She hiccupped again, smothering a giggle. “Forgive me,” she gasped, “I didn’t know the wine was so strong.”
He waved away her apology, even as a small bright flame shimmered to life between his fingers, and he lit the tobacco in the pipe, blowing gently on it until it caught. Leida recognized the spell. It was a simple one he’d taught her in her first year of service to him. One she could no longer invoke with the silver-clad iron choker wrapped around her throat like some venomous serpent. She picked at the delicate links, suppressing the urge to try to claw it off her neck. The sweet scent of tobacco smoke teased her nostrils as Magnus drew on the pipe and watched her.
“I won’t remove the choker, Leida. You’ll not use my own magic against me to hide yourself and run again. I’d prefer not to waste another four years searching for you.”
Confusion welled in her, along with the small hope she’d held close and almost refused to acknowledge in case she was wrong. “Why would it matter now? You have your precious ring back. Why hunt me again?”
Magnus drew long on the pipe, releasing the smoke through his nose and mouth in leisurely fashion. He gazed at her from the corner of his eye, a measuring look that made her breath hitch in her chest. “What makes you think this has anything to do with some innocuous trinket?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. “Revenge is it? A way to draw a little blood for hurting your pride?”
He snorted, his voice turning waspish. “Tell me, Leida, beyond the precautions I’ve taken to keep you close, what have I done to exact this revenge you speak of?” The look in his eyes dared her to blacken their earlier intimacy.
Her throat closed up, clogged with tears that also blurred her vision. It took two tries to clear her voice and speak with some semblance of normalcy. “It isn’t what you’ve done. It’s what you will do.” Gods, but it would hurt to the depths of her being once they returned to his caverns, and she took her place as his lowest servant while he paraded his current favorite before her.
Magnus blew out a rush of smoke, emptied the pipe bowl of its contents, and stamped out the still red coals with his boot. The pipe stem snapped in his fingers as he pinned her with a hard glare. “What I will do? What dark things do you believe me capable of, Leida? What revenge do you believe is appropriate for a lover who deserts her mate, steals from him, takes another lover, and bears his child?”
He’d risen to stand over her, his face twisted with a snarling anger. It might have frightened her had she not grown so angry herself, spurred on by the temporary courage of the dragon wine. She rose to face him, resentment and rage bubbling out of her in a cleansing river.
“Why can’t I take a lover? You’re a fine one to pass judgment on me! How do you think it felt when you courted the fair Sivatte before my very eyes?” She began to pace, hands on her hips. “I have my pride as well, Magnus, inferior human that I am. Did you really believe I’d wait until you escorted me to some far off city, spouting platitudes about the transitory affections of dragons?” She swatted his hand away as he reached for her and asked the question that had burned in her gut for four years. “How long did it take after I left for Sivatte to become a favorite?”
Magnus’s stare was icy as he answered, his words clipped. “Three days.”
Leida closed her eyes, the bravado of the previous moments seeping away, only to be replaced with a wrenching sadness. “Three days.” Her laughter sounded hollow to her ears. “I remember those days. I traveled with a family of fortune tellers along the base of the Riori Mountains and wondered if you missed me at all.” She cleared her throat again, wiping at the tears which managed to escape her lashes. “Obviously not. After all, what is a farmer’s daughter with a damaged voice when compared to an elfin maiden who sings down the gods?”
She didn’t know what to expect from him then, mockery and scorn, surprise that she had been hurt by his actions, amusement at her jealousy, but nothing prepared her for the reaction she got.
Her yelp of surprise echoed through the trees as Magnus reached out and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her until she curled her fists into his shirt and begged him to stop.
He pushed her from him, his face white with fury. Chills raced across her back, and she flushed, confused by the deep disappointment, the insult in his eyes. “You hide your thoughts well, Leida of the Far Lands. In all the years you lived in my household and shared my bed, I never once suspected your regard of me was so low.” His voice was scathing, and she wondered how he managed to so neatly turn the tables on her, once more making her the accused. “And you name me pernicious.”
