“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“To the trail I marked,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation. “That’s where I first saw the white dragon.” And where I last saw Nyx, I didn’t add.
“Sure. Makes sense,” he agreed easily, and reined the gelding in that direction.
We fell quiet again for several minutes, the trees closing around us as we entered the trailhead.
“What the hell is Rayth’s problem?” I asked eventually.
Eldris seemed to consider his words. “He’s worried about the dragons. We blindsided him with that news about you and the white male, and now he has to worry about how you being here will affect the group.”
I shook my head. “No. Well, maybe so—but it’s more than that. He’s disliked me from the moment we first met.”
Another pause.
“There was… a woman. He loved her, and she betrayed him.” I waited for Eldris to elaborate, but he only sighed into the expectant silence. “That’s all I know, Frella. He never talks about his past. At least, not when he’s sober.”
I swallowed the barb that wanted to rise. And when is that, exactly? It wasn’t helpful, and I knew it.
“So now all women are automatically suspect?” I asked instead, letting the tartness come through in my voice.
“Only the ones he’s attracted to, I expect.”
And, oh hell, no. We were not going there right now. We weren’t going there ever, if I had anything to say about it.
I changed the subject gracelessly. “Are you and Aristede lovers?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“Why not?” I asked.
There was a beat of thoughtful silence. “Because I value his friendship too much.”
“So, that means you’d like to be,” I mused. “I thought so.”
Eldris didn’t stiffen under my arms, and his tone wasn’t angry when he replied. It was cautious, though. “What makes you say that?”
I shrugged, leaning against his broad back as the horse picked its way down the narrow trail. “You were using my body as an extension of yours last night. Telling me how to touch him. How to please him.” I thought back to our evening of debauchery, shivering a bit. “And when I looked over and saw you pleasuring yourself as you watched it, I didn’t think it was just me you were looking at.”
He nodded, and for the first time I wished I could see his face as we talked.
“Does it bother you?” he asked.
My brows drew together. “Why would it?”
“Northerners have got some really strange ideas about men and women enjoying each other, and you’re more northern than most, sweet thing.”
“Oh.” It was true enough—just not in my particular case. “No… you’re right. Some of them do. But I was raised by a man, a eunuch, and someone with a female body who lives as male—and they all love each other. Two of my brother’s three lovers are men. To me, it’s normal. It’s just love.”
“Just love,” he echoed. “I like that.”
“Why do you say you value Aristede’s friendship too much to become his lover?” I prodded. “Would the idea offend him?”
I felt Eldris’ breath of laughter through my grip on his waist. “Not hardly. Rayth wasn’t far off that he’ll sleep with anyone that’ll have him. I think it helps keep his nightmares at bay. But… he never fucks the same person twice.” His voice lowered to a barely audible mutter. “’Cause if he did, then they might start to get a glimpse of what’s hidden behind those walls.”
I’d intended to ask more about those nightmares; to see if Eldris was willing to let anything else slip. But then the next words he’d said stopped me cold.
He never fucks the same person twice.
I don’t need her pining after you once she realizes what a shameless man-whore you are.
Rayth’s reaction fell into place like the pieces of a child’s wooden puzzle. I stiffened, but kept my voice carefully neutral as I replied.
“And neither of you thought this might be relevant information for me to have yesterday evening?”
His chest rose and fell heavily. “I doubt it even occurred to him. It’s just not how his mind works. And I thought…”
“You thought what?” I pressed.
He sighed again. “I thought you might be the woman to show him a better way. I still think that.”
I pondered his words. “You should have talked to me first.”
“Yeah.”
Silence fell again as we reached the clearing where I’d seen the male dragon. It was quiet but for the wind rustling through the leaves and the sounds of small birds. I took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly.
“There’s nothing here,” I said. “Let’s go back, I guess.”
We turned and headed back the way we’d come, the atmosphere around us heavy. Eldris was the one to breach it as we approached the trailhead and the valley beyond.
“For what it’s worth, Frella, I don’t drop people so easily. Not unless they want me to.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve no idea if you’re even interested in me after this morning’s shitshow. But I care for you. The two of us… we fit. If you want me to fuck you to sleep every night, I will. If you want me to hold you in my arms and stroke your hair, I will. If you want me to bugger off, I’ll do that. But unless you tell me to my face that you no longer want me around at all… I’ll keep coming back, afterward.”
An unexpected lump rose in my throat, a choking noise emerging from my lips instead of words. Tears burned at the backs of my eyes. Naloth’s balls, what the hell was wrong with me these days?
Since I couldn’t seem to speak, I squeezed my arms hard around Eldris’ body instead. This turned out to be a good plan, since the horse chose that moment to spook violently sideways, very nearly managing to scrape us off on an unfortunately placed tree.
I yelped, clinging to Eldris and gripping with my knees as he wrestled with the reins.
“Whoa,” Eldris growled, dragging the gelding back under control. “What the hell?”
He helped me dismount and followed me down, holding the gelding on a close rein as the animal danced sideways and snorted. I retraced our steps toward the trailhead, Eldris coaxing the horse forward as he followed behind me. My hand strayed to my knife-belt, grasping the hilt of one of the throwing knives in readiness.
I emerged into the grassy valley, only to come face to face with an unexpected sight. Perhaps two dozen paces away, Nyx stood frozen, supporting the broken wing of a small dragon with blood smeared across its hide.
I gaped at Nyx, and he gaped at me. I was only vaguely aware of Eldris arriving at my shoulder with his nervous horse in tow, as I tried to make sense of the scene. The dragon was noticeably shorter and lighter than the others I’d seen, its ribs and shoulder blades standing out starkly under its hide. Its scales were coming in green around the head, but they, too, seemed dull rather than lustrous.
The damaged wing had a horrible, blood-crusted tear through the webbing, and some of the delicate bones looked wrong. Broken. The dragon was limping, the side of her body with the injured wing showing evidence of deep cuts and scrapes on the tough skin. Her head hung low, but her emerald eyes blazed.
My gaze flew to Nyx, and I gasped. Those multi-colored hazel eyes I’d so admired shone with the same eerie inner light, the green swallowing the brown. He looked… feverish. Enflamed.
Unearthly.
“Please,” he said. “I know if I go back to the cave, Prince Rathanii will kill me. But… I can feel the dragon, like she’s inside my mind somehow. She’s badly hurt. She needs help, and I refuse to let her die.”
I looked at Eldris, wide-eyed, the implications crashing down on me like an avalanche. The man Rayth wanted to kill had just formed a soul-bond with one of his beloved dragons. The wine-soaked bastard should have counted himself lucky when he walked in to find Eldris and Aristede in bed with me. He didn’t know when he was well off. And… Prince Rathanii? What was that ab
out?
For a moment, Eldris looked like he was at as much of a loss as I was. He recovered first, though, his face hardening into lines that said anyone who got in his way was about to be in for a bad time.
“You leave Rayth to me, lad,” he said, his voice stony. “We’ll help you get her back to the cave. No one’s going to be dying today.”
finis
Frella’s adventures continue in The Dragon Mistress: Book 2.
To read the back-story on Frella and her family in Eburos, purchase the following series boxsets and save almost 50% versus buying the books individually.
The Complete Horse Mistress Collection
The Complete Lion Mistress Collection
The Dragon Mistress: Book 1 (The Eburosi Chronicles 8) Page 17
