Page 30 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 30

Of course, he did.

I saw the smirks and the snickers go around the group as I pushed myself forward.

“Pippin, you don’t have to…” Soren was going to step in, put himself between the boys and their bullshit, to try and protect me, and I felt a flush of gratitude for that. But, while I wasn’t afraid of asking for help when needed, I’d found life as a pig herder had taught me one thing. People spoke of abstract values like loyalty, freedom and fairness, as if they were lodestones that led them through life, but they forgot the one that really drew people forward.

Power.

Some people had power and used it carelessly, protected from the consequences of their actions by their station. Draven’s face flashed into my mind.

Other people scrabbled around those with power, trying to snatch up or steal what power they could, like my stepmother and Arabella had done.

Moving into the circle, my arms aching from holding the shield and sword, I knew I had neither of those things on my side.

But I did possess the power of certainty. I was going to take a hit. Many of them, I was sure. But if I could do so in a way that indicated I was unafraid, uncowed by this, it would go a long way towards helping me find my place here. As I stepped up to the challenger, coming and keeping on coming until I loomed over him, the boys all let out a string of oohs. Jenkins, the challenger, he’d chosen me thinking that to administer a beating to a girl might help him rise in the estimation of the other students, but he’d neglected to consider one thing.

I was certain he was a better fighter than me. Literally anyone in the keep was. But he was also a skinny little thirteen year old boy, his head barely coming to my shoulder and I think he only just realised that as he peered up at me.

“Alright, get those shields up and show me what you’ve learned,” Soren barked.

Not much. I knew how to block blows so I did that, thrusting my shield up and out to meet Jenkins’ wild strikes, but I didn’t try for any of my own. My sword hung limply by my side, feeling heavier and heavier by the minute.

“Lift that sword, Pip!” Soren barked. “Show this lad what you’re made of!”

Pain, that’s what I was made of, hearing a dull hum in the back of my mind. My body ached, my muscles screamed at the continued abuse, my feet shuffled across the floor, as Lance had shown me, but each step hurt, as did my arm every time I held up the damn sword. Jenkins had devolved into some sort of fervid little dervish, smacking his sword about with both hands, not even bothering to use his shield, now left discarded on the floor, which gave me an idea.

Perhaps I didn’t need to get beaten down. Perhaps I could be the one administering the beating.

I shifted my feet, feeling the same stance Lance had put me in, over and over. It came much more naturally now. My shield jerked up, providing a barricade between me and the boy’s wild blows, and then I stepped forward, thrusting as I did, throwing all of my momentum behind it.

Jenkins’ mouth formed a perfect O as my sword point punched into his unprotected chest, his arms windmilling as he went stumbling back, and that’s when I knew I’d created yet another problem for myself. He’d been cocky, arrogant, when he’d picked a woman to fight, thinking what hung between his legs was enough to keep him safe. But men are protective of such things as pride, their worth often decided on by their fellow men, and when I heard a chorus of guffaws go up around the room, I knew then I’d taken that from Jenkins. Didn’t stop me from moving though, following him down, my sword point coming to rest on his neck as he fell flat on his back.

“Well done, Pippin!”

Soren marched over to clap his hand on my shoulder, but he felt my flinch when he did. I didn’t want him to touch me or to stop. I just fucking ached. He paused as the boys all went wild, cheering and jeering, and he stared into my eyes, seeming to see everything I was going through in just one glance. He nodded, just a little, before turning on the boys.

“And now you see why I teach you to fight as I’ve told you. Jenkins might’ve been the victor if he kept his bloody shield up. Don’t go tossing the thing aside, thinking you’re one of the invincible heroes of old. If you keep your shield up, you can hold a man off for some time, looking for the right time to strike, just as Pippin did. Now, pick Jenkins up off the floor. Take him to the infirmary if he’s hurt, otherwise get all those bloody weapons back on the racks now. First bell is about to go and you’ll have to scurry off to class. Lance, take Pippin’s gear.”

The lad appeared in front of me, going to grab my shield, then moving much more slowly when he saw how sore I was.

“We’ve got a history lecture with the professor after this, sir,” Lance said, removing my sword from my still clenched fingers. “I can walk Lady Pippin to class, so she knows where to go.”

“Lady Pippin rides with our wing this afternoon,” Soren shot back, all of the same barking command of before in his voice, but yet no real target for it. Lance blanched, then nodded, moving to put the gear away, but shooting me one last look over his shoulder.

