The Dragon Mistress

by R. A. Steffan

  “I think what you’ve done here is amazing,” I said. “Maybe it’s just a matter of patience. They’re obviously fond of you—and even loyal, based on the reaction of the black dragon when she realized Rayth wasn’t in the cave.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Eldris said. “They won’t be small forever, and eventually someone’s going to notice them.”

  Small? Good gods, they were already as tall at the shoulder as I was. I let it go, though.

  “I’m sure it will work out,” I said with finality.

  No way would I let myself think about these beautiful, amazing creatures being hunted. Instead, I tried to turn my attention to more practical matters now that the afternoon’s excitement seemed to be over. “It’s later than I thought. Is the lake safe to bathe in?”

  “Didn’t you get enough of a bath in the river yesterday?” Eldris teased.

  I flashed him the rude hand gesture I’d wanted to give him then—two fingers raised in a V-shape.

  Aristede gave a quiet huff of amusement. “Be careful what you suggest. Someone might take you up on it.”

  Eldris waggled his eyebrows comically. “Damn straight. Just say the word, Trouble.”

  Apparently rude gestures really were universal. Liquid heat swirled in my belly—the combination of a good stretch of deep sleep, waking curled up with Eldris, and the heart-pounding excitement of seeing the dragons up close. With that pair of suggestive comments, my body had clearly decided what sort of outlet it needed right now for the stress of the last few days.

  But I still felt like I’d been trekking through the mountains for a day and a night… probably because I had been trekking through the mountains for a day and a night. I was pretty sure I had the brambles in my hair to prove it. I started unpicking the messy plait I’d put it in last night, teasing out the chains with their hanging gemstones as I did.

  “Come bathe with me,” I said casually, “and I’ll let you try to convince me.”

  Eldris tugged his tunic over his head and fucking hell, if I’d known it would be that easy to get his shirt off, I would have suggested a bath in one of the disgusting little mud puddles that very first night in the desert. He was… very nice to look at.

  Very, very nice.

  “Well,” he said, “what are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

  I blinked. Yes, my body seemed to say. What are you waiting for? Let’s go bathe with the pretty men who rescued you and took you to meet dragons.

  “Coming,” I said a bit faintly. I cast around, seeing the saddlebags where I had stowed my meager belongings for the journey. Figuring my gems would be safer here than in my hair where they might come loose and end up at the bottom of a lake, I wrapped them in my spare tunic and stuffed them inside.

  Aristede grabbed a pot of what was probably soap and a length of rough cloth to use for toweling, though I noticed he hadn’t immediately started shucking clothing like Eldris had. However, his long hair had been tied back in a thong, and he did at least reach back to free it.

  I took a moment to appreciate the sweep of it along his back as we headed across the valley. The two remaining horses were grazing in the far corner of the grassy space, where they had presumably escaped when the dragons appeared. I wondered if the flying beasts ever harassed them directly, or if horses were too large to be enticing prey

  Turning my attention back to Aristede, I asked, “How did you get that white streak in your hair? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like it.”

  “I was born with it,” he said. “The skin underneath isn’t quite right. It’s even paler than yours.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with yours,” Eldris put in, clearly smug about getting one up on his friend.

  Aristede shot him a quelling look. “Of course there isn’t. Anyway, my mother said that even as a babe, I had a little tuft of white there. Half the people in the village thought I was cursed, and the other half thought I was blessed. My mother claims she just thought it meant I was destined to give her gray hair from an early age.”

  I laughed. “And did you?”

  “Oh, most assuredly.”

  I didn’t doubt that for a moment. “Well, I like it. It’s distinctive.”

  Feeling brazen, I inserted myself between them and curled my arms through theirs.

  “Distinctive, says the girl with blue eyes and golden hair,” Eldris pointed out.

  “Eh, back home, that’s nothing special,” I said. “Lots of blonde hair and blue eyes on the Isle of Eburos.”

  Eldris shrugged. “We’re not on Eburos, though. Back home, I’m nothing special either.”

