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They could see the others long before they could be seen. And hear them as well.

They walked forward as three shadows, Connor on the left, Reginald slightly shorter on the right, the boy between them, wading through the tail grass. Both adults wore cloaks against the cold that trailed behind them, snagging on stalks and belling out so they looked like wings. The moon gilded Reginald’s pale hair, and shined in the whites of their eyes.

Reginald turned his head side to side, holding the lantern out away from himself to search. “They must have come to inspect the drakes.” He turned to Connor as they walked. “You don’t think they’ll tamper with them, do you?”

“Tamper?” Connor said. “Who can tamper with a drake? You’re worrying too much. Besides: they’re our allies, aren’t they? Why would they want to harm the dragons?”

“I saidtamper, notharm. They might be curious. You can do harm without meaning to, you know.”

“Good gods, man. They have drakes up North. The prince will have been around Oliver’s drakes. Perhaps if you took up knitting, you’d have less time to fret.”

Reginald’s jaw worked, and he opened his mouth, gathering breath for a retort…but then his gaze dropped to the child, walking along pulling last year’s dead seed heads off the grass, blissfully unaware of their arguing.

Connor grinned.

Reginald offered him a rude gesture.

Leif called, “Good evening, my lords.”

The lantern swayed drunkenly as Reginald jerked.

Connor gave no outward flinch, but muttered, “Gods,” low and harsh like a curse.

Ragnar’s chuckle was too quiet for them to hear, but Leif elbowed him anyway – and then regretted the way it pulled at his ribs.

“Serves you right,” Ragnar whispered.

Recovered, Reginald stood tall and held the lantern aloft, its rays falling short of them, still. “Hello,” he called back, in a projected voice of the sort meant to make him sound larger than he was. The next gust of breeze lifted the sharp scent of fear to Leif’s nose, and he found it was an effort not to grin. “Is that a Northern accent I detect from you, your grace?”

“Aye,” Leif said, and strode forward, noting the faint tremor of the lantern, quickly steadied, but there all the same. “We’ve been inspecting the grounds, getting the lay of the land.”

“Northern?” the boy piped up, his tousled mop of hair flipping back as he lifted his head. “Is that the prince? I wanna see him!” He lunged forward – and Connor snatched him by the back of his shirt collar and held him in place.

The boy fought. “But I haven’t seen him yet! Daddy, let go!”

Daddy. Leif had been right about their relationship, then. And his wolf eyes could pick out the lines of strain in Connor’s face, the deep groove of worry pressed between his brows.

“No, Liam. Don’t bother His Grace.”

“He’s no bother,” Leif said, and finally stepped into the puddle of light thrown by the lantern, Ragnar a half-step behind him. Up close, the boy shared Connor’s dark hair and dark eyes, though his were wide with wonder, his face tipped back so he could look up at Leif as though he were a character from one of his favorite fairy stories. It was the sort of look Leif hadn’t been on the receiving end of for some time, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

“Whoa,” the boy said, gaze tracking back and forth across Leif, then darting to Ragnar and somehow getting wider. “Are you really the prince? Is he a prince, too?”

It was Ragnar who answered, while Leif was still trying to remember how to address children. He squatted down, so he and the boy were on eye-level – Connor’s grip tightened on the back of the boy’s collar, sleeve shifting over his arm as it flexed; prepared to whirl him away out of reach – and smiled his most inviting, disarming smile. “Aye, he’s a prince, lad.” He tipped his head Leif’s direction. “But I’m only the prince’s cousin.” He offered his hand. “I’m Ragnar. And you’re Liam, yeah?”

The boy accepted the shake readily, smiling back. “Yeah! I’m Liam, and this is my daddy, and this is Reginald…” His nose wrinkled, small face creasing with thoughtfulness. “He’s always in Daddy’s tent with him, but Daddy says he isn’t going to be myotherdaddy–”

A hand covered the lad’s mouth – Reginald’s hand. “Children,” he said with a tight, humorless laugh. “You never can be sure of what they’ll say. Always dreaming up stories. Such imaginations.”

Ragnar stood, and the grin he turned on Reginald was wicked; Leif felt a little sorry for the man, truth told. “Right.Imagination.”

Reginald had gone pale, but he held Ragnar’s gaze an admirable moment before turning to Leif. “And was it to your liking?” he asked, stiffly. “The ‘lay of the land’?”

Leif shrugged. “You’ve plenty of open space for the camp here. Room for the drakes. Not bad, for a temporary headquarters. Though it’s sorely lacking in fortifications.”

Both men’s expressions soured. Connor’s voice was resigned, though, when he said, “You’re right. We have scouts posted, and rotating guard shifts, but we’re vastly unprotected here.”

“We don’t feud with our neighbors, and there are no marauding rival clan chiefs in Aquitainia,” Reginald put in, with a pointed look at Ragnar. “We’ve no need of defenses.”