Page 58 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 58

Later that night, at the Keep.

“You look beautiful, Pippin.”

Brom looked the perfect picture of a wing commander right now in his dress uniform of solid black, his dark hair smoothed back into a perfect queue, the silver emblems of his rank gleaming. He stepped inside the room and looked me up and down, inspecting the dressmaker’s work.

Nancy and some of the other girls had fussed over me when I arrived back late in the afternoon with a dress in tow. While my height was an issue, the fit of the pewter dress was not. The higher neckline, the gradually flaring sleeves, all worked well on my lean frame. The dressmaker had spoken garrulously at the lengths she’d had to go to fit other women into a similar silhouette. She’d managed the height issue by adding greater length to the skirt to form a train.

“She looks like a princess,” Nancy said with a satisfied nod. “And don’t go messing her up. She needs to keep looking like one when she gets to the palace.”

“Of course, and thank you for all of your hard work, ladies,” he told her and the other women as they left the room, the click of the latch making me jump slightly. I’d spent time in rooms alone with Brom, but suddenly this felt all too intimate.

And I realised that it was going to get worse.

“The dressmaker provided a wig, but I don’t want to wear it.” My words were sharp, but my tone wavered and Glimmer cracked one eye to look at me as she lay curled on the nearby chair.

“I know,” he said, approaching with a familiar box under his arm. “Don’t, if you do not wish it. But I brought something that might help you feel a little more comfortable.” He set it down on the table and flicked open the locks, revealing the queen’s daggers he’d gifted me. “Raise your skirts, Pippin.”

“What?!”

He produced a set of leather knife sheaths from his pocket and showed them to me.

“You’ll be able to wear the knives under your skirts.”

“Something I’m fairly sure the queen would object to strenuously if she knew,” I said, watching his expression. “Your queen. The one who came from your duchy, to whom you owe allegiance.”

“How did it feel when your father married your stepmother, Pippin?” he asked, his eyes seeming to see right down into my soul. “Did he ask for your approval? Would he have put off the marriage if you’d have objected? Did you meet Arabella, to see if the two of you would suit as sisters? And what did you do when it became more and more apparent that he had brought a pair of vipers into your house?”

I wanted to answer him, felt words rise to only discard them, a familiar sensation washing over me. Of helplessness. Of being forced into a situation not of my choosing. And I did not like it one little bit. I slapped my bare foot down on a nearby chair and then raked the voluminous folds of fabric up.

“My father proposed jewellery or some other pretty trinket as a courting gift, but I made it clear it had to be these.” He pulled the daggers out of the box, their stones shining as he presented them to me. “It’s precisely my knowledge of those that rule my duchy that made me choose the daggers as my gift.”

I let him strap the sheath to my thigh and, as I watched him bend over to complete the task, I could feel how he was trying to do this as quickly and proficiently as possible. Blame my upbringing, blame the awful bloody heat that seemed to be burning me from the inside out, but the feel of his fingers on my inner thigh felt too much. They brought memories of Soren, of his cunning tongue and persistent mouth, making me wonder what it would be like to put my hand on Brom’s head and guide him right back where his drill sergeant had been.

And that was the point at which he looked up at me.

Glimmer started humming again, that damn noise buzzing inside my head as I reached out and touched his face. Not to shove it into the site of my pleasure, though I knew how good that would feel and I wanted it. No, instead I cupped his jaw with my hand, rubbed my thumb across his cheek. And Brom…? I watched his eyes fall closed, like it took way too much effort to keep them open and he stayed like that for several seconds before he pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin of my thigh, and pulled away. Something hot and hard and wanting pulsed deep inside me at his kiss, something I hadn’t expected.

“We have no intention of leaving you by yourself. Nor of letting anyone get near you or your dragon, but if someone does…” His gaze contained heat, though it was overruled by a deadly intent. “Don’t stand on propriety. If you or Glimmer are in danger,” he told me in a gruff voice, right as he pushed one of the knives into the sheath, “hike your skirts up and use these weapons as best you can until help comes. Promise me that.”

I nodded sharply, then swapped legs, and we went through the same process. The weight of the knives under my full skirts gave me a greater sense of security.

“Stay close.” He stepped in, as if to illustrate the point, starting to lift his hand toward the back of my head then halting, before continuing on to touch me. “Stay with me or Flynn, in particular. Soren and Ged would die for you, you know that, but Flynn and I… We have an advantage.”

“Why do I feel like I’m walking into a battlefield?” I asked.

“Because you are. The battles that are fought with swords and shields? They’re the easier ones in some ways because at least you see your enemies coming.”

He offered me his arm, and I took it, Glimmer toppling off the chair to follow along behind us.

We had an honour guard when we approached the carriages that would whisk us away to the palace, and part of me wanted to beg and plead with them to stay here with me, away from the ball. But the sight of all four men in their dress uniforms? That was almost enough to make this worth it. My eyes took in the breadth of their shoulders, the expanses of their chests, the tightly tailored uniforms seemingly designed to make the most out of the male form.

“Like a princess of old,” Soren said, shaking his head slowly. “But with skirts like those, Pippin will need to ride in her own carriage, with the wing commander.”

