Page 15 of Courting the Dragon Prince (A Royal Arrangement #1)

Chapter Fifteen

“W hat the fuck are these squiggly green lines?” Luther glared at the map.

He glared at the river flowing in front of them. He’d been following the river on the map, following the shaded blue that symbolised a river.

Then the shaded blue had stopped completely.

But the river hadn’t!

It kept flowing on. Now, on the map, squiggly green lines continued where the shaded blue ended.

“Fire and fucking flames! What bullshit is this?” Luther yelled.

“Mountain spirits save us,” Onyx muttered. “Squiggly green lines mean a river. Like this river in front of us.” Onyx gestured.

“Since when?”

“Since forever,” Onyx snapped.

Luther glared at him. This map was annoying but still nowhere near as annoying as the man standing beside him.

For the past half hour, Onyx had done nothing but grouch and glower.

Clearly, sex hadn’t improved his personality. Which it normally did. In Luther’s experience, fucking someone tended to make them a bit more tolerable. At least temporarily.

But not Onyx.

It was a pity. Because Luther had enjoyed the sex. Thoroughly.

For a few brief moments afterwards, his body had felt flushed with satisfaction. Luther hadn’t been bothered by the wet clothes, mud, shackles, or the quest they had to complete. He’d felt deeply satisfied.

Then Onyx had opened his big fucking mouth, going on about how it was a mistake and he regretted touching Luther. No doubt the earth elemental felt he’d debased himself by having sex with someone he saw as so beneath him.

And the sex had been good, passionate and intense. Onyx knew how to work a dick with his hand. Which honestly surprised Luther. And when he’d turned all growly and made Luther beg … Luther felt his dick stir at the memory. But he shoved it away.

“Just give me back the map and I’ll work it out.” Onyx held out his hand.

Luther pursed his lips. He turned his back on Onyx, pointedly ignoring him.

Onyx huffed.

Luther returned his attention to the map. He knew how to read maps. He’d learnt young and never had a problem with them.

Until today.

The map just confused him. One moment, he’d think he understood it. The next, he’d be stumped. There were just so many symbols he’d never seen before.

He didn’t want to admit it, but Onyx had been right. There was something wrong with this map. It felt like a trick. Or a puzzle.

But Luther was smart. Surely he could work it out! And he was determined to do it without any help from his conceited future husband.

“What the fuck are these light-blue crosses meant to mean?” Luther murmured.

The blue crosses weren’t close to their current location, unless Luther had really fucked up reading the map. But the blue crosses covered a huge section of the map, and he’d never seen them before.

“It’s the ocean!” Onyx leaned forward. “I thought you said you knew how to read a map!”

“I do! And blue crosses don’t mean an ocean. The dark-blue circles do!” Luther tapped the dark-blue circles that had been drawn right next to the light-blue crosses.

Onyx didn’t speak for several moments. “Those dark-blue circles mean the ocean?”

“Of course they do!” Luther turned towards him. “I thought you said you knew how to read a map,” he mocked.

But Onyx grabbed the map, not tugging it from Luther’s hands but holding it so he could see it. He leaned in close. “And what does this blue mean?”

“It’s a river!”

Onyx closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. Then he opened his eyes and pointed at a red criss-cross pattern. “And these?”

“Farmland! What sort of foolish test is this?” The paper crinkled beneath Luther’s tightening grip, threatening to tear.

Onyx sighed. “Those are some of the symbols I don’t understand. In the Grey Mountains, we use squiggly green lines to indicate a river, light-blue crosses for the ocean, and yellow shading for farmland on maps. It seems you don’t.”

“No.” Luther frowned. “No. We don’t.”

He stared at the map, at the blue shading that stopped next to the squiggly green lines. He looked up at the river gurgling in front of them. “So we use blue shading, and you use squiggly green lines to symbolise a river,” he said, voice flat. “And this map uses both those symbols to indicate the river.”

With a sinking feeling in his gut, the map suddenly made sense.

Onyx groaned. “They drew this map specifically for this quest. For us. They are using the symbols that we would use in our maps in the Grey Mountains maps mixed with the symbols you’d use in Draconia.”

Luther shook his head. “They’ve been using the symbols interchangeably, which is why we have both been so confused.”

The silence stretched between them. It was so fucking simple. So fucking simple, and they were both fucking fools.

“If we’d worked together from the start, we’d have realised that straight away.” Onyx didn’t look at Luther.

Luther didn’t look at him.

They both just stared at the map.

Luther wanted to be angry. He wanted to blame Onyx and say it had all been the earth elemental’s fault.

But they both knew the truth. They’d both been a part of this issue. Their stubbornness and inability to talk to each other to discuss the quest, specifically the map, had meant they’d spent hours lost in the forest, shackled together, without their magic.

“Well, let’s follow this river.” Onyx knocked the map with the back of his hand. “It should lead us right to the key.”

Luther nodded.

They walked alongside the river. Luther held the map so both could see.

As they continued, Luther wondered if Onyx felt as embarrassed and annoyed with himself as Luther did.