To remind me of the deal we had discussed as I made a total balls up of my training.

“Come along, lass,” Soren said to me in a much more gentle tone. “You’re about to find out the pain and pleasure of my grandmother’s liniment recipe.”

“What?” I looked down at where his hand took my elbow, steering me towards a smaller room off the side of the training room. “Shouldn’t I go to the lecture with the other boys?”

“But you’re not a boy,” he said. So after I’d collected Glimmer up, we continued across the training area to the other room. Once inside, I saw broken practice swords, books, and a desk before me, but he nodded towards the back wall, where a tall set of shelves had been built. The door closed with a click, making me jump. The room felt suddenly tiny. Soren loomed closer and closer as he backed me up. Why, I didn’t work out until he reached past me and retrieved a bottle that stunk of menthol and camphor, making my eyes water as he unscrewed the cap. “We agreed you need fight training, so you can hold your own against anyone with the wrong idea, but you’ll find a position doing something away from the front line. No battlefields for you, lass. With your noble blood, you could work as an ambassador…” I thought of the king and queen and shook my head abruptly. “Or as a roving magistrate. I think you’d have a keen sense of right and wrong that would suit you to that role.”

I just stared at him as he poured the strong smelling liquid onto his hands and then turned to me.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.” The word was out of my mouth before I could think about it. “Well, it will. I worked hard at home, but not doing things like fighting. I’ll be fine?—”

“Big muscle groups it is then. This is what I’m proposing. I’ll turn my back and you’ll pull that shirt off. Turn around and keep it held against your breasts, then let me know. I’ll turn around and rub this stuff onto your arms and back and then let you put your shirt back on, before we start work on your legs.”

“Ahh…”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but my brain wasn’t able to supply a reason why we shouldn’t do this or what alternative course of action could be taken. Glimmer prowled across the shelves, sticking her nose in some jars and then yanking it out with a splutter. But I knew what was going on in my head. Those old rules about propriety and good manners that had been beaten so thoroughly into me, only to erode when I was forced to share a shack with an old man, when every day I mucked around in pig pens, they’d reinstated themselves along with my title, but…

Just like when I was banished, I was having to adjust, to deal with new circumstances and, from Maggie’s hijinks in the bathroom last night, this was on the milder end of acceptable behaviour. I turned to face Glimmer who peered at me, then made a sympathetic little chirrup, her wings fluttering as I tore my shirt up and off my head, wadding it against my body.

“I’m ready, Rider.”

“Just Soren.”

His voice seemed so much softer now he wasn’t shouting at new recruits, but his hands weren’t. They smoothed over my shoulders, the liniment leaving a cooling sensation in its wake, but that quickly turned to heat as he went to work. With long, brisk strokes, he spanned my back from shoulder to arse, up and down. Glimmer watched Soren with fascination, alerting me to the fact he was forced to step closer to run his hands down my aching biceps, those big hands stopping when they got to my forearms.

I heard a low hiss of breath and, thinking he was done, I was moving to turn around when those hands landed back on my shoulders. Thumbs pressed into the muscles there, creating strange shivers of sensation as he swept them up towards my neck, over and over, his firm strokes forcing the knots there to release and ease. I didn’t mean to let out the little moan but, gods above, that loss of pain was almost a sensual pleasure, the persistent nag fading away. For a moment his hands stopped, frozen in mid-stroke. I bit back my responses, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip, as if that would be enough to stifle them. Because there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to keep him working on me.

“Everything alright, lass?” His voice was so much huskier and rough now, but I could only nod in response, jumping slightly when I felt his hands land on my waist. “Shh… I’ll just work those knots out. You’ll still be aching, but if I don’t see to this now, you’ll be in agony once you get out of the saddle after the patrol flight.”

One hand gripped my hip, holding me still as the other raked up and down my back. The liniment left a fiery glow behind, but that seemed to instruct my muscles to loosen up and let him work. I hissed when he hurt a particularly sore spot, which just made him focus harder there until finally he was satisfied the injury had been treated.

“Put your shirt back on.”

“…What?”

My eyes were mostly closed now, my body a curious mixture of burning aches and relief. Soren just chuckled, slapping his hand down on my shoulder.

“Put your shirt back on and then tell me when you’re done. We need to work quick on your legs before Brom comes looking for us.”

Brom. Shirt. Dragons. Patrol. It all seemed to come back to me slowly, my hands moving automatically to pull the garment over my head and then tuck it back in.

