Page 6

Mezerath

Rath woke with an awful headache, fist clutched into his silken dark locks, trying to reconcile with the memories of the night before. Jeron’s warmth curled into Rath’s side, hand on his bare chest, face nestled in his neck, where Rath often liked him to lay—a comfort rather than something sexual.

“My liege! You’re awake.” Jeron pulled away, not offering the soft kiss he usually did upon waking, or the proposition for something more. He understood his role now. Comfort.

“You take your role as valet seriously, my boy.” Rath yawned and stretched before running his sharp talons down Jeron’s back with the barest force, sending shivers up his spine.

“I admit, I did sleep, but I had the alchemist come check you earlier today.” Jeron cast his eyes away, a demure countenance that, at one time, made Rath all sorts of enticed.

“Earlier today, pet?” Rath stared up at the ceiling above him and frowned. He’d had good dreams, he recalled.

“You slept an entire day, my liege. The physician agreed with the alchemist that you were exhausted from the dirge of your mate’s call.” The fact they’d allowed the red bastard into his room without his knowledge irked him, but Graylan was anything if not an honorable male.

“That and so much more. I need to send a messenger to the Earl of Tippin and King of Monsmount to negotiate my love back to me.” Mezerath climbed to his feet and stumbled, his head spinning from the poppy milk.

Jeron’s cheeks went pink, and he cast his gaze away. “That’s not necessary, sir.”

“What is it, pet?” Rath stared at him for a lingering moment.

“You spoke quite freely in your sleep, and I spoke with your advisor, and she agreed that word should be sent. The King of Monsmount grants you passage for a token which is being sent.” Jeron sat up, his smug smile a show of how very pleased with himself he was.

“And the earl?” Whatever token the king requested was likely insignificant to the hoard where they stored their magic.

Gold, once used too many times, failed to hold magic, lost its capacity to charge with their fire and became, basically, waste.

What was a cask of fire rum and a salt urn of spent gold for his mate?

Jeron chuckled, his eyes rolling smugly. He extended a letter from near his nest, already opened, but he supposed the conversation, at that point, was not his own. “He asks for half a fodder of gold.”

Rath blinked slowly and glanced up, catching Jeron’s eye. “A half fodder? He thinks he asks the world when he says this. Send word ahead that I come to claim him. We bring our half fodder, but be prepared to negotiate because anyone this greedy may—”

“I actually did some research into the country and in recent years, they’ve become very poor from the wars. And a fodder for us is far different from a fodder for them. Perhaps three casks, sir? Our cask is their fodder.” Jeron shifted uncomfortably. “They may take more than that as intervention.”

“A wise valet. I should watch out for you, fire child.” Rath stretched himself from his stiff neck to his crumpled wings, shaking them free.

They itched for sky, but he had precious little time, for his mate was in shambles.

He’d been so afraid the male would be broken, like his mother had—frail.

Maybe it was better for an Ashen to die than be given such a long life when they suffered so.

Rath rose and dressed, putting his finest on for the journey as Jeron followed him with an eager scramble, working hard to prove his use.

Those same hands that had cared for Rath in so many bestial ways would coddle his mate and give him the acceptance he would need—a boy who loved men and resented dragons.

When first Rath spoke to Asha, learning of his hesitancy about dragons, he made up his mind that he’d not tear the boy away from all he knew and carry this Lyss girl with him to keep him company.

But a day riding in his mind had shown him very little of Asha’s appearance.

Occupying a mind’s eye was a strange thing, fleeting and amorphous.

Not seeing images of Asha meant that Asha himself spent little time pondering his features, aside from fleeting glimpses of golden hair that annoyed him by way of getting in his face, and that his skin, while sun-warmed was pale and northerly, unlike his own tanned flesh.

Rath wondered if Asha would be attracted to his darker tones, or even eventually his scales.

Rath toyed with his skin, twisting it in the daylight shining through his window, watching the ultraviolet light dance and reflect a sheen of blue that would dominate his dark scales like jewels.

Rath stared into a polished mirror, glancing over his features as Jeron worked to fasten his coronation chain between his horns.

Jeron’s eyes, all human, held white around his irises and soft, round pupils.

Rath’s were all iris, as far as structure went, an impossibly dark blue, speckled amid twilight with soft round pupils hidden in their depths.

And while tame now, they stayed round. Given a moment of anger, they’d slit, and his magic would glow, bringing out the blue fire of his eyes, as all dragons with ice in their veins had.

