Page 31 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

DARE

The man who stood in the doorway looked more exasperated than stern. His lips were generous, sternly set, but there was affection in his gaze as he stared at Hanna. His golden blond hair was in loose waves around his face, and he was dressed in severe black, his clothes expensive. “I cannot wait to hear your explanation for why you didn’t send word of your return to the Isle.”

“I didn’t have time before we were arrested. Someone has whipped Isle security into shape over the past decade.” Her tone was teasing, light, but as she scrambled to her feet, she was unable to hide how excited she was to see him. Her face was luminous.

I felt an unexpected lurch that felt like jealousy. But I knew that he was no potential romantic partner. Something different. There was a comfortable affection between them that I didn’t think I had felt with anyone in all my life.

“Branok,” she told him, reaching out her arms to hug him. “I’m afraid Honor is in trouble.”

“I’m afraid Honor is always in trouble. I didn’t need you to sail all the way from the Ice Kingdom to tell me that.” He gave her a look, arms still crossed over his chest. “I’m not sure I should be excited to see you until I know more about your corpse smuggling activities.”

She laughed off his words, and he was already unfurling from the doorway to hug her. He wrapped his arms around her in a big hug, and she leaned into him with a sigh of relief, as if everything must be all right now that she was reunited with her family.

Bitterness writhed through me like a worm. The anger and resentment that swept over me was easier to handle than a sudden raw sense of longing.

There were guards still lingering out in the hall, their jaws unhinged as they watched through the doorway. Branok waved them off impatiently. “You can leave the doors open for us on our way out.”

They could not look more uncomfortable with this command. He could not look more disinterested in their feelings. At any rate, they moved away.

“There’s a group called the House of Restoration that has recruited members of the Spy Guild,” she told him, as if she were afraid someone would shoot her in the neck with a crossbow and she would have lost the opportunity to warn him. “They’ve been sending assassins after me, and I believe they will send them after Honor as well, if they haven’t already. Have there been any new assassination attempts?”

“None that have been particularly interesting. We are tracking this Spy Guild nonsense, of course. Do you think we’re incompetent?”

“I need to see Honor now,” she said.

Branok’s eyebrows arched. “If you desperately want to see her after your most recent bout of nonsense, you must think the danger is severe.”

Hanna rolled her eyes. “She’s never left me in the dungeon for more than an hour. I think we’ll be fine.”

Branok squinted past her at me. She was so focused on her situation that I felt almost as if she could have forgotten me, and I might end up left behind in the cell. “Did they house you with a random beggar or hustler or did you bring this one along with you?”

I had the feeling Branok already knew more about me than I would like.

She gave him an affronted look on my behalf. “He’s mine.”

“Does he have a name?”

“And a voice, even.” I offered him my hand. “Dare.”

Branok looked me over, then looked back at Hanna. “Your bandage is soaked through with fresh blood. I would like to know exactly how you got hurt.”

She shrugged. “It’s not a very interesting story. I’d like to get on the road.”

Branok looked past her to me. “I assume you watched my little sister get hurt. Who are you, exactly?”

“That’s quite the existential question.” I didn’t want to tell him that I was her latest husband. Especially when I wasn’t sure if the two of us would stay married much longer.

“Branok, don’t be tiresome.” She moved past him into the hallway. “The guards took the daggers from me, but…ah, finally.”

She smiled down at her waist as the daggers reappeared at her hips. “Dare is going to need his weapons too.”

“Are you going to tell me who he is?” Branok’s tone with Hanna left no room for argument.

She smiled winningly at him. The two of them were already moving out into the hall. I followed in a hurry, convinced that Branok might very well slam the door shut on me if he had the opportunity.

“You can give me that smile, but I’m not going to prefer it to answers.” Branok told her, then a little more tenderly, he added, “Though it is very charming.”

Gods, if she was used to having men treating her with so much adoration, I was in trouble. I was much more comfortable insulting her than complimenting her. I had thought it worked well for the two of us, but suddenly I was finding myself having doubts she would find me amusing for very long.

“Dare is Kaelan’s best friend.” Hanna said, and though it was true and though I had not wanted her to say that we were husband and wife, somehow I still felt rejected. “He’s tried valiantly to protect me.”

“I thought Thorne was Kaelan’s best friend.” Branok returned.

Well, that was great. Apparently I was not even worthy of the title of Kaelan’s best friend, even though I hadn’t appreciated it a moment before.

“Did Honor send you?” Hanna asked Branok.

It would seem we were not going to dwell on the subject of my relevance.

“Obviously not.” Branok seemed quite irritated for Honor’s sake. “I came to investigate. If Honor had known that you were here, she wouldn’t have sent me . She thinks that I spoil you.”

Hanna turned to him with a laugh, just as the three of us reached the base of the stairs. Branok gestured us up ahead of him. She said over her shoulder to him, “You don’t spoil me. You’ve been harder on me than anyone else.”

“Except Damyn,” they both said at practically the same time, and there was a shimmer of shared humor that passed between them.