“Done?” Soren asked as I collected up Glimmer, her warbles alerting him more clearly than my voice was able to. I let him know I was and then he ushered me over to the two chairs in the room. One was a plush armchair, though its upholstery had seen better days, some springs pushing through the worn fabric. He sat down on that, bottle by his side, then nodded to the other chair. “Sit down there and kick your boots off. Put your heel on my knee and I’ll get to work. You’re as tall as lads like Lance, but you’ve got none of his mass, so I think your pants are loose enough that I can just push your cuffs up and apply the stuff that way.”

What he was proposing, spreading my legs and putting them on him, for him to massage? It was beyond the pale, but some part of me remembered all too well the strain of gripping Darkspire’s side for hours, the training today quadrupling that pain. I unlaced my boots and did as he asked, setting my foot where I was supposed to, just as I had when facing down Jenkins.

He stared down at my calf for just a second, Glimmer crawling up onto my shoulder and making a curious little sound, one that seemed to break Soren from his spell. His hands landed on my ankle, the grip feeling too immediate, too intense, and then they slid upwards. Just as he had before, he smoothed the liniment on, rubbing his thumbs into my calves in long, confident strokes. But even he seemed to feel some of what I did, as his eyes remained resolutely on my leg, not meeting my gaze as he worked.

So he didn’t catch the moment when my eyes roamed across his bent head, seeing the way he’d smoothed every strand of his long hair back into a neat horsetail, as they followed the slender lines of grey within all of that black hair. Nor as they skimmed across the broad sweep of his shoulders, watching the muscles bunch and flex under his shirt as he rubbed. My eyes then slid down to those thick forearms. They were covered with fine black hairs, marking him for what he was: a man grown. Hairy where I wasn’t, muscular where I wasn’t. Strong when I wasn’t, knowing exactly how to take my pain away and…

I shouldn’t have thought about it, especially if he could read my thoughts with the help of Wraith, his dragon, but I couldn’t stop myself. I saw Maggie and Hallin rutting against the tile walls, his hands holding hers above her head, keeping her pinned right where he wanted her and it wasn’t hard to visualise them. He was all power, driving himself into her over and over again, to the sound of her breathy cries. The woman had offered me a similar experience, though I couldn’t work out how.

Probably because that’s not how my natural inclination went.

But this… I was putty in Soren’s capable hands, treated to the touch of a man who knew exactly what to do with my predicament, riding to my rescue with each sweep of his hands.

But…

Glimmer let out a little hum, the sound fading somehow into the background, a tiny counterpoint to the sounds of Soren’s hand working, turning it from a task to a song. I couldn’t help but wonder… What would these capable hands do in a different context? Sometimes I felt this… restlessness, coupled with a strange frantic pulse between my legs, a yearning filling me, but for what, I had never been able to put my finger on.

Until now.

What would it be like, to stroll into one of those cubicles without a care in the world, just as Maggie had? To have Soren or some other man follow my progress, then push himself off from the wall, tracking me down. When our clothes melted away, when his mouth hovered over mine and?—

“I’m going to need to push the cuff up and over your knees,” he told me, those dark eyes flicking up and meeting mine. Part of me quailed away from his gaze, as if he could see every debauched thought. And the other part? Glimmer’s hum changed pitch slightly, soothing me, casting a spell to drag me under. Part of me wanted him to see, just to know how he’d respond. But his question awaited a response, so I reached down and hauled the pants up higher, revealing more of my legs than any man had seen.

Well, except Ged the night those boys had attacked me.

But Soren didn’t grab or grope, not like they had. Instead, more liniment was spread across my skin as his hands moved higher.

With every sweep, one ache eased and another built, one I didn’t understand. There was a tension in my groin, one that was only partially dissipated when I spread my other leg wider. I felt damp… A strange kind of wetness forming and… A slow pulse, like a counterpoint to Glimmer’s hum, throbbing, throbbing until?—

“Soren…”

We both jumped, a picture of guilt when the door was jerked open to reveal a flustered looking Brom. His eyebrows jerked down and as soon as he caught sight of me and my state of almost undress, I felt a flush of shame. One that had me jerking my foot back and tugging down my trousers, which no doubt made the situation look all the worse.

“What…?” Brom didn’t want to take the other rider to task, I could see that, but he just kept looking from me to Soren and back again, with questions, so many questions, in his eyes. “We’re supposed to fly out on patrol in twenty minutes and you’re not ready. What the hell is going on?”