Page 20

Chapter 20

Tahlia

T ahlia gasped as Marius showed up beside her, silent as death. In line for a refill of the dark wine pouring from the crystal fountain, she nearly dropped her goblet. Fara was already saving her a seat in the middle of the table near the western-facing hearth.

“Yes, High Captain? Aren’t you supposed to be up there?” She nodded toward the front of the hall where the king, queen, and Commander Gaius ate at a small table separate from the two other long tables.

“I must speak to you. Privately.”

“You look even stormier than usual.” She was teasing him, but the steel in those eyes made her shiver. It was not an altogether unpleasant sensation.

He didn’t rise to her barb and instead took off out the door, not even watching to see if she would follow. Of course, she did trail him. What was happening? Was this good or bad? She tried to glance at Fara before leaving the great hall, but there were too many servants going this way and that, blocking her view.

Outside, the half-moon had risen like a scythe in the black sky. The heads of the Seabreak and two other dragons showed in the area between the courtyard and the arena. The stable hands were giving the dragons one last walk before sleep, most likely. Marius led Tahlia to a shadowed corner between the keep’s western face and the wall that ran along the courtyard to the arena and the cliff launching point.

Not thirty yards away, he had grabbed her and kissed her hard. Just there. Where the moonlight now cascaded across the rock wall and over the hand-trimmed grass of the courtyard. She could almost feel his fingers digging into her hips. A pulse of warmth between her thighs made her stop before joining him fully in the shadows. The moon’s silver luminescence cut across his cheekbones, and his brow shaded his unblinking eyes. Hands fisted at his sides and body coiled, he looked ready for a fight.

A chill wrapped her in a frosty cloak of doubt.

“Tahlia. I know…” His focus dropped to her boots, and then he looked up again and met her gaze. “…about your blood.”

Her heart hammered in her ears and she dropped back a step. “What?”

“When Albus cut you to test for ghostmint hiding in your veins, the Bloodworkers examined your blood.” His eyes squeezed shut, then opened again, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s how you were able to lie. Did you lie about how long you trained at Grimsbrook? I can’t believe I was so foolish. You lied to me. I thought we understood one another. I thought I’d found someone that actually felt the same way I do about…” He gestured to the sky and shook his head, his jaw clenching.

He meant about flying and dragons, about the life of a Mist Knight. “You did. I do. You can’t be angry.”

“Oh, really? I can’t. How does that work out? Actually, don’t bother saying anything. Every word from your lips could be a lie, human.”

“I’m half-human and it doesn’t matter because I am meant for this. You know it as well as I do.”

“I know nothing about you.”

“Did that taste sour? That had to be a stretched truth. You know everything important. I can fly with the best of them. You, Ophelia, Titus, the other Seabreak rider I saw up there taking scores.”

“Maiwenn.”

“Yes, I’m as good as her too. You know that about me. You know that I care about the other riders on my team and I care about the dragons. That’s more than I can say for your intended mate.”

Wincing, he looked away for a moment. “I have seen those new gloves of hers. She has always been too rough on her dragon. I will confiscate the gloves. Now, stop. Stop talking. We aren’t discussing Ophelia.”

“Are you going to sentence me to death?”

He lifted his head, exposing his throat. “What choice do I have?”

“Does that mean you don’t want to?”

Shifting his focus to her face, he stared, silent. She wondered again how he had received the scar that ran along the side of his handsome visage.

“I’m not the one who did the testing. The Bloodworkers know the truth about you. This cannot be kept secret. Not for long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you must flee, Tahlia. Run back to wherever you call home. Or somewhere else. Anywhere but in the Shrouded Mountains.”

“I was born in the valley. I’m not human in any real sense of the word. All I know is Fae. And dragons.” Unshed tears burned her eyes and they turned her foul blood to flame in her heart. “I will not run from who I am. I am a dragon rider and I am your next Mist Knight.”

“All you will be is a pile of ash if you don’t escape this place within the next hour.” His gaze had turned pleading, his eyebrows lifted and his hands almost reaching for her, though he kept back just inches from touching her.

“Knights don’t run from a challenge. They fly toward it.”

He lunged, startling her, and he grabbed her arms in a viselike grip. “You must go, Tahlia. Please. I’m already breaking my oath by telling you this and giving you this one chance. I have never, ever broken a rule of the Knights. You with your wild joy and your ridiculous courage have bent my resolve like a storm tosses a willow.”

“You’re the storm.” Like her fingers belonged to someone else, her forefinger found his scar and traced its path from temple to jawline.

He shivered and shut his eyes. “And you light the skies like a second sun and grow happiness in the cold ground of my heart.”

Her soul ached. Her heart beat hard and slow—once, twice. She put her palms over her chest and tried to breathe evenly. She would fall right into the storm that was Marius Leos Valentius, Shadow of the Shrouded Mountains, and delight in every shock of thunder and lash of rain…

When his slitted, gray-black eyes flashed open, his lips parted.

She imagined him crushing her to him. His kiss would taste like his scent—of cloves and honey—and he wouldn’t set his lips on hers gently, but like a powerful male who wanted to claim her as his own. His hands would cup her face roughly; his tongue would tangle with hers.

At just the imagined scenario, fierce longing shot through her like a bolt of lightning. What was it about this proud, stern male that attracted her so? But she knew already. It was the way he treated his dragon, how he had helped her quietly along this extraordinary journey, and the fatherly protectiveness he displayed for his knights in the sky. Even if it was madness, she wanted this male.

If they could be together…

Every inch of her would hum with desire. She imagined the many sensations she’d feel in his arms… The turn of his shoulder muscles under her fingers. The groan slipping from his mouth as he kissed his way down her neck to her chest. They would fall to the ground and he would take her here in the shadows with desperate movements, like touching one another would save them both somehow from whatever consequences this connection threw at them as well as the very real danger that awaited her inside the hall.

But all of that was only in Tahlia’s head. He stood gripping her arms hard enough to bruise.

With a growl, he pushed away from her. His hair was wild and his eyes wilder. “Go, Tahlia. Please. Just leave. I can’t…”

She couldn’t leave this place or give up. If she did, the fire inside her would die and she would be a husk of her former self. She wouldn’t be Tahlia any longer.

“I will face the consequences. Do what you must do, High Captain. Now, I have an announcement to attend.”

He shut his eyes once more, and she glanced at him one last time before leaving him in the moonlight. His hands flexed at his sides and his breaths came too quickly. Forcing herself to keep on walking, she found the door, swung it open, and prepared to meet her fate, whether it be fine fortune or death by a dragon’s blaze.