They were so close that I felt that prickle of jealousy again. Hanna had so much family. It seemed unfair she had so many people who loved her.

If Honor’s other husbands loved Hanna half as much as Branok obviously did, I didn’t know why the hell she would have left this behind for the Ice Kingdom. If I had people that loved me like this, I would never let them be taken from me. I would recognize how precious family was.

I’d mocked her for being a princess, playing with her things, never really valuing anything. But I’d never felt that so acutely as I did now, feeling the resentment and uncertainty burning in my chest. How could the love that I have to offer her—an insufficient, unpracticed, sarcastic, angry kind of love at that—ever feel like enough to her?

“I’ll go first to make sure the way is safe,” I told Hanna, moving ahead of her up the narrow stone stairs.

She glanced at me as if she were thinking that I knew the threats least well on the Isle. I had never been here, unlike Kaelan and even Thorne. But she smiled and touched my back as I went by, as if she were grateful for my attempt at protection.

I didn’t have to see it to know that Branok’s gaze caught the movement. As I moved up the stairs, he spoke over Hanna’s head to me. “What is your role in the Ice Kingdom, exactly?”

“I mostly provide wit.”

“That seems hard to believe,” he answered.

When she so obviously adored him, part of me wanted to impress him. I wasn’t sure what to do with that impulse. It was new to me.

“And what exactly is your role in Hanna’s life?” he went on.

She groaned. “Oh gods. You realize you are embarrassing yourself, don’t you, Branok? Please stop.”

“I suppose we’ll see what role she wishes me to have,” I answered, because no matter what Hanna said, I was sure Branok expected an answer.

“You could have a worse answer,” Branok grudgingly admitted. We reached the top of the stairs, and I turned back to check on Hanna.

He glanced at Hanna as he joined the two of us on the landing. He obviously knew there was more to our relationship. Otherwise, I didn’t think he would bother tormenting me.

“And why are you here and not her husband?” Branok asked.

Hanna had an answer to offer full of information, I could tell from the way her lips parted, but I already had my answer. “Well, it’s always the most useless member of the party who travels away from the ruler. As I’m sure you know.”

Branok’s gaze was intense. I suddenly had a flash of imagining what he must look like as an enemy, and it was not a vision that I wanted to see again.

But his voice was even when he glanced at the guards. A few more doorways, and we’d be out onto the street again, and then I assumed we’d be moving on to wherever Honor was. “I know Hanna won’t tell me who hurt her. Either she’s forgiven it, or she’ll want to gut them herself. But I would like you to give me that information, Dare.”

It was obviously a test. Kaelan would’ve passed with flying colors. Hell, Kaelan would already have ripped the head off anyone who might have left a bruise on Hanna’s skin.

But I was not Kaelan and never would be, and if that wouldn’t be enough for Hanna or for her brothers, might as well sort that out sooner rather than later.

“Hanna started the fight,” I said. “Foolishly.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No, but that’s my answer.”

Tension simmered between Branok and me as the frightened guards scurried in front of us to unlock every door, clearly eager for us to be on our way before anyone was hurt.

As Branok moved ahead to speak to the guards, Hanna grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. “Is it absolutely necessary for you to be rude?”

Perhaps it would be helpful if I were honest with her. I could tell her that everything about meeting her family gutted me. I knew they wouldn’t like me. If I had a sister and she brought home someone like me, I would be sick and murderous in equal measure.

She gave me a sympathetic look, and it made me wonder whether my thoughts were leaking through our bond. The question had me pulling my arm away from her, feeling a sudden rush of heat.

The jealousy that I felt choked me, though. I could never have admitted to either the petty emotion or the vulnerability that formed its seed.

“He is being rather rude to me to begin with.” I cast a glance behind us at the prison cell that didn’t seem nearly far off enough yet and then at Branok, striding away confidently.

“But that’s to be expected.” Hanna raised her hand as if to touch me, then stopped herself.

I’d been the one to pull away, but somehow that still hurt.

“Is it? I suppose I wouldn’t understand how a family operates, Hanna. And I can’t say I particularly care for it, either.”

The look she gave me was displeased. A heartbeat stretched by, and then she said, “I’ll ask him to play nice.”

“Even if he were to listen, that would be one down, seven to go, would it not?” I was tired just thinking about it. “Are they all going to be as irritating as Branok?”

“Worse, most likely,” she admitted, and the admission did not have the air of just playful banter.

I let out a long sigh, pulling her with me so we could get moving, putting more space between us and the jail. I wasn’t convinced that the Dragon Royals wouldn’t decide it was a mistake to free me alongside their princess. Though, I was pretty sure Branok had concealed her identity; he had been mysterious and curt toward the guards with a purpose, unlike the recreational rudeness I had received.

“I’m not going to try to prove anything to them,” I warned her. “I don’t think I can manage to care if they approve of me or not.”

“Fine, Dare,” she said too agreeably.

It was a tone that said that she knew that I was lying.