“Someone got laid,” Balandria mocked as Dorian approached the dinner table.
His gaze narrowed, and his hands went to his hair, obviously trying to straighten it. But Nyssa wrapped her arms around her chest and shook her head. Dorian's soft smile flashed when he came to stand beside her.
"Tell me what we're having, sis," he said as he pushed his arm around her shoulders. "Or perhaps you'd like to know what I already had—“
His fingers shoved beneath her nose, and Nyssa punched his side as she realized what he was trying to get her to smell.
"Dorian!" she shrieked. She stumbled trying to get away from him and faltered into the table. Unable to catch herself, one thing rambled into the other, and she found herself covered in meat sauce when her elbow knocked it.
She glared up at him, unable to move. "You are such an ass. Now I have to go bathe."
Dorian grinned. "I'm sure the Commander would love to lick it off you," he mocked. "Where is he?"
Nyssa reacted. She grabbed one of the wing shards from the bag on her belt and threw it at his face. He caught it between his fingers, as he usually did, and raised his brows.
"That bad?"
"Yes, that bad!" She shook the sauce off her hands as one of the cooks came over. "I'm so sorry," she began. "My brother is a menace to society," she glared at him and tried to help the woman pick up the mess.
Dorian shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll take you shopping later. I hear the traders here have the best seamstresses,” he replied with a wink.
“This isn’t Magnice,” Bala cut in. “You can’t just go into a shop here and buy your sister something pretty to apologize to her.”
“If I was trying to apologize to her, I wouldn’t be buying her a dress,” Dorian countered. “I’d be buying her a new longbow or perhaps a few new daggers to add to the collection she has strapped to her thigh.”
“That true, Princess?” Bala asked.
Nyssa’s lips twisted at her brother, and he grinned at her. “I almost forgot how much of an asshole you are,” she muttered under her breath before pulling up her wet frock to reveal the strap of three blades.
“Since when do you travel packing like that?” Bala asked.
“Since I was kidnapped,” she affirmed.
“Go ahead. Show her the rest,” Dorian mocked, his arms hugging around his chest.
“There’s more?” Bala asked.
Nyssa let loose a low huff at her brother revealing all her secrets.
“Let’s see it, Princess,” Lex said as she joined them. “I’m curious. You’ve been hiding these from me as well.”
Nyssa’s jaw clenched between the three.
And then she began to remove the many knives she had hidden in different places.
Three on her right thigh. One on her ankle. Two on the lower of her left thigh. And the bag of wing shards strapped to her belt.
They all clanked when she lined them up on the table, and then she huffed at her friends. “Happy?” she asked them.
Lex and Dorian were grinning at her, and Bala looked impressed.
“Ferocious shadow queen, indeed,” Lex said.
“That’s my sister,” Dorian winked.
“Yeah? What about your girlfriend?” Nyssa spat. “She’s got knives hiding on every inch of her.”
“Yeah she does,” Dorian agreed in a dream-like voice.