“Fairly sure it was supposed to be my night,” Ged grumbled.

“Claim the first dance with Pippin and the next, lad,” Soren replied with a growl before turning to me. “And he better get in quick. I’ve a mind to take to the dance floor myself.”

“You? That’ll be a first, you old prick!”

Ged meant the words in jest, but he didn’t catch the way Soren’s face closed down in response to them. I went to step forward, to say something, but Brom put his hand around my shoulders and steered me towards the carriage. His touch was courteous and perfectly within the bounds of propriety, yet at every point his skin touched mine, I burned. Once I was inside the carriage, my voluminous skirts arranged around me, he joined me and we were off to the palace.

“Stay close. Stay fucking close,” Flynn growled as we entered the palace. He glared at the oil paintings and statuary like they’d leap off the walls and attack us. “Don’t drink the wine. Don’t go off carousing with the officers.”

He shot Ged a dark look at that.

“Why?” the rider replied. “Isn’t that the point of these things? To get pissed on the king’s coin. I know you said we need to take care of Pippin, but what danger…?” Ged stopped where he was, then stared at the rest of us. “You think the queen will attack tonight. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? This is a mission and you haven’t filled me in on the details because it's need-to-know only… and I don’t need to know.” I moved forward and his arm went out and around my waist in an automatic gesture, but that didn’t stop him from staring the others down. “I can be a lot more effective if I know what the hell I’m protecting Pippin from, you know.”

“The queen is likely to make a move against Pippin and Glimmer,” Brom confirmed in a low voice, his eyes on the grand corridor, not us. “We don’t know how or why.” Oh, we knew that last part, but I forgave him the omission. “We didn’t mention the situation because it requires all of us maintaining a perfectly normal facade. Can you do that, rider? Can you do that for Pippin?”

Ged’s grip around my waist tightened almost to the point of pain, and when I looked up at him his eyes burned bright.

“That’s why we didn’t tell you,” Flynn grumbled. “You wear your heart on your sleeve, Ged.”

“Everyone knows I intend to court Pippin,” Ged replied. “Let them see that. The way I feel about her, the fact I fucking burn for her and will let no one come between the two of us.”

He pulled away to scoop Glimmer up, groaning at her now heavy weight. She seemed to grow more and more each day, at a rate that was frankly dizzying. But he put her on his shoulders and she curled around his neck, shooting me a lazy-eyed look.

This one would make a very good mate , she told me.

“A noble sentiment, lad, but that means staying sharp,” Soren said.

And so, on alert, we entered the grand ballroom, the massive space lit by glittering chandeliers. Women were like brightly coloured birds flitting across the room, the men much more dourly dressed. And there in the midst of them all was Draven. Darkly resplendent in a rider uniform that sported a blaze of silver badges of honour, he stood talking to a striking looking woman.

Her manner was bright, engaging, and she had his full attention right up until we walked into the room. And then his regard shifted. His eyes met mine, his glowing with an almost unearthly blue light, and the woman paused, then turned our way to determine what had caught his focus.

I flicked open the fan I had been given and waved it, a perfectly correct way of meeting obvious male attention, but I actually needed the respite it gave. My skin felt like it was on fire, the dress so suffocating that I had to physically fight the desire to tear it from my body. It was only the layers of cotton underdresses that stopped sweat from marring the silvery silk. And as Draven’s eyes slid down my body, it was as if his hands were moving with them, over my shoulders, down my arms, then slowly cupping?—

A rude titter broke the spell, my focus instantly shifting away to a woman making that terrible noise, just in time to catch her disdainful look at me. She muttered something to a friend of hers behind her fan, the two of them erupting into peals of laughter before turning abruptly away and I was reminded of the reason why I baulked at wearing women’s garb.

A man with close cropped hair? I looked at Ged, at the way the strong shape of his head was shown off by his haircut and knew it was perfectly acceptable for him. But me? My hand went to my scalp almost without thinking and, as I did, it felt like I heard a thousand whispers, saw a thousand glances. Women looking across the room at us. Women staring at me. Giving me long, disdainful looks, their perfectly crimson lips twisting into vicious smiles.

And it was as though I was right back where I had been, with Arabella and Cecily looking me up and down with a faux pity that did little to disguise their disgust. I could almost hear the thoughts of these women, and they wouldn’t have just been about my hair. My height and my build, my features and my dress, all of them would be critiqued and–

A dragon does not worry about the opinions of the sheep , Glimmer told me.

But I was no dragon.

“I should—” I went to say, taking a step backwards, sure there was a balcony or somewhere dark I could go and lurk for the duration of the ball.

“Come and speak to my father,” Flynn finished for me grimly.

Ged’s grip on me tightened as he glared at the other rider.

“She’s to dance with me.”

“And she will, afterwards. This is political, not personal, Ged,” Flynn said in a low voice. “If we’re to get through… whatever this is, we need to do so as a team.”

It was then that Draven detached himself from his companion and strode across the busy dance floor, intent on reaching us.

“Let’s do that,” I said to Flynn, grabbing Glimmer before taking his hand, wincing as her claws dug into the expensive silk.