“Take your time getting cleaned up,” I ground out. “I’ll stand guard outside.” Fern looked up at me in alarm. “Then I’ll escort the two of you to dinner. The feast the kitchens put on for intake day is always a memorable one.”
With a nod, I withdrew, but it wasn’t the rich meats or the crisp roast vegetables I thought about. When the maids brought buckets of steaming water and dumped then into the bath, I caught every splash.
Especially the last one.
With the maids gone and the door closed the last time, I knew it had to be the moment when Fern dropped into the bath. My teeth ground together, wondering at the madness thatconsumed me. Never in my life had my ears strained for the muffled sounds of a woman bathing, nor tried to visualise exactly how it went. Rosy skin, sweetly rounded arms moving, hands smoothing over breasts that… I wrenched my focus back to the hallway as several women walked past. I nodded and smiled politely to each one, but if you put a knife to my throat, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you a single thing about their features.
Not when my mind was obsessed with Fern’s.
When the door opened and the woman herself appeared, pink cheeked and dressed in her new uniform, I pushed myself away from the door. Officers tweaked the uniforms of cadets all the time, showing them how they were supposed to sit. Perhaps that’s why my hands moved now, shifting the collar, the seams following the line of her shoulders better. They didn’t touch a stray strand of hair, tucking it behind their ear, though. My fingertips burned as I did just that, only her shy smile forcing me to step backwards.
“Well done, cadet,” I said, offering her my arm. “Can I escort you to dinner?”
“You can escort the both of us.” Sparrow emerged from the suite, now also in uniform. She took my other arm and gave it a pat. “Eating fancy food and having someone else do the serving? Lead on, Lieutenant.”
Chapter 14
Fern
If only the ladies back home could see me now. Lance stared down at me, his lips twitching into a smile. Days ago I’d hoped to be engaged, but it felt like something far better, far grander was in progress and that all I needed to do was step forward and let destiny take its course. We did that right now as we approached the doorway that led out to a massive open-air courtyard beyond the keep walls.
“The dragons are attending to feast as well?” I asked, scanning the area. It wasn’t the numerous tables and chairs that caught my attention, but the dragons stationed at the edges. Auren was easy to find, a bright note of gold in amongst all the other jewelled colours.
Viridian’s rider found you again?she asked, her tone arch.That is no surprise. That male wants to mate you.
What?
I glanced up at Lance involuntarily, my eyes wide.
Viridian and his rider are determined to make us their mates, Auren continued.He imagines that he needs to protect me from the silver dragons’ predations, she replied.The concern is sweet, if misplaced.
Just because Viridian wants to mate with you, I said,does not mean that Lance feels the same way.Humans are different to dragons.
So standing outside your room, imagining himself in your bath, smoothing his hands over your body as he cleans you is not a human mating urge?Auren replied.Strange.
He—
“Lance!” Before I could continue the conversation and interrogate my dragon on exactly what she knew, a rider wearing an officer’s insignia got to his feet and waved Lance over. “Come and sit with us.”
This was the moment he pulled free of me, left me to me to Sparrow’s tender care. Lance was obviously well known at the keep and would have many people he’d prefer to be dining with. My hand moved, ready to slide free of his arm, but his grabbed at my wrist, then gently set it back where it was. I blinked as his smile widened, right before he turned to the officer.
“Why the hell would I sit down to eat with you lot, when I could be dining with two beautiful ladies?”
“Beautiful ladies?” Sparrow said what I was thinking, but her impish smile made clear she was far more comfortable with the idea. “Oh, he’s smooth, this one. How about this table then, noble rider?”
She went to pull a chair out, but Lance got there before her.
“Allow me.”
He tucked Sparrow’s chair underneath her, then moved around the table, holding out one for me. I knew what to do, having been schooled on dining room etiquette by Mother, but this felt different somehow. Rehearsing the movement with my sister or my mother didn’t have my whole body stiffening, a curious mixture of anticipation and excitement coursing through me. My eyes didn’t drop to my plate as I felt the backs of his hands graze my arms, there and gone again. I didn’t feel the absence of their touch ever.
Definitely wants to mate with you, Auren insisted.He’s taking far too long to tend to your chair, staring down at your hair. He wants to pull the pins free and?—
Auren.
My cheeks were flushing bright red, declaring to one and all what I was feeling, and even I knew that was unacceptable. I blinked and forced myself to take one long breath, then another in a vain attempt to slow my frantically beating heart. Was my dragon reading the gallant rider’s mind? That’s what they did, wasn’t it, so what she said had to be true? My mind strove to answer me, reminding me of the spot on my neck, the curl of hair Lance had pushed back, and it felt like I could feel the ghost of that touch keenly. When I finally dared to look up, Sparrow’s eyes danced, following Lance as he pulled away and then took his own seat, but she wasn’t the only one grinning. A harsh tinkle of laughter had the three of us looking across the floor to where Seraphina sat with her two friends.
Apparently, she found something terribly amusing, throwing her head back and laughing with a kind of abandon I frankly envied. At me, it became clear, as she shot me a vicious look over her shoulder. Her eyes took me in with the same slowness Lance had, though considerably less kindly.
