“What are you working on?”
“Hypotheticals,” she answered vaguely.
The schematics held a weird sort of beauty. Dark wound against light as ink on parchment. Seemingly chaotic conceptions became definite shapes punctuated with calculations that were a language all their own. And, if Arianna wasn’t going to decode their meaning for him, he was certainly not going to decipher it by himself. So Cvareh was left to quiet admiration, seeing the form before the function.
“You owe me an explanation,” she reminded him.
Cvareh caught her eyes, the demand in them apparent. “I do.” He sat back onto the bed and Arianna turned to face him. “The Crimson Court will be held here on Ruana in a fortnight. It is usually held on Lysip, home of House Rok and the current Dono. But Yveun has decided to have it here on Ruana.”
“This is significant.”
He could see Arianna trying to piece together the parts she’d been handed, but—likely to her annoyance—she had too many knowledge gaps still to truly comprehend the gravity of the situation. “It is. All named members of the hosting House must be in attendance. Usually, Rok is all too happy to have the advantage of their own turf and the inevitable outnumbering—”
“But this time they want to corner you.”
Cvareh held his tongue that it could be a literal “you,” as he was notorious for avoiding the Court. “Petra and I believe so, yes.”
“So what is the real concern? A noble court hardly sounds like cause for too much agony. Worried you won’t have the most fashionable garb there?” She snickered, but the smile slowly faded from her mouth at his solemn expression.
“The Court is not some place that we all gather and gossip; we have the tea parlors and wineries for that. The only way for people to advance in Dragon society is by killing the rank above them. To keep things orderly, these duels must usually be sanctioned by the Oji, except during the Court. Then, nearly all duels are heard and seen out… One exception being if the Dono himself decides to intervene.”
Arianna stared at him for a long, hard moment. She tapped her nails on the table in quick succession and glanced over her shoulder at the fading light outside. Her magic was as silent as her lips, her thoughts locked away in some place he couldn’t reach.
She turned back to him with the look of resolve he associated with overt danger. “You’re going to be challenged.”
“I have no doubt of it. It’s possible you will be too.”
“Me?” The idea shouldn’t have delighted the woman nearly as much as it did.
“I introduced you as a Xin’Anh today. It’s not impossible some woman who had been craving the idea of being my mate could challenge you in an attempt to earn my favor.”
As Arianna considered this, she folded her hands behind her head. Her grin only continued to expand. “Someone craving you is almost comical.”
Cvareh rolled his eyes, slightly stung from her words. Not overly so, but just a bit more than he’d want to admit. “I am something here on Nova.” He would never dismiss the title Petra had given to him, what it meant to his House.
“You are,” she agreed easily with a small spring to her feet. Arianna’s fingers were like wriggling worms attached to her palms. “And that’s why you deserve a real woman, should a woman be your desire.”
Arianna advanced on him and Cvareh leaned back, his palms spreading against the heavy duvet that covered her bed. She straddled his knees, looming over him. It was imposing and dominating and it made him want to wrestle her to the ground. It made him want to submit.
“How do you define a ‘real woman’, Fenthri?” His voice had shifted to something he was barely familiar with. He liked the molasses quality of it as it coated his throat and honeyed his tongue.
“One who doesn’t lurk in shadows waiting for opportune challenges because they know you would otherwise never support them at your side.” She spoke as though the fact should be obvious, but it was a somewhat foreign notion to Cvareh’s Dragon blood. Foreign, but not unwelcome.
Cvareh straightened some, closing a hand’s width of distance between them. Arianna was too smart for him to assume she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. But what was she doing? Cvareh didn’t know, but he wasn’t bound by her logical mind. He was a man who could savor beauty and relax in knowing something was because that was how it should be.
When she was near him, like this, everything was how it should be.
“So, when do we begin?”
“Begin?” He swallowed, the word having application to a seemingly infinite number of meanings.
“I may be challenged. Youwillbe challenged.” Arianna held out her hands.
No, my brother’s hands, Cvareh reminded himself. The idea sobered him some. This entrancing woman who seemed to hold a universe of possibilities on her tongue—if she deigned to share them—was made of the pieces of his kin.
With far too much focus, claws jutted like magic from her fingers. Arianna’s mouth curved into a wild snarl, the somewhat sensual woman from before lost completely to a wild and equally thrilling side. Cvareh’s magic heightened as he was aware in a very new way that she had him trapped between her legs, every vital spot within a hand’s reach.
“I need to learn to use these.” Arianna turned over her hands in utter fascination. “Why don’t we help each other?”
