“I’m no lord.” He held her gaze. “Do you think you could live with a cursed beast such as I?”
“Why? What do you need me for, powerful as you are, whether man or dragon? Once word spreads that the castle has a new lord, maidens will flock to the gate. And all of them will be more biddable than I.”
“I don’t want a biddable maiden. I want the one who knows where the heart is in a dragon.”
“Exactly! I tried to kill you in your cave.”
“You could try again,” he said in a wistful tone. “I enjoy the sparring. I know you want to be wild and free, but we could be wild and free together. I would take you flying in the night sky. I would love you until my dying day.”
Her throat went dry. Her heart hammered. “You never said you loved me.”
“I hunted for you. I let you sit on my back while I took you flying.”
“You didn’t eat me,” she added, recognizing the signs of dragon courtship now, in hindsight.
He beamed. “I wish to pledge my life to keeping you safe.”
The images flitting through her mind took her breath away. Suddenly, she wanted all Draknart was offering: a home that truly belonged to her, a mate who didn’t want to change her, and true freedom. Yes, she wanted it all. But as she watched Draknart, she felt disinclined to capitulate overly fast. The dragon was arrogant beyond words already.
“Keep me safe?” She fixed him with a haughty look. “I am the best swordswoman in the Black Hills.”
“You are the only swordswoman in the Black Hills.” He drew her closer. “My hoard and my sword are yours, my lady. Dragon by night, and man by day.”
She shoved him, but only just a little. “I don’t need your hoard and your sword. I have a sword of my own. I’m staying because I love you, you daft beast.”
He laughed, shaking the rafters, then rolled onto his back and smiled up to the night sky through the gaps in the ceiling with stunning, undiluted relief. “Thank the god and goddess.”
“Let us hope they’ll stay away.”
He shook with laugher.
“Stop that!” She shoved him harder. “Don’t you collapse our only standing tower. This will be our bedroom when the castle is rebuilt.”
His laughter softened to a chuckle. And then he sighed such a heartfelt sigh of contentment that Einin’s own heart, filled to the brim with love already, nearly overspilled.
Epilogue
Draknart never grew tiredof looking at his castle from the air. The fully rebuilt, majestic structure was a sight to see at the crack of dawn, the four sturdy towers surrounded by mist. He flew in a smaller circle as he aimed for the highest tower where he might land, whooshing over the healthy village that had grown around the castle walls over the past century.
The first tradesmen who’d come to work on the castle’s restoration never left. Instead they brought their families, then invited their relatives when the lord decided his lady should have servants.
As Draknart reminisced, he caught snatches of a conversation in a hut below the tower where he landed.
“You should tell your cousin to come,” a woman said, probably to her husband, the two of them getting ready for the day. “The lord and the lady are kind.”
Draknart did not have to strain to hear the husband’s response, his dragon hearing as sharp as ever. “Fey they are for certain.”
“Aye,” the wife agreed, reverence in her tone. “The elders say they are the very same lord and lady who rebuilt the castle from a ruin at the time of our great-grandfathers.”
“We can all see with our own eyes that neither Lord Draknart nor Lady Einin has aged any, even as we’ve grown older. Certainly, they are beyond mere mortal.”
“Fey they are. Who else could have a dragon as a friend?”
“Bless him for coming and going at night. Gives me a fright, he does, when I catch sight of the great dark shadow. I think I’d be too frightened to see all of him, out in the day.”
“Bless him for not bothering the livestock. He hunts far afield.”
“Bless him for protecting the village.”
