While she and Blaze headed for those, his friends dropped weapons, coats, and themselves onto the furniture in a nearby reading nook. She’d learned very little about them in the last week since they’d spent much of it bent over a tavern bar. With Pandora on a ship back to Wairia, and the new Head of House still getting her feet beneath her, it fell on Selene to help the quiet, broody lot with this particular request.
The two men were Luc and Xavier Duclos. They were nearly identical—brothers, maybe—both bearded, unnaturally tall, and probably crushed boulders in their spare time. Telling them apart was made easier with Xavier’s shaved head and Luc’s short brown hair.
Roslyn Simone was an anomaly amongst these burly men. She was petite and lean like Selene, though that was where the similarities ended. Her dark brown hair was kept short and tight like a man’s, but was long on top. She never smiled, and her dark gaze cut through everything like a blade.
Blaze leaned toward Selene and smirked. “They bite less than you think. Unfortunate, really.”
Selene laughed. She’d liked him from their first meeting. Well, no, she didn’t love watching him kiss Augustus, but other than that, he had a good nature about him. Augustus’s attraction to the pirate-turned-ranger in both physical appearance and personality was easy to understand.
She pulled out the few parchments she knew held the maps Blaze was looking for. “Are your friends always so quiet, or have I been hanging around pirates too long and can no longer tell the difference between normal and true disorder?”
Blaze set an elbow on the shelf and leaned into it, his brown eyes twinkling. “Forget about us—we’re boring. But you…” He gestured wildly toward her. “You walk in like a blade wrapped in silk. I have so many questions, and they’re only multiplying. For starters, the eye thing between you and Augustus is insane, and your chemistry is off the charts hot. If you’re ever up for a third?—”
“No.” She hadn’t meant to snap, but smiled sweetly to rectify her sharp response. “If we change our minds, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I’d better be. Tell me more about you, though. One minute, you’re dressed like you could slit throats with your eyes closed, and the next, you could be a literal princess of Perean. I mean, this gown is…” He let out an appreciative whistle.
Selene fingered her rose-colored chiton and the gold twine braided like a delicate net around her waist. Her hair was twisted artfully off her neck, and she wore a pair of gold circlets overtop.
“I’m not a royal,” she said. “But I did grow up in the palace, and I’m good at reading maps. So, how can I help?”
“That’s all I get?” His eyes narrowed, then his expression opened withrevelation. “I take it you’re not ready to get into your history with Augustus?”
Selene relaxed her shoulders and set everything back down. Smiled. “On first impression, I like you. You seem honest, and you’re very handsome?—”
He beamed. “Thank you.”
“But I don’t know you. If Augustus wants to share details with you, then I’m all right with that. Until then…” She shrugged. “You and I should form a friendship outside of our shared relationship status with a certain broody pirate.”
The light in his eyes muted, and his smile dimmed, but he nodded. “I can respect that. And I appreciate your honesty.” Blaze straightened to look at the stack of maps. “Leonidas mentioned the oxbeasts were?—”
A whisper of movement at her feet tugged at her awareness an instant before a familiar weight bumped against her leg, climbing with delicate claws. He settled on her shoulder, and his cool nose nuzzled into her cheek. She sensed his question like a secondary thought mingling with hers, only brighter.
“This is Blaze,” she said. “An old friend of Augustus’s.”
Roslyn, Luc, and Xavier surrounded Selene like hungry lions, their focus on the creature perched on her shoulder.
Blaze’s eyes widened. “Is that a—” He rattled his head. “Selene, how in the gods’ name did you end up with a dronsian?”
She grinned and scratched beneath the creature’s scaly chin. “I told Augustus he wasn’t a dragon.”
Truthfully, she hadn’t known for certain what he was. Only that he’d appeared and was almost always around. And they were connected somehow. She couldn’t read or hear his thoughts exactly, but she always sensed what he had to say. She wished he’d pick out a name already, though. He was just being picky at this point.
“Definitely not a dragon,” Roslyn said with a surprisingly deep and gritty voice.
“I’ve only ever seen one other,” Blaze said. “The woman who claimed it was a little…strange.”
“She was mad,” Roslyn corrected.
Selene’s skin tingled. She’d also seen another, only it had been part of astatue representing the Mother inside the mountain. It had been in the temple that collapsed, where Noi’s body was now buried.
“Now that I think about it,” Blaze continued, “she had eyes like yours, too.” He laughed under his breath. “You have to tell?—”
His words splintered inside Selene’s chest, icy cold.
Selene braced on the nearest shelf, mouth dry, and Orestis’s final words echoed like a slow, rotting drumbeat.
Where are the others like you?