  I craned up to look at his face, my brows twitching. “That, I have a very difficult time believing.”

  He looked a bit pleased, and a bit sad—and for the briefest of moments, a bit lost. And in that instant, I realized that even the straightforward member of the odd trio had a past. He hadn’t sprung forth, fully formed in all of his earthy, bluff good humor.

  The edge of the lake spread out before us, sparkling blue in the late afternoon sun.

  “The water’s chilly,” Aristede warned, “and the bank’s a bit muddy in places. But I’ve never seen evidence of anything larger than a sunfish here, so it should be perfectly safe.”

  Eldris let my arm slip free of his and turned to me, looking down with his brow furrowed. “In all seriousness, sweet thing—are you all right with a couple of naked men splashing around with you, after… what the bandits tried to do to you on the road?”

  I blinked, taken completely by surprise, and a strange, twisty feeling took up residence in my stomach.

  “They didn’t do anything to me,” I said quickly. Maybe a bit too quickly.

  Eldris continued to watch me carefully. “The marks I saw on your breast that day said otherwise. I just want to make sure first, that’s all.”

  I swallowed against the ridiculous burn of tears. Where the blazes was that coming from? With complete honesty, I held his eyes and said, “I fail to see any connection whatsoever between that situation and this one.”

  “Indeed not,” Aristede said from behind me. A moment later, he appeared in my line of sight. “Just be aware that both of us are old hands at buggering off when we’re told to do so.” He smiled, slow and dangerous. “Or doing pretty much anything else a woman tells us to do.”

  Holy crap. How was it possibly to go from choked up to horny as fuck in the space between one heartbeat and the next?

  I scrambled for composure and raised an eyebrow, turning my attention back to Eldris. “Tell me truthfully. Have you ever in your life seen a woman tell that man to bugger off?” I asked, jerking my chin toward Aristede.

  His lips twitched, covering a smile. “Not even once,” he confirmed.

  The grin sliding over my face was almost certainly ridiculous. I bent to hide it, pulling off my boots and stockings before shimmying out of my breeches—still stiff from drying on my body after the river crossing. Making no effort to hide myself from their gazes, I finished by stripping off the thigh-length white tunic.

  “Such a pretty picture,” Eldris said, once I’d thrown the light material aside. “It almost makes me feel bad about doing this.”

  Before I knew it, he’d scooped me up in tree-trunk arms and I was flying through the air with a shriek of shocked laughter, sucking in a breath before I crashed into the chilly water. I surfaced with a sputter, still laughing.

  “You bastard!” I said, wiping my hair out of my face.

  “No such thing as a bastard in Kulawi,” he said cheerfully, peeling off his trousers to reveal… oh, my.

  Oh, my.

  Chapter 16: Interlude

  I WAS ONLY ABLE to stop staring because Eldris was splashing into the lake after me with single-minded intent. I squealed like a teenage girl and shoved a wave of water toward him, at which point things immediately devolved into a vicious water fight. I only realized that Aristede had joined us when the soaking deluge aimed at me stopped abruptl
y, and Eldris yelped.

  When I cleared my face enough to see properly, it was to find that Aristede had snuck up behind him and trapped Eldris’ arms in a wrestling hold, hands laced behind his neck to lock his arms to the side.

  “You sneaky…” Eldris began, twisting from one side to the other. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Seeing opportunity, I sucked in a quick breath and dolphin-dove, taking Eldris out at the knees. He and Aristede crashed into the water in a tangle, and all three of us surfaced a few moments later, laughing and coughing in roughly equal measure.

  “Oh my gods,” I said, sliding onto my back to float with my eyes closed. “I really needed this.”

  Someone—Eldris, I suspected—flicked water at me, but as I had known they would, the pair let me relax in the late-slanting sun, our play-feud forgotten. It was true—I needed this badly after the past few days. I didn’t want to think about bandits. I didn’t want to think about Prince Oblisii. I didn’t want to think about Nyx disappearing into the woods. I didn’t want to think about people hunting dragons. And I certainly didn’t want to think about godsdamned Rayth and his godsdamned cock making me hot and needy as he pinned me after winning our sparring match.