She watched, struck speechless, as he dropped his hands as if she burned him, turning away, and stalking to where their gear lay. He gathered the broken pipe, tobacco pouch and flask, shoving them into his pack. When he turned back to face her, it was with a face devoid of any emotion. “It’s time to leave. We’ve a short walk to the Lomondari Cliffs. We’ll fly from there.”
He didn’t bother to see if she followed him, and Leida scrambled to catch up, grappling with her pack as she tracked Magnus through the growing shadows amongst the trees. The wine still held a light grip on her, but one that weakened rapidly as Magnus promised. The euphoria it brought was long gone, leaving despair and bewilderment in its wake. He hadn’t denied Sivatte, but somehow he’d made her feel guilty, muddled, and she bore the uneasy sense that her actions of four years ago might well have been a colossal mistake.
It would benothing short of a miracle if he didn’t kill her before their journey’s end. Leida had tested his patience and control to the limit with her accusations, her insults that made him sound fickle, malicious even. Magnus might have thought she goaded him with the single-minded purpose of making him lose his temper if not for the stricken look in her eyes, the jealousy in her voice when she spoke of the elf woman, Sivatte.
Wind rushed over his wings as he flew high over the dark forest, seeing it thin in the distance to farm and grazing land dotted with gently rolling hillocks. As always, the thrill of flight soothed his troubled emotions, calmed him so he could think more clearly, work his way through the pits and traps of her words to discern the meaning behind them.
If he didn’t believe she would make an escape, he’d work his greatest magic, transform Leida for a short time so that she could feel the tickle of low-flying clouds beneath her belly, the stretch of wings across on her back. He snorted, steam rising from his nostrils to flow behind him. The gods knew she could benefit from any pastime that might curb her impulsiveness. She was human, but her nature was as mercurial as any dragoness he’d ever encountered.
Despite his anger with her, Magnus couldn’t help but preen when he transformed and saw her eyes light up, practically glowing as she viewed him in his true state, giant wings stretching out on either side of him, amber scales tipped with obsidian and emerald. He’d arched his neck, elongated nostrils flaring as she raised a hand, running it over his withers in a reverent caress. The scales there rose in reaction, sensitive to her lightest touch.
“Do you remember how to ride?”
Magnus could see his dragon voice startled her, its deep thrum powerful and echoing. Leida nodded and reached for the harness. He lowered his head to accept it, finding some small measure of amusement as she stilled, watching the flicker of his tongue near her ear as he tasted the air around her. She cleared her throat, her own voice carrying a teasing note overlaid with a measure of wariness.
“You aren’t thinking of…”
He rolled his eyes and finished her sentence for her. “Feasting on you? No, at least not as a dragon.” Even in the dark, he could see her blush at his allusion.
“Come, we’re wasting moonlight. Strap the packs to the harness and climb on. We’ve some distance to cover before we rest again.”
She nodded, quick to obey him, and soon they were soaring above the trees, skimming wisps of low-hanging clouds. Leida rode astride his neck, legs curled against his spine as she clutched the harness to maintain her seat.
Her slight weight didn’t slow him, and he wondered if she remembered earlier flights, when he swooped and spun in breathtaking aerial acrobatics, and she’d thrown back her head, laughing and shouting in sheer delight, gripping the harness to hang on. For now she was quiet, wrapped in a warm cloak he’d given her to shield her from the cold of night flight. Magnus felt a shift in her weight as she leaned forward, the faintest warmth of skin as she pressed her face against his scales. She’d fallen asleep, lulled by the rhythmic tempo of his wings as they beat the air.
They flew for hours, until a steady ache grew in his shoulders, and his wings tired of their constant motion. It was still dark when Magnus passed over a grassy hummock with a sheltering stand of willows and small lake at its base. He circled it twice before finally descending. Once he hovered a few feet above the ground, he curved his head toward his back, his long, serpentine neck giving him a large range of motion. As he suspected, Leida was still asleep on him.
