from her.
She nodded stubbornly. She’d pulled off her mittens and her fingers were red on the table, so he covered them with his hands. She started to pull them away, then seemed to think better of it and returned them to under his warm ones. She glared at his hands, but didn’t make a move to remove hers.
“You know I can hear you when I’m flying,” he said. “Please tell me if you’re going to die of exposure.”
“I’m fine,” she snarled.
“Obviously,” he said.
She glared at him silently, and when a hot bowl of stew was set in front of her she pulled her hands from his quickly and wrapped them around it. She ate quickly and silently, pausing only to glance at him occasionally before returning to her meal. He watched her eat, staring unashamedly, and when she finished her gaze met his. “What?” she asked flatly.
He shook his head. “We’re staying here in town tonight.”
“It’s still hours until the sun sets,” she said. “Why?”
“It’s going to rain,” he said. “You’re half frozen in dry weather, and I don’t particularly want you to die.”
The look she gave him made his chest give a painful lurch, with the same feeling he’d had when he’d seen what she was reading.
It was hopeful.
They found a little inn just down the road, and Mira was relieved when Tarquin had tapped his fingers on the front desk and asked for two rooms. She’d retreated to hers, pleased to find warm water in the bath, and after her fingers were wrinkled and she was thoroughly scrubbed she dried herself and found her nightclothes. She’d managed to convince the seamstress to make her some loose cotton pants to sleep in; after the wedding she’d given up dressing in gowns for any reason. She sorted through her bag, and satisfied that she hadn’t forgotten anything, she pulled out the notebook that Lily had discreetly slipped to her before she left. There, inside the front cover, was the alphabet written in Lily’s neat print. Mira recognized the letters, of course, but hadn’t ever written them before, so she pulled out her pen and copied them each onto the first page. It didn’t take too long, so she repeated it on the second page, but by the time she got to the third page she was painfully bored. The sun hadn’t even set yet, and although she was tired from the journey, she knew she couldn’t sleep in a bright room. She paced the floor, briefly, then strode into the bathroom and brushed her hair while she stared at herself in the mirror. She tried not to think about the thin wooden wall separating her room from the next.
When she’d watched him disappear into his room, it had taken her a moment to remember that she shouldn’t follow him, shouldn’t push him on the bed and climb on him and use him like she wanted to. It took her a moment to remember that things had changed between them.
She’d opted for a bath instead, but it had done little to quench the fire growing in her belly. It had been difficult to have been so close to him all day. She hugged her arms around herself, experimentally pressed a finger to her heated flesh, but it did nothing to ease the ache and hunger he’d awoken in her. It was his fault, really; before he’d kissed her she’d have been fine dying an old maid, but now she couldn’t ever seem to get enough. With that thought in mind— that it was his fault— she strode from her room in her pajamas and knocked sharply on his door.
“Hi,” she said, and then, “I miss you, too.”
Fire bloomed in her belly when his lips met hers, and then he was holding the back of her head and winding his arm around her waist. Her hands tangled in his hair, then ran up and down his broad back before finally coming to rest on his shoulders. He made a strange, strangled sound as he pulled his face away from hers.
He cupped her cheeks in his hands, and the look in his eyes burned through her so thoroughly that she looked over his shoulder to avoid his gaze. He paused then, so she leaned forward to kiss his bare shoulder, moving her lips along him until she was kissing and licking and sucking at his neck. He held her to him as she did, his fingertips pressed into her back and his lips pressed into her hair as he breathed her name.
She kissed the stubble along his jaw, the hollow below his ear, then across his cheek to meet his mouth again. This time he was as hungry as she was, and when their tongues tangled he no longer held her carefully, lovingly, but crushed her to him like he wanted to become one with her. She shed her shirt quickly, but instead of turning his attention to her breasts he just held her, his big hands roaming all over her bare back.
The sweetness of his touch hurt her in a way she hadn’t expected, so she unbuckled his pants as quickly as she could and dropped to her knees before him. She took him in her hand, already hard and waiting for her, and without preamble she licked him from base to head. His eyes were locked on hers, and there was desire there, but also something deeper— something that scared her. She looked down and took him in her mouth, then swirled her tongue and moved her head and hummed his name, and before long he was making the same strangled noise he had before.
She looked up and he hauled her up against him, and then her pants were gone and he’d laid her on the bed. His calloused finger ran through her folds, and before she had time to react it was replaced with his tongue. He swirled it around her entrance, then around her clit which made her writhe wildly against his mouth. When he slipped a finger inside, and then a second, and then wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked, she shuddered and broke, right on his face. And then he was kissing her and touching her everywhere he could reach, and when his cock slipped inside her, it was as natural as if they had never stopped.
He thrust inside of her slowly at first, his head bent to suckle and bite at her neck, his hands wound into her hair. She wrapped her legs around his, and wrapped her arms around his torso, and then begged him to fuck her hard. He did, and she clung to him; full of him and having the strange distinct feeling that this was where she belonged. Here, where she could be Mira and do what she needed to and get what she needed back. Here, where she felt adored and appreciated before they both recovered enough of their senses to lash out at each other again.
It was that thought in her head when she came, clenched around him, her hands still in his hair and her gaze locked on his. His release came soon after, filling her, and he didn’t relax his grip on her at all as he murmured her name. He watched her, intently, after he’d come down, and she’d averted her eyes to stare up at the ceiling.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she said. Her eyes burned but she didn’t know why.
“Okay,” he said. He didn’t stop.
When he rolled off of her she missed the reassuring weight immediately, then cursed herself for missing it. She rose from the bed and dressed quickly, avoiding his prying gaze.
“Please stay,” he said, his eyes not leaving her form.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she was. She slipped out the door and darted back to her room.