And one day, he’d see the fire of magic in his mate’s eyes.

Dressed in his finest embroidered overcoat, a rich and royal blue, fit for his wings to slide free if so he chose, and trousers of the finest wool, padded for riding his mount, he gestured for Jeron to follow him through the halls of the mountain keep castle to the sky-bound stables where their thoroughbred southern wyverns were stored.

These beasts, not like the puny northern bred creatures, controlled by Wyverncrest, were gorgeous pearlescent beasts, black of eye and snowy scaled.

They blended into the skies until they swept down to take a sheep or ram from the cliffs and passes.

Rath met Jeron near the stables, his human entourage in tow.

A dragon guarded by dragons was a weak dragon who treated their help poorly.

Rath trusted his humans, but it was a shame that the Monsmountians held such raw and visceral hatred of the dragons.

All because they’d refused to take sides in a war older than half the population, a war spurned by two opposing merchants’ guilds.

It was a war being fought on ignorance on the behalf of the rich to get richer.

His servants loaded the stabled wyverns with their heaviest loads, each carrying a cask of gold amid their belongings.

The trip would take a few hours by air, and they had no intention of staying in the kingdom, but the wyverns would tire on the way back.

These beasts were made for travel, not for messages or speed, the sparkling emissaries.

He moved to the caves they stabled their wyverns in and coaxed Heckle, his prized wyvern, out.

He sought affection, eagerly nuzzling his large head into Rath’s hands.

Were he to shift, he’d dwarf the beast, and he remembered that, but the form was inconvenient, tired easily, and used far more magic to sustain.

“Good morning, Heckle!” Rath gave his best toothy grin to the beast that chirruped and rubbed against him, making him stumble on his feet.

Heckle flashed teeth back, a greeting among the reptilids, along with fanning their frills and bobbing their heads.

The others bobbed in greeting to their masters, but Heckle never bowed or flashed for him.

They’d grown up together ever since his third birthday when Rath’s father gave him Heckle’s soft egg.

In those days long past, Rath still snuck into his parents’ nest, curling into their warmth.

But when he got Heckle, he had to protect his new friend.

They developed together, learning to fly with one another, with Rath’s dragon nipping and guiding Heckle to the peaks and slopes to hunt the wild and shaggy sheep.

Heckle had been his only company since his father had gone into hibernation with his mate.

Rath missed his Ashen mother dearly. She suffered from an affliction that some Ashen did, easily spooked by heights and loud noises, never quite accustoming to draconian ways.

They called her fragile . And Rath hoped and prayed that Asha would be anything but.

Rath clicked his tongue, summoning Heckle to lower himself for saddling, taking the black sleek leather seat that their tack masters had carved specifically for him and fastening it to Heckle himself.

Instead of a servant, Rath did what maintenance he could with Heckle.

He was finicky about what person he allowed to trim his claws or polish his scales.

Though, he wallowed in the cave’s volcanic ash enough for the grit to polish him nicely.

Heckle unleashed a wavering cry, his twitter of a song that separated him from the other wyverns who gave him wider berth.

He’d grown larger than them, more dominant, but had never lost certain hatchling traits, like a fox raised without its mother, never dropping the submissive nuzzling and whimper for his mother.

Where Heckle viewed Rath as mother, the other wyverns viewed their masters as potential mates, always fanning their frills and unleashing their guttural noises of proposed mating at the merest kindness.

It made inseminating the beasts easier for breeding purposes—at least.

Heckle had fathered quite a brood on his own the old-fashioned way .

Heckle lifted his paws one at a time, letting Rath slide his saddle blanket on and latch the saddle in all the key points. Posing his front haunches, Heckle allowed Rath to climb onto the sleek leather and fasten his holsters before tugging his gloves on.

“We ready to ride?” Rath tugged the reins to get Heckle to crawl forward toward the mouth of the cave.

“Yes, my liege!” Baldric, one of his emissaries, called out before whistling to signal the remainder of the retinue.

With no warning, Rath guided his wyvern to a cliff’s edge and dove.

Like Rath, Heckle loved to pin his wings for the first few moments of free fall, letting the earth call to him.

He loved the sensation of the free fall, the rise of the earth and that moment of perilous danger that meant nothing to him as Heckle caught the draft and spiraled upward, spearing through the clouds to the world above, where they would fly to meet his mate and show him that dragons could be better than what he’d been taught.

Though he held no impression that it would happen so quickly.

Even if Rath and he recognized one another by scent and feel, he’d fight it, and wooing would be needed.