Page 49

He’d had his face pressed into the straw of a cell at the height of last summer, his captor’s hands slipping and sliding on his hips and waist while they panted over him. Later, he’d been dragged out to the hangman’s noose, and someone had kicked the bucket from beneath his feet. Horror had come with the heat; nothing terrible had ever happened to him when he was chafing his hands against the cold, wrapped up tight in a long wool coat and scarf.

The grounds were quiet save the conversations around the cookfires. Tomorrow, when the cooks and servants arrived behind their main fighting caravan, the kitchens of the manor would be thoroughly cleaned, and the house would begin its transformation into a serviceable barracks. For now, most seemed content to sit and smoke and drink and tell bawdy stories; laughter erupted in sudden bursts as he passed; there was much hooting, hollering, and exclamations of disbelief over someone’s tale of conquest.

A few sentries greeted him with a “good evening, my lord,” to which he nodded and murmured a thanks, but he didn’t accept anyone’s offer of a drink or a spot by the fire. They probably thought him a prig, but he didn’t care; he didn’t want to be near anyone at the moment.

He moved beyond the reach of the fires and torchlight, into the miasma of shifting shadows at the edge of the yard, only to curse himself when he heard a twig snap. Idiot. But a hulking shadow stepped in closer, and resolved into one of the drakes.

Odd, he thought, to be comforted by the sight of such a large, deadly creature, but if it was here, then a lion or an enemy scout certainly wasn’t.

It was one of the females who’d escorted their party through the forest. The quiet one with the daintier snout; whipcord thin, her obsidian scales blacker than the night around them, eyes glowing like gemstones as she regarded him, and lightly nosed at his shoulder. Her breath was warm, and smelled faintly of charcoal. Valencia.

He was surprised he’d learned to tell them apart, honestly.

“Hullo there, girl.” He reached, slow and careful, to rest a hand on her neck, as she sidled in next to him and got settled. He was startled, as ever, by the heat and smoothness of her scales. Once you got past the terror of their teeth and claws, they were remarkable creatures. “What are you doing over here all alone?”

She rested her head lightly on his shoulder, and coiled her long, sinuous body around him, a barrier against the dark, and any questing eyes. For the first time in hours, he drew in a full breath, the discomfort in his throat fading until it was possible not to think of the noose.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, the heat emanating from Valencia pushing back the cold and warming him through. The tension slowly bled out of his body, and he found, after a time, that he was resting his weight against her strong shoulder, the deep, even bellows-sound of her breathing lulling him into a sort of trance.

He snapped back to the moment at hand when, with a single, short horn blast, the guard changed for the night.

He stroked Valencia’s neck once more, scratching up behind her horns the way he’d seen Amelia do. “All right, Lenny. I should attempt to sleep, I suppose.” She blew in his ear until he chuckled. “You go sleep, too. Make one of the other slackers keep dragon watch, hm?”

He scaled the front steps of the manor feeling considerably lighter, his words with Amelia forgotten.

Until he passed through the door.

Connor sat at the foot of the grand, double-curve staircase, one hand lightly gripping the spindles of the handrail, the other curled around the neck of a bottle. He was sprawled, boneless and unbothered, knees splayed and gaze glassy in the light of the candle that he’d – somehow – managed to set carefully on the step beside him. It was a miracle he hadn’t ignited the dusty old runner and sent the whole house up.

Reggie heeled the door shut behind him, and the clap of the latch startled Connor, if the way his head jerked was anything to go by.

“Clearly, I’ll need to go and wake Amelia or Edward,” Reggie drawled, “seeing as how you’re too sauced to even make it up the stairs, much less keep watch.”

Connor wiped his face and cleared his throat with a phlegmy sound. He squinted up at Reggie. “What? What time is it?”

Reggie snorted. “Time for you to sleep this off.” He toed the end of the bottle and Connor’s grip didn’t hold; it dropped to the floor with a hollow thunk and rolled away. “Any particular reason you decided to tie one on?”

Connor blinked, and frowned. “Well. Hm. To start with,” he said, slow and careful in the way of the very drunk. “I made a pass at Amelia.”

“You what?”

“Shh. It’s fine, it’s fine. I wasn’t really serious about it.” He moved as if to raise the bottle to his lips, then realized he’d already dropped it. “Damn. But. I did that – she slapped me, by the way. And so I went up to my old bedroom to have a bit of sleep. But there was a dead body in my bed.”

“You are unbelievable,” Reggie hissed. “You’ll throw yourself at anyone, won’t you?” He didn’t want to examine the way that burned in his chest. As distressing as it had been to have Connor’s attention directed his way, for ugly, war-related reasons he also didn’t want to examine, it was much worse, not to mention demeaning, to think that Connor hadn’t fancied him, but had only been looking for the nearest warm body to stick his cock in. It felt nearly like a rejection. “I can’t believe that you…”

A beat too late, the second part of Connor’s statement registered.

“Wait. Did you said dead body?”

“My first wife, I believe, going by the jewelry.” His head thumped sideways against the banister. “It was winter time, when it happened, and the house was cold. She’s quite preserved. Bit like a raisin.”

“Gods.” Reggie swallowed with difficulty, the tension back in his throat. “Did you…?”

“Come down here and pick up a fresh bottle? Yes. Yes, I did.”

Well…that made a bit more sense. Even if it was foolish.

Legs gone watery, Reggie turned and sat down on the step beside him. “Sorry,” he murmured.