Dragons Among Them (Kingdoms of Fire and Ice) (19 page)

“Will!” Addie cried softly, and the horse’s ears pricked at the sound. His magnificent white stallion bobbed its head, then drew close to the pair. “Is this who was waiting to see me again?”

“Perhaps.” Zayne winked and produced a carrot from his pocket.

Addie took it and held it out to his steed then giggled as the horse’s lips sought the offered treat. As Will munched, she stroked his long white nose.

“Can I ask you something?” she said after a moment.

“’Twould be odd if you did not.”

Addie threw him a look of mock insult. “For that, I shall ask even more questions.”

“Ask me anything you wish. Today, I am yours.”

She studied him intently for a moment then gave a small nod. “Fine. But you have to promise not to laugh.”

“More promises?”

“Well, at least try, all right?”

“I’ll do my best,” he said with a grin.

“Okay.” She scratched Will’s chin, and the horse shuddered beneath her touch. “So, when you’re, you know, a dragon and all… Can you talk to the other animals?”

A laugh burst from Zayne so quickly, he had no time to rein in it.

Her eyes grew wide. “You promised not to laugh!”

“I said I would do my best.” She snorted and turned from him to put her cheek to Will’s. “Forgive my outburst. Your question was merely…unexpected.” He chuckled. “I cannot say anyone has ever asked me that before.”

“Well, now someone has.” She held her chin high. “So it won’t be nearly as funny for you the next time.”

His pursed his lips. “Indeed. To answer your question, when I am in my other form, it is but other dragons with which I can converse.”

Her face drew back from Will, though her gaze remained upon his muzzle. “I still don’t think it’s fair, you know. Only men being able to turn into something so cool.”

“Edana’s dragons breathe fire, not ice, Addie. And as I said before, possessing the blood of dragons is not all fun and games. With it comes responsibility, war. I would wish it upon no one.”

She looked to Zayne with surprise. “Even though it would mean they could fly?”

“Even though.” The conversation had become too serious, and he yearned to lighten the mood. How could he win her heart if she was busy worrying about issues that mattered not? With a smile, Zayne held out his hand for her. “Come, there is much more to see.”

* * * * *

They spent the day touring the royal retreat’s grounds. Addie peppered him with an unending stream of questions which, thankfully, were generally much lighter in nature, and he did his best to answer them. Her unquenchable thirst for knowledge gave him hope. If she had no interest in his lands or his people, the questions would have been few and far between. When their stomachs ached for sustenance, they returned to the main cottage for lunch. Emeline watched their interactions like a hawk, though her scowl had visibly dimmed since their earlier departure. It seemed even she, as opposed to Zayne’s behavior as she was, was unable to resist Addie’s sweet charm.

“You keep talking about scrolls,” Addie prompted as he led her down the last of the grounds’ trails they had yet to travel. The sun was quickly setting on the horizon, casting an orange glow upon her silken hair. “What are they?”

“Scrolls are rolls of parchment, with messages written on—”

“Oh,” she laughed. “Like, for real scrolls. It just sounds so old-fashioned.”

Zayne frowned at the unfamiliar term. “Old-fashioned?”

“Yeah. I mean, we stopped sending messages by way of scrolls ages ago. They took too long to deliver and stuff.” She turned her beautiful face toward his. “How do you send your scrolls? By bird? Messenger?”

“By magic, mostly.”

Her eyes widened at that. “Really?”

“Aye. Each of the royal properties has a scroll room, used for creating, sending, and receiving messages. When a scroll is stamped and delivered, a royal messenger receives it at its new destination and with haste delivers the parchment to its intended recipient.” Addie looked away, attempting to keep him from seeing the mocking smile upon her perfect pink lips, but it was all for not. “What do you find so amusing?”

“Nothing, really. It’s just that even without magic, our messages get sent, received, and replied to a whole heck of a lot faster than yours possibly could.”

“And how is that?” he asked.

A confident grin dawned upon her face. “Because we have our own kind of magic: technology. I’d tell you all about it, of course, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Zayne’s mouth dropped open in surprise as he stopped in his tracks.

Addie shook her head and sighed. “It’s a joke, Zayne.”

“A relief, I can assure you.”

She stepped forward to link her arm with his. “Right, like I could possibly inflict enough damage to you or any of your men to be fatal. Speaking of which, I thought you told me the other day that your men don’t go home—where you are, they are? All I’ve seen are the few guards stationed in the cottage. So where are you hiding the others? In a secret, buried dungeon or something?”

He winced at the reference. If King Robert had his way, that was precisely where the prince would be now.

“No, my lady. These grounds do not include a dungeon—’tis but our castles that possess such a space. But if it is my warriors’ company you seek…” He nodded toward a clearing up ahead. As expected, his band of trusted men was gathered around a large bonfire. Their voices were muffled by both distance and the surrounding evergreens, as were the strains of music strummed by Rowan on his lute. Brom stood beside the fire, tending to a large, skewered hog hanging above its flames.

Addie drew in a surprised breath. Then, without warning—and with a burst of speed and energy Zayne could never have predicted after their day of touring the grounds—she bolted toward the others.

“Addie, wait!”

He dashed after her, but the sprite was far too quick to catch before she came into view of the others. They looked up at the sound of his voice, surprise and then apprehension on their faces as each drew a weapon from their belts. But his fair maiden seemed not to notice as she charged into the center of the ring and threw her arms around a shocked Brom. He stood stock-still, arms held out at his sides as though she was covered in poison and to touch her would be the end of him. His confused gaze shifted to Zayne’s as the prince slid to a stop just inside the circle. A rare silence descended upon the raucous group.

“I never got a chance to thank you for saving me,” Addie whispered into Brom’s chest.

