“I, a wyvern, tell tales of fantastical beasts?” He watched her tune the fiddle. Smoke from his nose hovered above his head in a cloudyhaze.
“Good point. Why one such as you might make up stories about fabled creatures makes little sense.” She smiled. “You could just as easily talk aboutyourself.”
After two weeks in her host’s company, she’d learned to read a few of his expressions. In some ways they were almost human. The bony ridge above his eyes rose, much as a person’s eyebrows, when he was doubtful or surprised. When he smiled, his eyes squinted at the corners, and his scaled cheeks tightened. Elsbeth liked it best when he laughed. It came from deep in his chest, a low vibration like a giant cat’s purr. Never loud or grating, his laughter thrummed the ground beneath her, and she often found herself laughing with him. Only the flash of razor teeth sometimes made heruneasy.
He was intelligent, humorous and appreciative of her music. Elsbeth never grew tired of stories involving his travels. Nomadic by nature, Alaric had traveled the world and seen things she had only dreamed about. Listening to him tell of far, exotic lands with their great temples and ancient rituals made her sigh with longing. What would it be like, she wondered, to see the whole world and experience its riches? Were it not for Angus’s failing health and her fear she might not return to him before he died, Elsbeth would greatly enjoy her time with thewyvern.
“Were I a dragon, I’d fill your ears with every vanity imaginable. From my esteemed bloodlines, to the mates I’ve taken, the offspring I’ve sired, the knights I’ve killed and the treasure I’ve hoarded.” Alaric shrugged, causing his wings to lift. “Wyverns boast enough, but for dragons, it is highart.”
One of his statements pricked her curiosity. “When I first met you, I assumed you were a dragon. We all did. What makes a wyvern different besides theshanks?”
“Many things.” He flexed his wings. “For one, we are much larger and faster flyers.” His tail uncoiled. “Our tails are longer, more useful.” He sniffed in disdain. “And we are far moreintelligent.”
He scraped the floor with one curved claw. “That armor you wore came off an adolescent dragon. Most that die in confrontations with men are ones old enough to get in trouble and too young to know better. Older dragons, and wyverns for that matter, know how to hide, use their magic for defense or are formidable fighters. A feeble human male is no match for a full grownadult.”
That startled her. Elsbeth had never viewed Angus’s dragon armor as anything more than proof of bragging rights. She was proud of her grandfather. He was brave to face down an adversary superior to him in size and strength, but she didn’t always understand the motivation to seek something out and kill it for trophy. Alaric’s remark certainly humbled Angus’saccomplishment.
“Those scales were from a young dragon?” The idea made her littlesick.
“Aye. Probably no more than seventy-five or so in human years. No older than a hundred years, I’dwager.”
Her eyes widened. “Young at seventy-five? How old areyou?”
Alaric chuckled. “In human years? Six hundred andfour.”
Over six hundred years old! Elsbeth could hardly grasp such an age for any living being. She hesitated in asking her next question, not wanting to offend. “Is thatold?”
The chuckle turned to an outright, booming laugh. “No. I’m considered in my prime, with full mating rights and offspring to carry mybloodline.”
She ignored the small voice inside that warned her not to pry further, that it was rude. But Elsbeth was far too fascinated by the details of wyvern culture to pay heed to the rules of courtesy. She cleared her throat. “Do you have a mate now? Awife?”
He snorted. “Mating is seasonal. Wyverns are like dragons in that we don’t bond with our kind. Females choose their males amongst the fastest flyers, the best fighters. It ensures strong offspring. Beyond that, we are solitary, barely tolerant of eachother.”
Irena had said as much. How sad, she thought. To come together only for the purpose of creating young, never for companionship. It seemed a lonely existence. “Do wyverns notlove?”
Alaric’s silver gaze darkened. Elsbeth paled, afraid she’d asked a question considered taboo amongst wyverns. He answered in a low, growling voice. “We love, just not our own. Like dragons, we are most vulnerable to humans because we form bonds with them. We take human form and walk amongst you. You are a passionate, creative and sometimes colossally stupid race. You burn brief, but you burn bright. It’s what drawsus.”
Elsbeth blinked, stunned by his revelations. “You live among us as people?” The idea gave her pause. How could one tell if a man was not truly a man, but a beast ensorcelled? Would he have a ravening appetite? An urge to set fire to things? Would one find him gnawing on a whole sheep?Raw?
Rumbling laughter interrupted her musings. Alaric gently blew a stream of smoke at her. “Humans are so expressive. Your faces give away your thoughts. Let me guess. You were wondering which farmers and merchants of Byderside might be hiding draconus heritage right under your verynoses.”
She blushed and smiled ruefully. “It crossed mymind.”
“I can assure you, none are there. We would have clashed over territory by now if that were so.” Alaric’s humor faded. Elsbeth was sorry to see his eyes darken once more, a sure sign something troubled him. “Wyverns are nomadic. We assume the guise of wanderers, never staying in one place more than a month or two. We can only hide our true nature for so long. The magic used to change us is both powerful anddraining.”
“Have you ever…” Elsbeth paused, remembering something he said when they first met on thecliffs.
“I knew a woman once who played such an instrument as if the gods danced along the bowhairs.”
At the time, she’d registered very little beyond his menacing size and her own churning terror at coming face to face with a notorious creature of legend. Now, safely entrusted to his care and comfortable in his presence, she recalled hisvoice.
Melancholic and filled with yearning, he’d spoken of the human woman who played a fiddle as if he lost the most precious thing to him. “Forgive me,” she said. “I don’t mean topry.”
Alaric’s wings rose in a shrug. Elsbeth gazed back at her reflection in the obsidian pools—red hair tangled about a thin face flushed with the heat of herembarrassment.
“You aren’t,” he said. “I took on human form years ago and met a village woman who played her fiddle. She enchanted me with her music and all else abouther.”
“You loved her,” Elsbeth whispered. A small ache blossomed in herchest.