  Right now, I was swimming in a pristine mountain lake with two of the finest examples of manhood I’d come across in my twenty-two years of life. And I was going to enjoy every frigging minute of the next few hours until Rayth stumbled back to the cave and real life intruded on things once more.

  I filled my lungs and twisted my body, slicing beneath the water’s surface. A few strong strokes propelled me to the bank, where I climbed up just long enough to retrieve the little pot Aristede had brought. It was plain, homemade soap, not scented like the fancy goop Beshaam had used to wash me at the palace. Right now, that suited me just fine.

  I waded out to a jutting boulder, the water next to it reaching my hips. Using the boulder as a shelf to hold the soap, I began lathering myself—glad to finally get rid of the travel grime. The men joined me soon after.

  It was the first good look I’d gotten at Aristede, and my gaze caught on the patchwork of scars covering his upper body. Now, any man who’s spent a lifetime soldiering will have scars, it was true. But his were… extensive. My eyes caught on one in particular that slashed across the base of his throat in a terrifying silver line. His penchant for high-necked tunics had hidden it from my gaze until now, and I swallowed—imagining Aristede lying on the ground, blood streaming from his neck.

  A moment of dizziness assailed me.

  Aristede was watching me watching him. They both were, actually. What was the appropriate thing to say in this kind of situation?

  I decided on the truth. “I’m glad you survived all that. I’d’ve hated not getting a chance to meet you.”

  I lifted my eyes to his gray ones, and was rewarded with a small smile.

  “More lives than a cat, that one,” Eldris muttered, and I wondered if he, too, was thinking about how close Aristede must have come to death. I wondered… if he’d been there when it happened.

  “I’ll be the cat that got the cream, today,” Aristede said lightly. “Turn around, Frella, and I’ll help you wash your back.”

  * * *

  The sun was slipping below the craggy peaks by the time we finished soaping each other and dove back into the depths to rinse off. I got the distinct impression that the art of the tease was something these two had honed and perfected over the years. It certainly seemed to be working rather effectively on me.

  By the time we gathered everything up and headed back toward the cave, energy was fairly crackling between us, like the air before a thunderstorm. I’d thrown on my tunic to ward off the faint chill, and pulled my soft, knee-high riding boots back on for the walk, lacing them up sloppily. The slide of my bare thighs as I walked as almost enough to make me shiver with need at this point. I was nearly vibrating with pent-up impatience.

  “Race you back!” I called, haring off at a dead run to dispel some of it.

  Footsteps followed—heavy ones, probably Eldris. He was a large man, not built for speed, but short legs were short legs no matter how you looked at it, and that was what I had. There was also the matter of me not being terribly motivated to avoid getting caught. And of my feet still being sore from all the walking to get here. The practical upshot was that before we’d gone terribly far, a hand caught my shoulder and an arm wrapped around me from behind, halting my forward progress.

  “I win,” Eldris murmured in my ear.

  Before I could formulate a reply, I was turned in his grip and slung over his broad shoulder like I weighed nothing. And trust me when I say—short girl or no—I did not weigh nothing. I let out a tiny oof noise as he settled me into place and carried me the short remaining distance to the cave. I was a bit out of breath and it wasn’t the world’s most comfortable position, but it did give me an absolutely smashing view of Eldris’ muscular ass.

  Watching it as he walked was kind of… hypnotic, actually. I thought about copping a feel, but I didn’t want to startle him into dropping me on my head. Still, it was a very nice ass. I was still admiring it when my body shifted again, and he set me down neatly on my feet inside the cave.

  “Let me stir up the fire and put more wood on,” he said, flashing me a lazy smile. “Give Ari a moment to catch up with us.”

  “Ari’s keeping up just fine, thank you,” came a dry voice from the entrance, and I passed the smile on to him.