He remained mute as he regarded the fair maiden clinging to his midsection.

She sniffled and shook her head back and forth. “And I am so, so sorry about Korey.”

After a long moment, the broad, aged warrior lowered his massive hands upon her slight shoulders. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, lass. ’Twas not you who flew the murderous arrow. This fortnight we honor his life with our celebrations, not dishonor him with silence.”

She released him with a nod, then hastily swiped a hand across each eye. “What?” She found her full voice once again. Addie looked from man to man in the circle and planted a hand on her hip. “Do you mean to tell me this is how men celebrate around here?”

Her question was met with a dozen blank stares, and Zayne held his breath. This wasn’t how he’d planned for her reintroduction to go. But he should have known better than to worry. A wide grin slowly stretched across Brom’s grizzled face, and in one quick motion, he hoisted Addie onto his shoulder.

“To Korey!” he bellowed.

“To Korey!” the rest of the group cried, raising their tankards of ale high.

A triumphant smile stretched across Addie’s beautiful face as one of the men offered her a tankard of her own. She took it without hesitation, took a good, long draft, then swiped at her damp lips with the back of her other hand. Rowan began to strum his lute once more, and Brom danced off with Adelaide still held high upon his shoulders. In that moment, Zayne knew she’d been accepted as one of their own. All that was left was to convince her that his future kingdom was where she truly belonged.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Rosalind sat alongside her father and brother at breakfast the next morning, enduring tale after tale of their glorious hunting adventures from the prior afternoon. The conversation was hardly appropriate for mealtime, but she kept the thought to herself. Them rambling on about how many deer they’d slaughtered the day before left little room for discussion of much else. Specifically, about a stolen woodland whore and where she might be now.

“Did we miss anything back at the castle yesterday, sister?” Prince Tristan’s sky-blue gaze shifted to her.

“Sadly, only needlepoint and reading.” She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Nothing nearly as exciting as flinging wooden sticks with pointy ends into a herd of innocent beasts.”

“’Tis called hunting, my dear,” her father said. “And I have offered to take you with us numerous times. Perhaps you should join us before you no longer possess the time?”

“A gracious invitation, Father, but you know how busy I am now that my betrothed has set a date for our wedding.”

“About damned time,” Tristan muttered into his meal.

“The boy needed to be ready,” her father stated. “Best for everyone if he finished sowing his wild oats before the wedding rather than after. Best for both of you to finish with such matters.”

Rosalind’s cheeks burst with heat under her father’s narrowed gaze. Forath’s castle, it seemed, had grown ears of its own. When she found the responsible party, they would never hear her voice or any other again.

“I have no oats to sow, Father.”

“Only fertile grounds to be sown,” he said. “You must consummate your marriage with Prince Zayne to carry on both royal bloodlines. Not with—”

“I shall play my part, Father.” Rosalind could hear the bitterness in her voice, though she doubted her father heard it. When he wasn’t discussing hunting strategies, his topics of conversation revolved around ruling strategies. Strategies with which she didn’t agree. Soon enough, though, she’d have her own kingdom to rule. Then they’d see whose strategy faired the best.

“Without a doubt.” He shifted his gaze back to Tristan. “Though, if I do not receive a sufficient explanation and adequate reparations from King Robert in the three days’ time he promised, I may well decide to cancel the betrothal altogether. I’ll not bring a rogue fire dragon into our family. And I’ll not have him hiding this peasant girl from me forever. Justice will be served.”

Anger at the unfairness of it all killed her remaining appetite, and Rosalind asked to be excused. She swept out of the room and down the hall. Perhaps a ride would calm her nerves. A long, winding ride to take her away from her father’s stifling rules. Why was it that he focused so much on marrying her off, on her producing his heirs, when Tristan was the older of the two? He should be out wooing the competing royalty, not her.

Ah, but there was no princess in Edana for her father to plot and scheme over. Merely a lone prince. How very unfortunate for her.

Rosalind changed into riding clothes and headed to retrieve her steed. But a hand clamped over her arm as she stepped into the stable. Before she had a chance to cry out, her aggressor pinned her to the wall and claimed her mouth in a crushing kiss. There was but one in the kingdom would be so bold.

Quinn.

“Off to get some fresh air whilst dreaming about your future husband?” he asked.

“Jealous, are we?”

He growled but released her. Quinn might be hotheaded, but he was no fool. There were too many eyes in the castle. And, if her father’s words at breakfast had been any indication, too many ears now as well. Her lover escorted her to her dappled mare, careful to keep an appropriate distance between them when out of the shadows.

“We’ve located the girl,” he said in a low voice as he saddled her steed.

“Oh?”

“She stays with the prince at his family’s countryside manor.”

A flash of jealousy whipped through Rosalind. Edana’s throne was meant for her, not this peasant girl. The princess hissed, “Why is she there and not yet in my dungeon?”

“My men have been waiting for their chance to take her, my lady, but she has yet to be alone.”

“Your men are incompetent, and our time is short.” The princess drew a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. Victories were won by calm leaders, not irrational ones—or so her secret studies of their library had led her to believe. “I shall create a distraction. You find the girl and bring her to me.”

With a snarl, he turned to go, his dark eyes glowing a dull scarlet.

“Do not fail me, Quinn.”

“And allow Prince Zayne the pleasure of consummating your marriage?” The fire was now bright in his eyes as his gaze raked over her from head to toe and back again. “Never.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Addie awoke to someone knocking at her bedroom door the next morning, which painfully amplified the pounding in her head.
Too…much…ale.
She flinched away from the sound. Last night had been the most fun she’d had in ages, but she should have done a better job at moderation. Now she was left with one hell of a hangover.