  Unwilling to draw things out any longer, I stepped forward, until my breasts brushed Aristede’s bare, scarred chest through the thin material of my tunic, and kissed him. I let the breeches drop from my loose grip, and heard the soft thump of the clay soap container landing on the towel when Aristede dropped his burdens a moment later.

  Aristede let me have control of the kiss at first, taking it away bit by bit, so skillfully that I barely noticed. One moment I was kissing him, and then somehow both of his hands were tangled in my wet curls and his tongue was dueling with mine, sweeping through my mouth like hot silk.

  When he eventually let me up for air, I was breathless.

  “You want I should go and do the ‘buggering off’ routine for an hour or two, Frella?” said a low voice behind me. “Let you two have some time alone?”

  I craned around, knowing how I must look with my face flushed and my lips swollen. “Why?” I asked. “Are you telling me the whole ‘Oh, why didn’t you wait for me to get back before fucking a woman in our room?’ routine back at the Purple Cloak a complete fabrication?”

  His eyes darkened as I said the word ‘fucking.’

  “Not at all,” he said, “but I wasn’t asking for me. I was asking for you.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I was raised by a handfasted triad. My brother has three lovers. And I spent most of the time while you were carrying me fighting to keep myself from grabbing your ass.” I paused for a moment, thinking. “Tell you what. Do you like to watch?”

  A soft breath of laughter.

  “He likes to boss.” Aristede’s voice tickled the skin of my throat, behind my ear. His lips followed.

  Eldris’ grin was a slash of brilliant white in the dimming light. “Only because you seem to enjoy it so much.”

  I caught Aristede’s careless shrug from the corner of my eye. “I never said he was bad at it,” he confided into my ear, and my heart picked up its tripping pace.

  I smiled. “Fair enough. All right, big man, tell us what to do.” Practicality reared its unwelcome head, and I sobered for a moment. “Just… don’t come inside me. That goes for both of you.”

  Aristede pulled back, his face becoming serious. “We won’t, Frella. Our word. There are other ways to enjoy each other, and I promise that neither of us have left a trail of fatherless children in our wake.”

  I relaxed, the smile returning to my face. “Good answer. Now, where were we?”

  “Hmm,” Eldris mused. “I think you were just about to relieve Ari of
his trousers and smallclothes.”

  “You know,” I agreed, “I think you’re absolutely right.”

  I suited word to deed, pausing to help him remove his boots. The fire was crackling higher now that Eldris had put more wood on it, throwing a warm orange glow around the cave as the sun disappeared outside. I crouched before Aristede’s freshly bared form, admiring my handiwork.

  The scars crisscrossing his body did nothing to detract from his beauty; they merely gave it a bittersweet edge. Appreciate this man, they said. He so easily might not be here at all. His was not the powerful build of Eldris, or the hard sinew of Rayth. Aristede was all graceful planes and curves—a sculptor’s masterpiece come to life, marred here and there by a slip of the chisel in a moment of too much passion.

  His hair fascinated me, and not just for its streak of white. It fell to the small of his back, straight and blunt-cut at the bottom, as though if he didn’t lop it off every once in a while, it would keep growing and growing until he tripped on it. By contrast, my unruly curls grew to about mid-back and no further.

  Just as intriguing, his hair never seemed to tangle. Even after more than a day of rough travel… even wet from a dip in the lake, it hung in a smooth, silken wave. My fingers itched to run through the drying strands, but before they could, Eldris spoke again.

  “Your turn now, sweet thing. Let us see those pretty curves.”

  Aristede’s smile tilted up. Warmth spread through me, and I moved to unlace my boots.

  “Nah,” Eldris said. “Leave those on.”

  The warmth turned to fiery heat, but I managed not to make any embarrassing noises as I halted my abortive attempt to remove the knee-high boots. Instead, I stood and stripped off the tunic, tossing it aside carelessly. I turned until I could see both men, reveling in the appreciative looks they were giving me. Standing here in my tall boots made me feel oddly powerful, and I decided I liked it.